Today in motorcycle history, January 21, 1905

   Small ads are placed in the "Automobile and Cycle Trade Journal". These advertisements offer Harley-Davidson engines to the do-it-yourself trade. By April of 1905, complete motorcycles were in production on a very limited basis. That year, the first Harley-Davidson dealer, Carl H. Lang of Chicago, sold three bikes from the dozen or so built in the Davidson backyard shed.
   Some years later the original shed was taken to the Juneau Avenue factory where it would stand for many decades as a tribute to the Motor Company's humble origins.
   Unfortunately, the first shed was accidentally destroyed by contractors in the early 1970s during a clean-up of the factory yard.
     

   Oops.