Original photo by Dino Reichmuth/ Unsplash
On May 23, 1903, Vermont doctor Horatio Nelson Jackson, along with his mechanic Sewall Crocker, drove down San Francisco’s Market Street, hopped on the Oakland ferry, and traveled east into the history books — the first U.S. cross-country road trip was officially underway. This historical moment was born from a $50 wager to see if Jackson could travel from San Francisco to New York in under 90 days. It’s a wager easily won on today’s 164,000 miles of paved highway, but in the early 20th century, most byways west of Nebraska were little more than dirt roads.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factThe American Kennel Club doesn’t recognize “pit bull” as an official breed. Instead, “pit bull” generally refers to a variety of breeds, including American Staffordshire terriers and American pit bull terriers — all descendants of the English bull-baiting dog.
The challenge was daunting, but Jackson accepted. He didn’t head due east, which would have sent him straight into California’s unforgiving desert, but instead traveled north into Oregon before making a sharp right turn into Idaho, where he picked up his second passenger — a pit bull named “Bud.” Averaging only 71 miles per day in his Winton touring car on the rough western roads, Jackson also had few reliable maps to navigate his way across Idaho and Wyoming. However, once Jackson, Crocker, and Bud entered Nebraska, paved roads appeared with increasing regularity, and the trio could cover 250 miles in a single day.
Yet there were plenty of breakdowns, wrong turns, and other misadventures, and the whole trip took 63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes to complete — still well under the original 90-day bet. Jackson was greeted by cheering crowds as the group traveled down the Hudson River in New York toward their final destination. Finally, at 4:30 a.m. on July 26, 1903, the well-worn Winton parked in front of the Holland House hotel in midtown Manhattan. Jackson joyously honked his horn to announce their long-awaited arrival.
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The first hybrid car was invented by ______ in 1898, nearly a century before the Toyota Prius.
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The first hybrid car was invented by Ferdinand Porsche in 1898, nearly a century before the Toyota Prius.
The first person to drive a car long distance was a woman named Bertha Benz.
Karl Benz is often credited as the inventor of the automobile, but few know about his pioneering wife, who made major auto innovations of her own. Her greatest contribution came in August 1888, when — in an effort to prove the importance of her husband’s invention — she set off on a 65-mile journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, with her two teenage sons in Benz’s Model III Patent Model Car. Without telling her husband of her plan, Bertha and the boys quietly rolled the car out of the workshop and were soon undertaking the world’s first road trip — traveling at a max speed of 14 miles per hour. The biggest concern was getting enough gas to complete the journey (gas tanks didn’t exist yet), but luckily a pharmacist in Wiesloch, Germany, sold ligroin, a petroleum spirit used as an early motor fuel as well as a chemical solvent for laboratories. Bertha stopped by to top off the carburetor, and today the pharmacy is considered by some to be the world’s first gas station. During this laborious test drive, Bertha also cleaned fuel lines with a hat pin and even insulated an ignition wire with a garter. But most importantly, Bertha’s successful trip proved that Benz’s invention could survive rough roads and still deliver its passengers safely.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
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