Selects: The First Road Trip

Back when cars were a brand new thing, before people even knew they'd stick around, two men and a dog drove from San Francisco to New York. This classic episode has their story. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums.

• 0:45Josh Clark?

  He'd also tell you about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bankguy. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC. When you're in do it yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need. That's where My Lowe's Rewards and My Lowe's Pro Rewards come in. Place your order and Lowe's handles the rest. Lowe's will make the run for you with free same day delivery. Members get more at Lowe's. $25 minimum and loyalty membership required. Order eligible items by 2 P M.

• 1:28Josh Clark?

  Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at Lowe's.com/shippingterms. Hey guys, it's me, Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our episode on the very first road trip across America from back in 2023. The episode was from 2023. The first road trip took place way before that. And it's one of those wonderful stories where nothing goes horribly wrong. The people don't turn out to be horrible people. It's just a great story about a couple of guys and a dog taking a road trip across America at a time when it was highly unlikely that they were going to make it all the way. I'm glad to present you with this one. Enjoy.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just the two of us, but we're gonna make it just fine. We're gonna make it if we try, as I like to say sometimes when it's just the two of us. And that's the stuff you should know.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  I'm excited about this episode because this is a really, really great story that doesn't have like, I was, I kept waiting for something either bad to happen or someone to be exposed as awful. And it's just a really fun, feel-good story, right?

• 2:58Josh Clark?

  I would go so far as to call it a humdinger.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  It's a humdinger and we gotta give huge credit to Ed who helped us with this and also because he helped Ed who helped us, Ken Burns.

• 3:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Ken Burns has a great documentary about this topic, which is the first cross-country automobile road trip. It's called Horatio's Drive. It's a wonderful story and you can find it on PBS. Hopefully if you're a streamer, you pay for and subscribe to the PBS app because it's a very worthwhile and great channel to subscribe to. Narrated by the great Keith David, one of the great, great voices.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Just amazing. And such a great actor, too. And everything from They Live to Men at Work to There's Something About Mary. Yeah, he was in Platoon, too. He's like just such a great actor.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Love that guy. And because our protagonist in this story, who we'll introduce you to in a second, is such an affable, seemingly really good guy, they got none other than Tom Hanks to recreate his voice for his diary letters and stuff like that.

• 4:07Josh Clark?

  We should also give a hat tip to Dayton Duncan, who's interviewed extensively in that documentary because he wrote a book on, on the drive, I believe.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  I would argue the book.

• 4:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's just call it that. The book on Horatio Nelson Jackson, right?

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's his name.

• 4:27Josh Clark?

  Great name. So, we're gonna talk a lot more about him later, but we really kind of wanna like lay the groundwork, bring the context, as Flavor Flav would put it.

• 4:38Josh Clark?

  And just to kind of give you an idea of what the the times were like when Horatio Nelson Jackson decided to become the first person to travel cross country in a car.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Right. So 1903, 911 was a joke.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  You like that one?

• 4:57Josh Clark?

  It's okay.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  All right. Just a medium okay on that one. I'll take it. 1903 is when this happened, but to put this in context, like you said, the the first Transcontinental Railroad was built and completed, or not built, but completed in 1869. And it was 1876 when you got your first cross-country train trip that happened. So this was, what, like 25-ish years roughly after that? And people were still kind of only traveling by train because cars were pretty new and they were only for riches because I believe in the documentary, they said like the cheapest

• 5:41Speaker 03

  car you could get would cost more than the average American made in a year. So in the early 1900s, it was rich people who wanted to buy a super expensive, unique toy that, and we'll hammer this home a lot, but that they didn't even know was gonna end up being a real thing.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it could have turned out like the Segway.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Totally right.

• 6:04Josh Clark?

  I mean, this is kind of akin to somebody taking a trek across America on a Segway back in like 1995.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, they they did not know car, like a lot of people thought these cars will never amount to anything. You're silly. It'll always be trains and horses.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Right. So to kind of get across why people thought it was just going to be nothing but trains and horses, like that's how the American infrastructure was built. Like if you went any, any kind of lengthy distance, you took a train. If you were moving around locally, you took a horse, maybe a horse in a buggy or a horse and carriage or something like that.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Stagecoach?

