Day 42 - March 24, 1908 San Francisco Here We Come!
The auto industry was young, by most accounts a little over 10 years old considering the Duryea brothers introduction of production automobiles (building thirteen of the same design) in 1896. Many of the men involved in the business were not much older than the brand new industry. Monty Roberts at the age of 25 had become an accomplished race car driver, and was now headed back East to compete in the Briarcliff and other events. We took on E. Linn Mathewson, our Colorado distributor for Thomas and Reo, as a driver on the next leg who was only 21. Mathewson had a dealer in Berthound, Colorado named Floyd Clymer who was only 13 years old! Clymer came 60 miles to see us pass through Cheyenne, and we gave him a three minute ride in the Flyer. He returned to Berthound and started advertising the Thomas. He was already famous as the “kid dealer”, and later became well known as a publisher of Clymer automobile books.
On Sunday March 8th, we were four days ahead of our nearest rival the Italian Zust, yet we could not rest on that lead so took off for Laramie to make the much needed repairs to the Flyer. A moving picture cameraman left Cheyenne just ahead of us, and filmed us coming through a canyon.
With the needed repairs finally made at Elmer Lovejoy’s garage, we left to find ever increasing amounts of snow with the higher elevations of the Medicine Bow Mountains. At Fort Steele, Nebraska the North Platte River was frozen hard and we drove over the ice. With the Flyer loaded to 5,000 pounds, there was always a great risk with crossing ice. It was near North Platte we stopped to call on the famous American Colonel William (Buffalo Bill) Cody. After lunch with his family and a few pictures, we were off again.
In the distance we spotted a huge rock pyramid next to the rail tracks, which turned out to be a monument honoring the Ames Brothers, builders of the Union Pacific Railroad. The hospitality we found passing through some towns with fewer than a dozen inhabitants was much appreciated. The Union Pacific Hotel in Rawlings hosted a seven course “complimentary banquet” for us complete with a souvenir menu including an American flag in color on the cover. Entrees served were “brook trout Sauté Mathewson” and “roast duck demi-glass Hansen”. Then they gave us three kinds of wine, and Perfecto Cigars!
Charles Van Loan, who was a sports writer for the Denver Post and later a famous novelist and motion picture writer, followed us from Cheyenne in a Reo. He noticed me writing my daily dispatches which were telegraphed back East. He said that as I had plenty to do, he would write them for me. He took what I had, crossed out some words, added something about men braving mountains, cold, distance and “fate itself” signed my name and sent it off. The next morning I received a curt telegram from Roscoe Jackson (our Buffalo factory manager), “NEVER MIND WHAT MEN DID, SEND WHAT CAR DID”. I gave the telegram to Van Loan who was angered, responding “I can’t write that story. What is there to say about the car? Without you men, it would be nothing!”
This Race surely was to be a test of Men as much as of their Machines!. Scarfoglio, with the Italian Zust would have certainly endorsed Van Loan’s sentiment. The Italian writes: “The subtle torment begins - that torment which for months and months is to be the first element of our lives!.it is this fear of those following or preceding us - this anguish which will banish sleep and even hunger, and enable us to endure cold and fatigue hour after hour, mile after mile.”
LT. Koeppen of the German Protos also felt similar deep emotions. He remembers “When my strength deserted me, I never thought it possible that such a feeling of depression and forsakenness could come to a person!.for a long time I was unable to make up my mind to go on.”
We were taking a terrific beating ourselves. West from Grainger the mountain snow became deeper and deeper. We finally reached Carter, Wyoming on Friday March 13th. We sent a telegram asking the Union Pacific in Cheyenne if we could drive over the rail bed to Evanston about 45 miles ahead? They agreed, making us an official Union Pacific “Extra” locomotive and even sent us a train conductor to ride with the Flyer. His name was Brown, and he came equipped with the special tools of a conductor, schedules, red lanterns, and fuses (flares).
Riding the actual rails would have disqualified us from the Race, but there was no prohibition from bouncing along tie to tie on the unballasted rail bed. After only a few miles BANG, our right rear balloon tire blew out. Repairing that took a half hour, and then a mile later the right front blew. We were now hopelessly behind schedule and with a fast westbound passenger train due in a few minutes, Brown had to walk back along the tracks. He placed torpedoes (flares) on the rails and his red lanterns to stop the San Francisco Express. We made the repairs, then moved to a siding to allow the Express to pass with all aboard waiving.
As we approached the 5,900 foot single track Aspen Tunnel, BANG a third tire exploded. After more delay, we slowly made our way through the tunnel. It was pitch black, with deep drainage ditches on each side of the track. Mathewson could not see the track, and with the barking unmuffled exhaust of the Flyer echoing in the tunnel he could not hear me. So I sat on the hood waving my arms in a semaphore motion to direct him, with the carbide search light on the cowl illuminating me. It was a nerve wracking passage!
