Everyone likes to think that Rivian's electric delivery vans prominently used by Amazon were the pioneers of commercial electric vehicles. But the truth is, two companies in Chicago beat them to it by over a century!
This 1911 Walker 43 Electric Delivery Truck "The Silent Walker" marched through the streets of Chicago for the Bowman Dairy Company at 140 W Ontario. The trucks' 50 mile range wouldn't get it very far out of the central business district known today as "the Loop," but with constant stops with starts/stops at Chicago's many Gilded Age-era clubs, hospitals, restaurants, and hotels, it was perfect for the Bowman company's 30 milk delivery routes.
Equally as interesting as the Walker brand is the story of the Bowman Dairy Company itself. Bowman was the largest distributor of milk throughout Chicago through the first half of the 20th Century. The company's success has been largely credited to their innovation in supply chain operations dating back to 1899. Bowman partnered with many farms in the Chicago suburbs and delivered pasteurized milk and cream by freight rail via the Chicago Rapid Transit Co.'s Right of Way down through Evanston and the North Side (today's CTA Purple Line and Red Line routing) overnight to its bottling and distribution centers in the city. Plant workers and deliverymen then bottled the milk and delivered last-mile service to customers. In 1908, Chicago passed a law forming the Chicago Milk Commission to combat the consumption of unpasteurized milk, making Bowman’s practices the industry standard.
While the Bowman Dairy Company was sold to Dean Foods in the 1960s (Dean filed for Bankruptcy in 2019), freight service on the CTA lasted up until the 1970s. The embankment used by freight trains on the Red Line was recently demolished as part of the CTA's Red and Purple Modernization Program. The CTA's Purple Line in Evanston still operates on the Milwaukee C&E's freight embankment with some remnants of spur tracks now used for equipment storage.
As for the history of Chicago's Walker brand, the delivery trucks had a solid 40-year run from 1906 to 1942 — the longest production run to-date of any other electric truck in the U.S. And what a great partnership to support that run other than Bowman! Two businesses that would not have been successful without the other.
Today, the intersection of LaSalle and Ontario (where the truck below would have been based out of) is home to the River North Portillo's, famous for its old school Chicago prohibition-era vibe that the Bowman company would have brought to the same city block 100 years prior.
See it for yourself the next time you're on a road trip at the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott, Iowa, located just outside the Illinois-Iowa border.
Three-quarter view showing the signature "WALKER" brand logo at the front of the truck and the detail of its narrow all-rubber tires at the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott, Iowa.
Side view of the truck showing details of the Bowman Dairy Company's services. This truck is No. 12, suggesting that there was at least 11 more in operation. Look at how large the battery is on the undercarriage!
Look familiar? Bowman's fleet of Walkers and milkmen are seen in this photo parked outside its Englewood plant circa 1915 (Photo from the Chicago Historical Museum).
