April 2022 • Nebraskaland 39
unsuccessfully — to join the police department's motorcycle
squad.
Back in Nebraska, meanwhile, both men and women joined
bicycling clubs. Some bicyclists rode tremendous distances
on the dirt roads of the day. Have you ever done a century
ride? That's 100 miles on a bicycle in a single day. Louise
Pound of Lincoln completed three such rides along dirt roads
on a heavy, single-speed bike in 1895-96.
Like Williams, Pound was a talented multi-sport athlete —
she twice won the men's tennis tournament at the University
of Nebraska — but she was far from the only Nebraskan
riding long distances for fun. In fact, bicycling was so popular
that it led to a movement to improve the condition of rural
roads. The Good Roads movement began in the 1890s as an
alliance of bicyclists and farmers who wanted better farm-to-
market roads for their wagons. Only later did the movement's
focus shift to the needs of the growing number of automobile
drivers.
N
Visit History Nebraska's website at history.nebraska.gov.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 5, 1897.
