|
Today,
an automobile road trip across East
Texas is a delight for many families, largely because roads
are well-paved, signs mark the towns and distances, and there are
ample gas stations and eating places.
But in 1912, Woodson Nash and C.G. Smith, accompanied by their wives,
three Nash sons, and a friend, Sam Krauss, hopped in Nash’s touring
car--a seven-passenger Abbott Detroit 40-horsepower vehicle--in
Dallas and started to
Galveston,
a distance of 288 miles by way of Terrell,
Marlin and other small
towns.
Nash had contemplated making the trip in his Chalmers touring car,
but decided that it might not be up to the task.
The party stopped at Sanger’s, a store in the Dallas
area, where Nash bought a cap because his western hat kept blowing
off. Mrs. Nash wore a large Queen Victoria hat, held on with a heavy
veil.
In 1912, roads were often impassable and ran across farms and ranches.
The Nash-Smith party stopped frequently to open and close gates,
some of which were made of barbed
wire.
“On the second day, leaving Marlin,
we began having lots of sand, and I had to lower the tires’ pressure
down to 45 pounds which helped some,” said Smith.
Only two cars passed the party on the way south--a Marton Hanley
and a Pierce Arrow. They were enroute to automobile races on the
Galveston
beach.
On the second day, the Nash and Smith party stopped at Navasosta
and spent the night in a small brick hotel. “It was hot and the
mosquitoes and bedbugs made sleeping, or trying to sleep, pretty
miserable,” said Smith.
On the third day, the party reached a white shell road out of Houston,
but, like all the other roads, was one-way and “we we lost time
in passing.” The bridges, observed Smith, were also one-way.
The party rolled into Galveston
on the evening of the third day “with everyone tired but happy.”
The return trip to Dallas
also took three days.
© Bob
Bowman October
16, 2011 Column
Thanks to Andy Bergfield for clippings from a 1912 newspaper
More Bob Bowman's East Texas
>
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
|
HOME
