(Radio Iowa) – Webster City will be invaded by the friends and fans of Doodlebugs for the annual celebration of the two-wheeled scooters that begins Wednesday at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds. Gerald Huisman of the Doodlebug Committee says they rumbled onto the scene in the 1940s. “Well, a doodlebug is a scooter that was designed and built in Webster City, a former Beam Manufacturing. Some people confuse that. Beam became Franklin manufacturing,” he says. “The Beam Manufacturing that made vacuum sweepers was another facility. They were made from 1946 to 1948.”

More than 40-thousand Doodlebugs were built in Webster City and approximately one-thousand are still running.  “It was originally built with a one-and-a-half horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine, and at the post-war time that Briggs and Stratton couldn’t supply enough engines, and so there were a series of them that were made with Clinton one-and-a-half horsepower engines as well,” Huisman says. 

This is the 38th annual Doodlebug Reunion in Webster City, and Huisman says one of the highlights of the celebration of the Doodlebug this year will be the dedication of a sculpture in the shape of a Doodlebug in downtown Webster City. “They’ve asked us to be part of the ribbon cutting, and it’s on Friday at three o’clock. I talked to our police chief here in town, and he is going to give us a police escort from the fairgrounds to the event. And that’ll become an honor…I’m only guessing we’ll have 40 to 50 doodlebugs riding down to see that sculpture,” Huisman says.

The Doodlebug Reunion runs through Saturday. There is more information about the reunion on the Doodlebug Facebook page or at www.wcdoodlebug.com.