The Arizona Daily Star is reprinting articles from 1912 leading up to Arizona’s centennial.

Today’s article is from Jan. 1, 1912 and recounts a 7.5 mile bike race through Tucson.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

W.F. Grabe, Orr Jones and D. Aros are the prize winners in the 7.5-mile New Year’s bicycle race for amateurs held Monday morning. Grabe gets his name engraved on the first prize, a gold medal known as the Trippel trophy, donated by A.A. Trippel. The trophy is to be contested for annually. If won thrice consecutively, it becomes the property of the winner. Otherwise, it remains in the possession of the winner from year to year.

Boy Scouts were posted along the course to maintain safety and to see that the race was fairly run. The race started from the post office on Stone Avenue, went north to the Speedway, west to the Oracle road, thence to and around the Pastime Park club house and back on the same course to the post office. The start and finish were watched by fair-sized crowds.

Read the rest of the article on the Arizona Daily Star’s website.

As a side note, when I was working on planning the Wild West Bike Ride last year, I went to the Historical Society looking for photos of Tucsonans on bikes. There were some amazing photos cyclists from long ago in Tucson. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the authorization to reprint them. I’ll try go give it another shot next week.