Albert Augustus Pope

Albert Augustus Pope (May 20, 1843 – August 10, 1909) was a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel who founded the Pope Manufacturing Company in 1877. Pope was born on May 20, 1843 in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1862 he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 35th Massachusetts regiment, with which he continued until the close of American Civil War. He was mustered out as a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. He married September 20, 1871, Abbie Linder, daughter o... more

Albert Augustus Pope (May 20, 1843 – August 10, 1909) was a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel who founded the Pope Manufacturing Company in 1877. Pope was born on May 20, 1843 in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1862 he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 35th Massachusetts regiment, with which he continued until the close of American Civil War. He was mustered out as a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. He married September 20, 1871, Abbie Linder, daughter of George Linder and Matilda Smallwood, of Newton, Massachusetts, and they had four sons and one daughter. During the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition, Pope saw and became enthusiastic about bicycles. He began importing European Penny Farthings and taking out US patents on these European models. By the early 1890s, he had established a bicycle trust which controlled the central bicycle patents in the US. Nearly every US bicycle manufacturer paid Pope around $10 per bicycle. His bicycle brand was known as the Columbia. By the mid-1890s, at the... less