• 6:44Josh Clark?

  Drive a, I'm sure if you wanted to be super Wild West about it.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  But there were, at the time, say around 1900, the United States had 2.3 million miles of roads.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Sounds like a lot.

• 6:56Josh Clark?

  Pretty impressive.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  A hundred and fifty miles were paved.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:02Josh Clark?

  And all of those were within big cities, right? So the vast, vast, vast majority of roads in the United States were rough, rutted, dusty, or muddy, or somehow both at the same time. Roads that you would not want to walk over, really, let alone ride a car over.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were in bad shape generally. About fourteen million horses in the United States to about eight thousand cars. And like you said, people traveled locally. I think the average was like, people generally didn't go more than twelve miles from their house. And that even feels like the high end. I don't think that's an average. I think people probably didn't go within a few miles of their house.

• 7:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Like me today, unless I'm traveling.

• 7:50Josh Clark?

  Right. At the time, there were, and you still take trains for long distance travel sometimes.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  I try to.

• 7:57Josh Clark?

  At the time also, like, you didn't really steer away from home because it took you so long to go anywhere on horse, right? I think at the time, it was still a two day journey, basically, from New York to Philadelphia.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  By horse.

• 8:12Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. So this is like a, this is a, it's a big deal for somebody to be like, no, I'm going to try this. The other thing was the roads themselves weren't mapped.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:22Josh Clark?

  I mean, east of the Mississippi, there were maps and guidebooks that you could get pretty good directions from, right? And it's funny, in the documentary, they kind of show.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  I love that part.

• 8:34Josh Clark?

  Directions were like.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  So cool.

• 8:36Josh Clark?

  One of those like, turn right at the old stone horse trough.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:41Josh Clark?

  Like, those were the kind of directions, and because that's what a local would tell you to do. So somebody had the bright idea to print those and put them down in book form and transmit that information that way. And it still held up because there were no road names, there were no route numbers, there was nothing like that, because there was no reason for anything like that to exist.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, and funny enough, that's how I prefer directions now, because I'm very directionally challenged and famously so. And I also never know the names of roads. So I always ask people, like, tell me, you know, go to that diner that you know, and take a left, and then go to that car wash and veer right. And that's how I prefer to get directions.

• 9:23Josh Clark?

  I uh, I um, tend to zone out when people give me directions that I've asked for. And uh, you can just kinda see it on their face if they can tell I'm gonna get lost cuz it's just not sinking in.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Well, all the fun of that is gone now cuz you just punch it into your app or whatever, but I'm basically talking about pre uh, GPS stuff.

• 9:44Josh Clark?

  I remember, I remember, I'm old enough to remember that. I am also smart enough to really appreciate ways though too, you know?

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Do you remember the fun of a road trip of opening that uh, Rand McNally Atlas?

• 9:56Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  And saying like, I think we can go this way to get to this town, or it looks like this other road we can go around. That was like, and I'm not like, oh, things were so much better when it was harder, but it was a really, had a fun sort of magical um, adventuresome quality to it, I think.

• 10:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I um, spent five weeks in a van driving around the western United States doing that, same thing. It was very cool. And like, the amount of freedom is really hard to get across of like,

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:25Josh Clark?

  not having anywhere you had to be at any particular time and saying like, oh, that, that landmark sounds pretty cool. I'm gonna go see that. It's pretty neat.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  You know what words you don't hear anymore is, let's go here instead.

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  It's true.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Everything seems so locked down, you know? It's like, I don't know, people don't say, oh no, let's just uh, let's decide to go to this town instead of this town.

• 10:50Josh Clark?

  I feel like we've entered the disgruntled aged old man era of stuff you should know. Because I, it seems like we do this almost every episode, dude.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  We're gonna have to pay more attention to that, or else we're gonna lose all the youngsters and just attract all the oldsters, and who cares?

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Well, hey youngster, I encourage you to set out on a road trip with a map and, and enjoy it.

• 11:11Josh Clark?

  Okay, there you go. Way to save it.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  I don't think I saved anything.

