2,400 Miles by Horseless Carriage, Arrived Weary but Whole
W. W. Fordham drove an automobile from Michigan to Spokane — forty or fifty miles a day, one lake crossing, and the first motorist ever to make the northern route.
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.
Spokane — W. W. Fordham, Elmira, Mich., reached Spokane Monday evening after an automobile journey of about 2,400 miles from his former home here. He left there in August and proceeded in a leisurely manner across the continent, making generally from 40 to 50 miles each day he travelled. During the rainy weather he made stops.
He is the first automobilist to make the trip by the northern route. He followed the Northern Pacific as far as Thompson Falls, Mont., and then went by wagon road to Murray, Idaho. He followed the road to Harrison, where he took the boat across the lake, the only stage of the journey not made on the machine. He came in last evening from Coeur d'Alene, and arrived well but weary. The machine stood up well under the severe strain. Mr. Fordham intends to establish his home here permanently.
“He is the first automobilist to make the trip by the northern route.”
In 1903 a 2,400-mile drive was a stunt worth a wire story; the roads were wagon tracks and the car was expected to fail. Today Interstate 90 runs the corridor Fordham nursed his machine along, and the trip takes two days instead of a season — but the county roads of the Inland Empire still punish a suspension the way they did his.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.