Too Rough for a Horseless Carriage
An early automobile entrepreneur throws in the towel, blaming the rugged state of Walla Walla's streets.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Finding Walla Walla streets too rough for his machine, J. W. White, who came here from Lewiston two months ago with a gasoline wagonette, has sold the machine to Spokane parties and shipped it out over the Washington and Columbia River railway last night. When rough weather set in, Mr. White found it almost impossible to navigate over the rough streets in the residence districts. He accompanied the machine to Spokane and will turn it over to the new owners today. From Spokane, Mr. White will go to Boston to enter the employ of an automobile manufacturing concern, but expects to return to Walla Walla in the spring and establish an automobile service with lighter machines of a steam pattern. Probably two machines will be put on to begin with, and if the venture proves as remunerative as expected, other machines will be added.
“Finding Walla Walla streets too rough for his machine, J. W. White... has sold the machine.”
Early 20th-century automotive pioneers often faced 'infrastructure gap' issues that mirror today's debates over retrofitting historic street grids for new mobility technologies. Walla Walla’s transition from horse-and-buggy to motor-vehicle terrain was physically hindered by the very mud and ruts that define the frontier experience.
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