• 11:16Josh Clark?

  So, I think we've gotten across that it would be really hard to drive a car, right?

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Across the United States at the time.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, hard to drive a car, but because cars were becoming a little more popular, uh, they were trying to get a more positive publicity going for their cars and their companies. And so, they said, hey, what a great way to do this than like, kind of sponsor a cross-country car truck, uh, trip that'll get a lot of press.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  And so, they tried this with uh, John and Louise Davis uh, from the, how do you pronounce that?

• 11:49Josh Clark?

  Duria, it sounds like something you contract that you'd be really unhappy about.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Okay, the Duryea, I couldn't quite tell, but yeah, it does sound like a disease of some sort.

• 11:59Josh Clark?

  D U R Y E A.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Duryea Car Company gave them a national, or I'm sorry, they weren't a car company. That was the car. The company was the National Motor Carriage Company.

• 12:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, known today as the NMCC.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  I'm just kidding.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  No, I thought you were gonna say as Porsche.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  No, I would like to think that, but no, I don't think so.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  No, I don't think so either. So they sponsored this couple. This was in 1899. It did not work out. They very famously got beaten to, they started from New York and they got beaten to Syracuse by a one-armed bicyclist who gave them a 10-day head start. So press, it went opposite of how they wanted to. That was sort of, they lost track, or lost interest very early on in this sort of doomed thing. And I don't think they even know if they succeeded in getting to San Francisco. Well, I think they know they didn't, but they basically didn't really cover the story after that.

• 12:55Josh Clark?

  No, they dropped off the map after about Chicago.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  They dropped off the GPS app.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 13:05Josh Clark?

  So, no, it's good. It just took me a second to, for it to sink in. I thought that was pretty good.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  I'm trying to get our younger listeners back.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  So, well, we should make a TikTok of all this then.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:16Josh Clark?

  Isn't that what people do?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 13:18Josh Clark?

  For now, until the US government ban.

• 13:22Josh Clark?

  That was wonderful. You just saved me.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  So, it was established, though, even though the Davises didn't make it, that like, this is actually a really good way to to promote a car brand is to be the first to make it across the country. I mean, then everyone will know that's a good car, because it's just so ridiculous to even think a car could do that. So a couple of years after the Davises, I guess 1901, a carmaker named Alexander Winton, who had a Winton Car Company, handmade cars, beautiful cars.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:54Josh Clark?

  He, he tried it himself, I believe with his publicist, very smartly. He and his publicist hit the road. The acid hit them around Barstow, I think. The bats showed up. And they ended up getting trapped in a dune in Nevada.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you you bring up a thing that might be overlooked is they very smartly started from west to east. Because as we mentioned, the west was untamed land and bad, bad, bad roads if there weren't any at all. So getting that hard part over first when the car was brand spanking new was really, really smart. But what they didn't count on was, and we'll see what Jackson learned, was driving through the desert in an old car like that is not good. Sand is not good for getting stuck. It's not, or it's great for getting stuck. It's not good for making good time. Sand is not good for getting in carburetors and in oil and gas and, you know, these engines weren't these big closed systems like they are today. So sand, no good.

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  But Winton got this press, right? Like, like, he, it helped, I think, still publicize his car company regardless. And again, the fact that no one had done this, but people were starting to try it, it kept being a thing. It was going to be a thing until somebody did it. And so a couple of years after Winton tried, a guy named Horatio Nelson Jackson, who's the star of our story, was hanging out at the University Club of San Francisco. And apparently, a couple of fellow club members were saying that cars were basically useless and that they would never really go anywhere and there's no reason for anybody to have one. Jackson, by this time, had really developed a real love of cars, had started collecting them even.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:41Josh Clark?

  And I guess to defend cars' honor, he slapped down a $50 wager that he could make it across the United States from San Francisco to New York in less than 90 days, 90 days or less, I'm sorry. And that was about $1,500 that he threw down on the table right then. And the people took it. They accepted his wager. And four days later, he set out for New York from San Francisco.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  It is madness to think about. That he did this. With that little planning, he didn't have a car to do it. I mean, he had cars, but not one to go across country at the time. Just quickly about Jackson, he was a doctor who got tuberculosis and quit his practice. Kind of at the same time that he married a very wealthy woman named Bertha Richardson Wells. Very wealthy New England family from Vermont.

