Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
July 25, 1953 Tokens were first sold as fare for New York City’s subway system. They were a response to a large-scale technical challenge facing the system. The New York City Transit Authority (TA) opened for business that year to oversee the city’s extensive public transportation operations, and the debut of the agency was accompanied by... Continue Reading →
July 24, 1864 Railroad executive Thomas James Tait, whose career spanned both North America and Australia, was born in the township municipality of Melbourne in Quebec, Canada. He started working for the Grand Trunk Railway (GT) in 1880; that extensive system ran through Ontario and Quebec as well as Michigan and much of New England. Tait... Continue Reading →
July 23, 1911 It was an auspicious start for a record-setting career in aviation . . . In the skies above the Nassau Boulevard Aerodrome on Long Island, 23-year-old George W. Beatty first flew solo in a plane. This flight occurred less than a month after he began taking lessons from instructor Arthur L. “Al”... Continue Reading →
July 20, 1956 On Canada’s Pacific coast, the ferry MV Mill Bay was first placed into service transporting passengers and vehicles across Saanich Inlet and between the communities of Brentwood Bay and Mill Bay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. W. Glenn “Red” Ryder served as the vessel’s first captain. The ferry was constructed by the... Continue Reading →
July 19, 1902 A new automobile manufacturer was incorporated in the city of Jackson, Michigan. This fledgling enterprise was called the Jackson Automobile Company, and its founding partners were Byron J. Carter, who helped manage a bicycle and sundries store and acquired a great deal of expertise in the development of engines; Charles Lewis, who... Continue Reading →
July 18, 1892 “The wheelmen of the country have taken the capital by storm today,” proclaimed the Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Daily Northwestern on July 18, 1892. “Ten thousand of them, coming from every state in the country have arrived within the last forty-eight hours to assist in giving proper eclat to the national meet of the... Continue Reading →
July 17, 1839 Ephraim Shay, an influential entrepreneur, and railroad engineer was born in Sherman Township in Ohio. He served during the Civil War in the Union Army’s 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. In the early 1870s, Shay moved to northern Michigan and began operating a sawmill and general store in the vicinity of a lumber... Continue Reading →
July 16. 1957 U.S. Marine Corps Major John H. Glenn set a transcontinental speed record when he piloted a Vought F8U Crusader jet aircraft from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City. Glenn dubbed this cross-country effort “Project Bullet” to emphasize the plane’s high-speed capability. Glenn completed... Continue Reading →
July 13, 1858 A new lighthouse began operations at Cape Borda on Kangaroo Island in the colony (present-day state) of South Australia. Cape Borda Lightstation was built to help guide ships being pushed along by the strong “Roaring Forties” trade winds in that part of the world and – via the Investigator Strait between Kangaroo... Continue Reading →
July 12, 1809 In England, renowned pedestrian Robert Barclay Allardice (widely known as Captain Barclay) completed a mile (kilometer)-per-hour walk of 1,000 miles (1,609.3 kilometers) in 1,000 consecutive hours in the town of Newmarket. When he finished his ambitious walk at 3:37 on that Wednesday afternoon, he did so – in the words of an 1813... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 