Harley-Davidson Motorcycles

Harley-Davidson was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1903, when William S. Harley and childhood friend Arthur Davidson built their first motorcycle prototype in a 10-by-15-foot wooden shed. Arthur's brothers, Walter and William A. Davidson, soon joined, and the company was formally incorporated in 1907 with Walter as its first president, Arthur as sales manager, William as production manager, and William Harley as chief engineer. The company's first proper factory went up on Chestnut Street in Milwaukee in 1906, turning out 50 motorcycles that year - a tiny fraction of the volume the same site would eventually produce. Over the following century Harley-Davidson became the defining American motorcycle manufacturer, built almost entirely around large-displacement V-twin cruisers and tourers rather than the smaller-displacement or sportbike segments its Japanese and European rivals often compete in, and its brand remains closely tied to American motorcycling culture itself.