1901 Columbia Electric Mark XXXI Elberon Victoria

In 1896 the bicycle manufacturer Colonel Albert Pope built his first experimental electric car and hired Hiram Percy Maxim to run the motor carriage department of the Pope Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut, and by 1899, they had built several hundred electric vehicles under the Columbia name. Later that year, Colonel Pope merged with the Electric Vehicle Company of New York City to form the Columbia Automobile Company of Hartford. By 1902, there were nine models being built, including this Mark XXXI Victoria Phaeton. This completely original car was first discovered in the 1930s in Massachusetts and for years it was often shown in parades and car shows by its then-owner Vaden Hunley Stroud, an auto mechanics teacher in Hutchinson, Kansas. The Magee Automotive Museum first owned the car in the 1980s, then sold it to Earl Snodgrass before buying it back in 2014.