• 16:36Josh Clark?

  She, her family made their money in celery compounds.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  I know, it was like a tonic.

• 16:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Basically. So he, as Ed puts, did rich guy things, capital R, capital G. And his wife was super supportive, like everyone was on board. She was like, that's awesome. I'll, I'll take a train to Burlington. I'll meet you over there, honey. You have my blessing. And it seems like they had a really, like judging from the letters that, that, of course, it was voiced by Tom Hanks too. So you're endeared immediately. But judging from the letters, it seems like they were just a great couple, a very loving family.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  He called her Swipes. No one knows why that nickname was there, but he, you know, he signed it as Nelson and the yours forever Nelson. And my dearest Swipes. And it was really, really sort of a beautiful story of this couple. And he knew he had to get a guy to go with him. And so he picked a great traveling partner. He was a small engine mechanic in a factory named Sewell Crocker. Who was about 10 years younger. He's 22 years old, I think. What was her ratio, it was like 31 or 32?

• 17:44Josh Clark?

  31.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Okay. So this guy could fix cars. He knew cars and apparently like they really liked each other and were, which was a big deal. You know, you've been on road trips in regular cars.

• 17:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  And that's a key factor, but especially back then with all the troubles they were going to have. He had to have someone that you could get along with.

• 18:03Josh Clark?

  That's a big one for sure. So he asked Crocker, hey, man, what car should we get for this? And Crocker said, well, you have basically limitless funds. Get the best. Buy yourself a 1903 Winton touring car. And Ed points something out that I think is very astute. The reason why probably Sewell Crocker said get a Winton was because Winton had already shown that they were making really good cars enough so that they were willing to try to make it across country in one of them. So that's exactly what Jackson did, Horatio did. He's the kind of guy you call him by his first name because he's got a great first name and he's Tom Hanks like affable, right?

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:41Josh Clark?

  So, um, so Horatio bought himself a Winton touring car, 1903. Apparently he paid essentially a hundred thousand dollars for it.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  And it was used?

• 18:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was used, but it was the only one available. So he just paid whatever the person wanted for it. And so, uh, I think in, uh, 1903 dollars, he paid $3,000, but he named it the Vermont because that's where he and his wife Bertha lived. But a little bit about this car, there was, it was, it was open in every sense of the word. It was like if you took a tub, um, and put wheels on it and then had a steering wheel sticking out of it, that, that was the car. There was no windshield. There was no roof. There was no back windshield. There were no doors. There was no nothing.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  It looked kind of like a, a giant riding lawnmower with like wagon wheels.

• 19:37Josh Clark?

  Well, it's funny that you bring up riding lawnmowers, Chuck, because, um, the two cylinder chain drive engine had 20 horsepower and my friend, a John Deere X300 series riding mower has 22 horsepower.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  That's funny. Uh, that's really funny. This, this thing topped out at 30 miles per hour. I don't think that John Deere does that, but that's probably just because it's cutting grass at the same time.

• 20:00Josh Clark?

  But imagine. Imagine traveling the country on a riding lawnmower, basically. That's about what they were doing. But yes, you're right. Thirty miles an hour is substantially more. That's what it could do max.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:15Josh Clark?

  In no way did they average thirty miles an hour.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Not even close. It was, um, someone, uh, it was, it was red, a really good-looking car. You'll only see black and whites, but someone on Reddit, that's the picture I sent you, did a very fun colorized picture of Horatio and Crocker and a third party to be named later, um, and colorized it and it just, it looks awesome and this car is so cool-looking.

• 20:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't mean to detract from it. It was a cool-looking car.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Very cool.

• 20:46Josh Clark?

  As far as comfort goes, it was not at all comfortable.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:51Josh Clark?

  I say we take a break and then set out on the road trip with these guys, huh?

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Oh, let's do it.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?

• 21:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  It was gonna rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 21:39Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 22:02Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 22:15Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do, or buy, or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly. It's usually a new rug.