We reached Ogden, where Linn Mathewson left us to return to Cheyenne. It was there another 21 year old, Harold Brinker (familiar with the trail to San Francisco), joined the Flyer crew. Hansen also came back on the car, but Miller continued on ahead by train. The Union Pacific ordered us off the tracks, as our tire chains tore up a lot of the ties. With twenty foot deep snow still in the mountain passes, and no longer able to use the rail bed we decided to turn south heading through Death Valley.
By March 19 we were south of Veteran Mines and that evening came to a place called Twin Springs Ranch. A rancher warned us of a particularly bad stream crossing containing quick sand. It was there we came to grief! The Flyer got part way across, but as we climbed the other bank the terrific strain sheered six teeth from our drive pinion, and the transmission case cracked draining the oil.
I recalled that we had sold several cars to owners near Tonopah, Nevada which was 75 miles south of Twin Springs. I reasoned I might be able to take what we needed from one of those cars? It was after dark now and I walked to a ranch house where I hired a horse for $20 starting off toward Tonopah. It was a little after 4 A.M. the next morning, and both the flea-bitten gray and I were exhausted. I saw an adobe ranch house, and knocked on the door. A woman’s voice responded. I asked for some food and a fresh horse in the morning. Her response “Don’t try to come in here mister! I have a scatter gun and I’ll shoot! My people have gone to Tonopah and there are no horses. You can find hay for your horse, and there’s a lean-to for you.” I went to sleep in the corral, only to be roused by a man lowering the corral bars. I reached for my Colt! He was Grant Crumley who had driven from Tonopah in his Simplex, looking for the overdue Flyer. We drove south and found a doctor who owned a Thomas. After explaining our need, he allowed me to remove the necessary parts from his auto. I assured him the factory would send the replacement parts, and then I returned to the quick sand mired Flyer to make the repairs.
We drove on to reach what looked like a haze or fog. Our guide explained that we were seeing sand particles floating over Death Valley. We passed some shallow graves of prior travelers who didn’t make their destination. Just prior to the desert we stopped at a place called Stovepipe wells, to purchase water for the radiator at ten cents per small bucket.
We used several guides in this region with each costing about $40-80 for a few hundred miles. The reason for the high cost was the distance they had to cover to return home. The return to their start sometimes would take weeks, as horses were their only means of transportation.
The desert changed to rolling country as we passed through Mojave, California on March 22nd. It was then on to Bakersfield covering 382 miles, our best day’s travel since leaving New York City.
George Miller, met us with a pilot car at Gilroy and we traveled north over what is now Highway 101 into San Jose. We continued on to Oakland, taking a ferry across the Bay to San Francisco where a great crowd cheered us!
It was March 24th, and we had crossed the United States in 41 days, 8 hours, and 15 minutes traveling some 3,836 miles. We were well in the lead, becoming the first automobile to make such a crossing of the American continent in the dead of winter. The crossing had taken it’s toll on me, in the front seat of the Flyer for the entire distance with no windshield, doors or roof in endless blizzards, sleet, rain and mud!. San Francisco was a welcomed sight, but we still were less than 1/5 of the total distance we would eventually cover.
We went to the showroom of Tom Brinegar, our San Francisco Thomas dealer and started to make frantic repairs to the Flyer. There would be no other chance to make them in the wilds of Alaska or Siberia.
Eddie Thomas, son of Mr. E.R. Thomas was there and helped us prepare the Flyer. We had used six tires crossing the US, and calculated we would need at least twenty more for our rear wheels, and ten for our front. The rear tires were larger than the front, so they were not interchangeable. We had no tires left, but hoped more would catch up with us by the time we reached Seattle.
A huge crowd gathered at the pier on March 27th as we were loading the Flyer aboard the steamer City of Pueblo. Our planned voyage would be to Seattle, Washington then on our way by a second ship to Valdez, Alaska. There, we would resume the ground leg driving across Alaska and the Bering Strait to Siberia.
Just before I boarded the ship, a pretty young woman holding a baby stepped out of the crowd. “Wear this,” she said, “and you’ll always have good luck.” She handed me a tiny baby slipper wrapped in a small silk American flag. I put this in my breast pocket and kept it there. I was not superstitious, but felt there would be value in carrying the flag. We would be crossing many parts of the world where people had never seen an American much less an automobile before. I reasoned that carrying a flag on my person would help identify where to send what would remain of me, should the worst happen!..
*About the author: The above is written in the first person as Jeff Mahl heard the recollections from his Great Grandfather, George N. Schuster, winner of the 1908 New York to Paris Race. Jeff is seated to the left of “Great Gramp” holding the 45 star US flag which flew from the Flyer, with his brother Matt and sister Jenny. For additional information visit: TheGreatAutoRace.com
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