Past Gas #153: The First Cross-Country Road Trip

It’s 1903, and an out-of-work doctor, Horatio Nelson Jackson, is fiercely defending the world’s most exciting invention – the automobile – against a group of men who are POSITIVE that the car was just a fad. Jackson was so sure of himself that he bet $50 that he could take a car from San Francisco to New York City… a feat that had never been done before. Yes, he was going to embark on a road trip at a time when there were no highways, no road maps, no street signs, no gas stations, and no Red Roof Inn’s. Was the automobile even capable of such a journey? How would Horatio Nelson Jackson, an altogether inexperienced driver, complete this treacherous mission? And would he ever see that $50 again? Today on Past Gas, the story of the first cross-country road trip.

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