Tag 1890s

Bicycle Makers, Schwinn

Schwinn: A Timeline of an American Bicycle Giant

Founded in Chicago in 1895, Schwinn ran an extraordinary double life: a mass-production giant selling balloon-tire cruisers and electro-forged ten-speeds by the million, and a small hand-build shop producing Paramount racing frames and fillet-brazed lightweights that could stand against anything made in Europe. This timeline follows the company from the 1890s boom through the Wastyn Paramounts, the Sting-Ray, the bike boom it failed to capture, two bankruptcies and the 2023 closing of Waterford.

August 22, 2026

Bicycle Makers, Pierce

Pierce Company Bicycles: The Missing Link

The cover of the 1900 Pierce Cycles catalog.

George N. Pierce built birdcages, then tricycles, then some of the finest bicycles of the 1890s — chainless, shaft-driven machines that chased a dream the industry is still chasing today.

Bicycle Makers, Pierce

Pierce Cycles History: A Timeline of Key Company and Bicycle Events

From gilded birdcages in a Buffalo workshop to chainless, shaft-driven bicycles that sat at the head of its catalog for 15 years, the history of Pierce is the story of a manufacturer that kept betting on the harder way of…

Eric Anschutz
July 28, 2026

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