THE HOWARD DEAN OF HIS DAY

When the Rubber First Hit the Roads of America (Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, April 27, 2003, LA Times)

One hundred years ago, on May 23, 1903, an eccentric doctor from Vermont named Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car, hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the newfangled "horseless carriage." The first American transcontinental road trip had begun - and with it dawned an era that would transform the nation. At the time, there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire U.S., all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations (although general stores in some towns sold gasoline for farm equipment) and no road maps as we know them today. Most Americans doubted that the automobile had much of a future except as a rich man's toy for driving around town. Jackson's improbable journey would prove them wrong.

Like hundreds of millions of road trips that would follow, Jackson's began on a whim, with little planning. Finding himself caught in a debate at San Francisco's exclusive University Club over the new machine's reliability, Jackson impulsively wagered $50 that he could drive a car all the way to New York City - and do it in less than three months. A mere four days later he was on the road, accompanied by Sewall K. Crocker, a young mechanic he had quickly hired as co-driver. Their open-seated, two-cylinder Winton (with the horsepower of a modern lawn tractor) was capable of speeds up to 30 miles per hour under ideal road conditions. But most days they were lucky to average more than 15 mph.

It's always a good thing when Mr. Burns makes a documentary shorter than the event he's chronicling.

MORE:
-Early motorists' struggle to link the coasts (Michael Svanevik and Shirley Burgett, 07/01/2002, The SF Examiner)
-PROFILE: Directing Documentaries (Frank & Margie Barron, Update Magazine) Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2003 6:50 PM