Vintage.es has a few pictures of the Studebaker factory’s showroom in 1909, along with a short and correct history of the company. The showroom displays a long line of buggies. At that time the company was carefully moving into the automobile business but still mainly a carriage builder. Surprisingly these buggies are all steel, built more like bicycles than carriages. You could probably lift up one end of the buggy without trouble, and a horse could pull it with little labor.
Their 1902 electric cars were built from this bike-like buggy. They added a steering mechanism to the front axle, hung a battery tray and motor in the middle, and ran a chain drive to the rear axle.
Polistra's Mill 