The Manifest Destiny of American expansion stated first by President Polk in 1848, had spread through the Union from coast to cost by 1869, and westward expansion was at boiling pitch.  Scars of bitter war were healing; people and events were on the move.   The inaugural address of Ulysses S. Grant as 18th President was a tame event in contrast with the drama of the golden spike driven at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, linking the Atlantic and Pacific by high iron rail.

A few adventurers explored "Seward's Polar Bear Garden"--Alaska, newly bought from Russia.  Far more men were packing families, plows, seeds, and clothing trunks into wagons and moving west to claim land opened by the Homestead Act of 1862.   It was a fine point of time in which to be alive; an age for a man to pit brain and muscle against nature, and to win.  It had its lighter moments, The Cincinnati "Red Stockings" were organized, and football got its start the same year.  Both games claim 1969 as their century mark.  In St. Louis, blacksmiths' forges glowed hot from dawn to hard for wagon wheels and horseshoes, and carriage making was a major business.  Many such companies entered the field that year.  Only one has survived the century.

This is the story of that company, McCabe-Powers Body Company, which used a combination of 19th Century craftsmanship and near-21st Century technology.