Effie Hotchkiss, a mother, a daughter, a Harley Davidson and an epic road trip. That adventure is the focus of this installment in our series about pioneering women and the dawn of the great American road trip.

Our story begins in 1915, six years after Alice Ramsey’s historic coast to coast drive. In case you missed it, Alice Ramsey was the subject of last week’s exciting installment in this series.

The young lady that followed Ramsey’s tracks west to California was Effie Hotchkiss. Her adventure was truly epic, and historic. It was also unusual and had a surprise ending.

A Mother, A Daughter and A Harley Davidson

By 1915 roads had improved, marginally, in some places. But a coast-to-coast trip was not an undertaking for the faint of heart, especially if you were riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. And a double transcontinental adventure by car or motorcycle was unheard of at the time.

Effie’s traveling companion for this adventure was Avis Hotchkiss. As she was traveling by motorcycle, according to a contemporary newspaper account, Effie acquired a custom side car for her, quote, “rotund mother.”

The Adventure Begins

On May 2, 1915, the mother-and-daughter team departed Brooklyn, New York. Their destination was San Francisco, where the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was showcasing the achievements of the modern age.

Unlike Ramsey’s road trip adventure, this odyssey was not a publicity stunt. Effie was simply a motorcycle fanatic that was bored with her clerical job for a Wall Street firm. She was hungry to experience adventure and to see the world. If there was a goal aside from this it was to demonstrate that “motorcycling is perfectly good as a girl’s sport” as she told a reporter.

“Just as soon as I made up my mind to go to California,” Effie was quoted as saying, “I asked mother if she would come along. She said it was a good thing I did, for the next moment she would have invited herself.

A Need For Speed

It wasn’t a quest for adventure or love of travel that led Hotchkiss’s mother Avis to accompany her daughter. She was concerned about Effie’s safety as she had developed a reputation in New York City as a daredevil and speed demon.

In 1914 Effie received a citation for speeding on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway. And she claimed that on one occasion she clocked herself going over 70 mph on the streets of New York.

While still in her teens, Effie used money from scrimping and savings to purchase a Marsh Metz motorcycle that was essentially a motorized bicycle. Everett, her younger brother, who owned a similar machine, was her riding companion.

As might be expected, Effie suffered through a series of occasionally bloody crashes. But each proved to be a lesson and Effie became proficient rider.

A Passion For Harley Davidson

After upgrading to a single-cylinder Harley-Davidson, Effie had a new riding partner as well as mechanical repair tutor. It was the young man that had sold her that motorcycle.

Then in the summer of 1914, Effie and her siblings acquired equal shares of their father’s estate. The timing was perfect as she had been eyeing a new Harley Davidson. She had also been making plans for a trip to California.

Those plans included shopping for a sidecar. An exhuastive search led Effie to have one customized as nothing available was suitable for what she had in mind. After all, this sidecar would need to accommodate her mother as well as camping gear, luggage, tools, and a pistol.

Photo WikiCommons

“I got a lot of non-family discouragement,” Effie recalled in her memoir. “Decent roads would be non-existent for most of the way; there would be deserts to cross, high mountains to climb, lack of water, no repair shop, no this and no that. Some things there would be, such as wild animals, wilder Indians, probably floods, maybe cyclones and other offhand acts of God; until it began to sound so interesting I would not have missed it for the world.”

California, Here We Come

Their trip began with a drive up the Hudson Valley to Albany. Then, averaging about 150 miles per day, they turned west toward Chicago. Needless to say, the mother and daughter drew large crowds of curious onlookers wherever they stopped. Media focus on their adventure grew with every mile.

Effie quickly learned that renting rooms from the managers of garages made it easier to facilitate repairs. Still, mechanical problems along the road required Effie to use ingenuity, patience, and improvisation. As an example, when Effie used her last spare inner tube, she stuffed blankets into a damaged tire. As a result of a similar problem Effie left her mother overnight at a campsite while she caught a train to Santa Fe to buy more tubes.

From Chicago they followed a series of roads that would become the course for Route 66 in Illinois a decade later. After leaving St. Louis they then traveled across Missouri and Kansas, through Colorado and into New Mexico.

On the trip from Las Vegas, New Mexico to Los Angeles they followed the National Old Trails Road. In Albuquerque they celebrated the Fourth of July camping outside the city. At the Grand Canyon, a thief stole her pistol and other items from the sidecar. Then came the Mojave Desert, which required three days to cross as they were traveling at night.

The Adventure Continues

From Los Angeles they traveled up the coast to San Francisco where they toured the exhibition and attended a reception at the local Harley-Davidson dealership. Rather than ship the motorcycle home and board a train, Effie and her mother decided to drive the Lincoln Highway back to New York City.

Their return trip was filled with more memory making moments. In Reno, Effie spent several days on a hunting trip. She later said that the detour and stop in Milwaukee where they received a royal welcome and a private tour of the Harley-Davidson plant was a highlight of the entire trip.

A New Adventure Begins

The end of Effie’s adventure proved to be the beginning of another. Shortly after her return to New York City, she received a letter from Guy Johnston from Oregon, a man she had met while riding in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Johnston had seen an article in a newspaper detailing the end of Effie’s epic road trip that included her address. His letter sparked a flurry of correspondence. And then Effie received a telegram from Johnston asking that she meet hm at Grand Central Station.

Two weeks later they were married, and Effie headed out to Oregon to start her new life. Avis followed shortly afterwards.

In an interview Effie’s daughter, Barbara, shared fond memories of Effie that lived until 1966, and Avis who would live until 1958. She reflected on her mother tirelessly working the farm and the family’s general store.

The farm, the family, and the store seemed to be enough of an adventure for Effie. She never again took to the open road in search of adventure.

The Legacy

Still her grand adventure should be remembered. We can only imagine how many road trips she inspired.

There are also several lessons to be learned from the mother and daughter duo. Live life to its fullest. Never miss an opportunity for a road trip adventure but don’t forget to be happy with the life you have.