Pope Manufacturing Company

The Pope Manufacturing Company was an American manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, and automobiles. The company was founded by Albert Augustus Pope around 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts, and incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1877. Manufacturing of bicycles began in 1878 in Hartford at the Weed Sewing Machine Company factory. From 1905 to 1913, Pope gradually consolidated manufacturing to a plant in Westfield, Massachusetts, while the main offices remained in Hartford. The company ceased automobile production in 1915 and ceased motorcycle production in 1918, and subsequently underwent a variety of changes in form, name and product lines. Its Columbia brand of bicycles, first marketed in the late 1870s, continues to be actively sold.