Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 20, 1908 A first-of-a-kind automobile journey in Australia came to a successful end when a trio traveling in a Talbot car arrived in the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory. The three men completing this long-distance trip, which that had begun in the city of Adelaide in South Australia, were Henry Hampden Dutton... Continue Reading →
January 31, 1901 In the northern part of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, operations began for the current version of a lighthouse at Brant Point on the south side of the island’s harbor. (Nantucket is approximately 30 miles [48 kilometers] south of the Bay State’s Cape Code peninsula.) The New York Times provided details about... Continue Reading →
November 25, 1949 The one-millionth Cadillac rolled off the production line a little more than 47 years after the first model of this automobile was built. The one-millionth Cadillac was a Coupe de Ville. This automotive milestone was officially announced by John F. Gordon (1900-1978), general manager of General Motors’ Cadillac motor car division. In making... Continue Reading →
June 26, 1919 A caravan of motor trucks carrying a total of 50 specially selected boy scouts headed out of Akron, Ohio, for a journey of about 2,000 miles (3,218.7 kilometers) through nine states altogether. This Wednesday departure from northeastern Ohio’s Summit County marked the start of what Vehicle Monthly magazine characterized as “one of the... Continue Reading →
March 19, 1947 William Starling Burgess, whose transportation legacy spans multiple means of mobility, died at his home in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was 68. Burgess was born in Boston on Christmas Day in 1878. His father, Edward Burgess, was a renowned yacht designer. Early on in life, William Starling Burgess demonstrated a high level... Continue Reading →
February 14, 1941 A formal acknowledgement -- albeit one that had to be clarified -- was accorded the person who drove the one-millionth motor vehicle through New York City’s Queens-Midtown Tunnel about three months after the debut of that structure. The office of William H. Friedman, commissioner of the New York City Tunnel Authority (now part... Continue Reading →
May 22, 1899 A new and important word found its way into the transportation lexicon of the United States when Charles B. Shanks, a reporter with the Cleveland-based Plain Dealer newspaper, became the first known person in the country to use the French word “automobile.” This word made its official American debut in the first of... Continue Reading →
April 3, 1996 The British sports car Jaguar E-Type, which achieved worldwide renown when it was manufactured by Jaguar Cars Ltd. between 1961 and 1974, made another cultural breakthrough by becoming only the third automobile placed on permanent exhibit at the New York City Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Christopher Mount, assistant curator for the... Continue Reading →
In 1900, Anne Rainsford French became the first licensed woman driver in Washington, D.C. The epitaph on her tombstone goes even further by stating that she was the “first woman licensed to drive an automobile in America.” This claim has been widely disputed, however; many have claimed, for example that Mrs. John Howell Phillips achieved that... Continue Reading →
July 23, 1903 The Ford Motor Company – just a little over a month after being incorporated -- delivered its first-ever automobile to be purchased to Dr. Ernst Pfenning, a dentist in Chicago. Pfenning paid $850 for a Ford Model A with a backseat. The Model A, which became the forerunner of the many types... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 