The Adventuring Automobilist
“Pull out block and tackle, wade around in the mud, get
Photo courtesy Mohave Museum of History & Arts
soaked to the skin and chilled from the effects of the deluge, make fastenings to the fence or telephone post and pull. Pull hard, dig your heels into the mud, and exert every effort at command. The machine moves, your feet slip and down in the mud you go full length. Repeat the dose and continue the operation until the machine is free from the ditch and again upon the road.” When Charles B Shanks wrote this feature article for Scientific American in the summer of 1901, he wasn’t describing an African safari or an adventure into the Amazon. He was writing about a trip from Oakland to Port Costa in California. It was the first leg in what was to be a cross country odyssey with Alexander Winton, president of the Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland, Ohio. (more…)