In the early years of the auto industry, hundreds of small towns had a car company, and Streator was one of them. For more than a decade, automobiles rolled out of a Streator factory, first the Halladay and then, briefly, the stylish Roamer. Our History of Streator touches on the Roamer; here is the fuller story.
From Indiana to Streator
The story starts with the Erie Motor Carriage & Manufacturing Company of Anderson, Indiana. In 1902 Lou P. Halladay bought the company and spent about a year raising $30,000 in capital. He moved it to Streator and renamed it the Streator Automobile & Manufacturing Company. It kept that name until 1913.
The Halladay
The first car appeared in 1904, built with considerable secrecy. It was a five-passenger touring car with a four-cylinder engine supplied by the Rutenber Motor Company. Over the next several years the company added runabouts, limousines, surreys and roadsters, and by the early 1910s it offered six-cylinder models as well. It built about 900 cars a year, and its cars had a reputation for being well made. In 1910 a Halladay was the only car to finish a 250-mile race in Atlanta.
Receivership
Success on the track did not guarantee success on the balance sheet. On September 23, 1911, the company went into receivership with about $250,000 in debts. In January 1913 its property was sold to the Merchants’ Realization Company, which sold it to Albert C. Barley, the secretary of the Rutenber Motor Company that had been supplying Halladay engines.
Albert Barley and the Roamer
Barley kept building the Halladay in Streator for a few years, but he wanted something more upscale. Working with New York auto dealer Cloyd Y. Kenworthy and designer Karl H. Martin, he set up the Barley Motor Car Company to build a luxury car. The result, introduced in 1916, was the Roamer, named after a famous racehorse at the suggestion of Kenworthy’s chauffeur. It had a nickel-plated radiator modeled on the Rolls-Royce and a six-cylinder Continental engine.
Leaving Streator
In 1916 Barley sold the Halladay line to investors headed by T. E. Huth, who moved it to Warren, Ohio, in 1917. That same year Barley moved Roamer production to Kalamazoo, Michigan, into a former buggy factory. The Roamer was built there until 1929 and became known as a car for the wealthy. Streator’s role in the Roamer story was short but real: the car’s first production took place here.
Roamer Cruise Night
Streator still celebrates its automotive past. The annual Roamer Cruise Night, held around Labor Day, brings classic cars downtown and has featured a 1917 Roamer built in Streator. A downtown mural at 101 E. Main Street honors the car.
Part of a Bigger Story
The Halladay and Roamer story is typical of the early auto industry, when small manufacturers with local investors, purchased engines and hand-built bodies competed until the big Detroit companies took over. Streator had the rail connections and skilled workers to join in for a while. The same fall the Halladay company went into receivership, Streator saw another new machine come through town: Cal Rodgers’s airplane. See our page on the 1911 Vin Fiz flight.
Related Streator History
- Streator History Overview
- The Vin Fiz in Streator: The First Transcontinental Flight, 1911
- Streator Glass History: From Streator Bottle & Glass to Owens-Illinois
- Streator Railroads: The Santa Fe Depot, Interurbans and Coal Lines
Sources
- Halladay (automobile) – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halladay_(automobile)
- Barley Motor Car Co. – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley_Motor_Car_Co.
- Streator, Illinois – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streator,_Illinois
- Streator Public Art – Roamer mural. https://www.streatorpublicart.com/art
