Harley-Davidson began life in 1903 when Arthur Davidson got together with his best friend William S. Harley, as well as Arthur's brothers Walter and William, and and decided to build themselves a motorcycle company. As with many small businesses in the early 1900s, it wasn't an immediate success, and took a while to become the cultural phenomenon that the brand is today.
Still, it took just three years from the men building motorcycles in their backyard shed to get to a full production plant on the Juneau Ave location where the current corporate headquarters resides today in Wisconsin. A year later, Harley was showing motorcycles at the Chicago Auto Show. A year after that, it produced around 450 motorcycles. And a year after that, in 1909, Kegel Harley-Davidson of Rockford, Illinois, began selling the iconic American brand.