• 22:26Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug, or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  That's right. Whatever your style, whatever your budget, whatever you're looking for, Wayfair makes it easy to find it. And you can feel good about your purchases, too, because Wayfair verified products go through a thorough 10-point quality inspection.

• 22:44Josh Clark?

  And with over 20 million 5-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 23:10Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Efgartigimod alfa Fcab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 23:46Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  All right, so as we will see, there were other car manufacturers planning to do the same thing at the time. And a couple of them ended up, you know, it ended up sort of being a race against like a corporation versus a human, even though he was driving, you know, it's not like a car he built himself, it was a Winton. But he was doing it himself with this other guy.

• 24:35Josh Clark?

  For fun.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  He wasn't sponsored, it was about the spirit of adventure. He, all these, as you'll see, all these other companies sent like supplies ahead and like they had teams of mechanics. He didn't have anything to prove. He put this together in four days, including buying the car. And that's just, I really want to get across the spirit of this whole thing was just this optimist who was like, let me see if I can do this crazy thing.

• 25:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So two months after Horatio and Sewell set out on their trip, Packard sent a team out. And like you said, they were very well outfitted. They had a mechanic on board. There was gasoline for them at every stop. Because gasoline was, there were no gas stations. And definitely there were no gas stations out west. You would go to the general store and be like, I'd like a can of your most dangerous volatile liquid, please. And they would hand you some gasoline in a can and you'd buy a few of them to drive around with. It was incredibly dangerous. But that's how you didn't run out of gas. Packard had the advantage of like every town or every X number of miles, there was gasoline waiting for them. So they essentially

• 25:49Josh Clark?

  had gas stations that were reserved exclusively for them. Horatio and Sewell did not have anything remotely like that. And so they got into all sorts of fun little adventures like the time that Sewell Crocker had to bike dozens of miles on a borrowed bicycle to go to and fro to fill up their gas can and bring it back and then fill it up again and then bring it back.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  That's why he was there.

• 26:13Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And it's fun now in retrospect, us talking about it here in 2023 in the studio, I'm sure it was not a great day for Sewell Crocker.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  No, I don't think they were drawing straws though, you know what I mean?

• 26:25Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  The rich 31 year old with that had TB is definitely saying, all right, hit the road on the bike.

• 26:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  My friend.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we're equals in almost every way.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  But hit the trail on the bike.

• 26:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  All right, so Packard did so two months later, like he said, and Oldsmobile did the same thing a month after that, I believe. Much the same operation, you know, fully sponsored and like rigged up and everything. So they tore out the backseat on this Winton. I don't think we mentioned this thing could go 250 miles with their tank of fuel, which was way more than I thought.

• 27:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  I was super impressed. So they ripped out the backseat, which doesn't look like it was much of one anyway, and packed, you know, a cooking kit, tons of rope, something that would probably be the most valuable thing in the whole car was a pulley system, a block and tackle.

• 27:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  They had a Kodak camera, they had sleeping bags, they had a shovel and axe, they had a bunch of guns and ammunition. Cause they might be hunting for food out in the middle of nowhere, or just maybe want to murder someone.

• 27:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or just like shooting out of a untopped car is probably pretty fun when no one's around.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  I bet that is fun.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, the problem is, is like, they weren't experts at tying down their gear.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:50Josh Clark?

  And they would get to like a stop probably basically every day and find that something they needed had dropped off.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  It bounced out.

• 27:57Josh Clark?

  Some point like back on their trail and that they had gone too far to go back to try to find it.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  It's really funny.

• 28:04Josh Clark?

  So they lost like cooking utensils, Horatio lost multiple pairs of his eyeglasses. It's just crazy to me that they weren't like, put a tarp on it and wrap the tarp up and then put rope on the tarp, you know?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:17Josh Clark?

  Who knows? But they did lose a lot of stuff and luckily, like you said, they didn't lose that block and tackle. It would really come into into play multiple times. But they they made a really good decision early on. Number one, they followed, I can't remember his first name, Mr. Winton's, Alexander Winton's example, and started out west. So what they would be doing is getting the hardest part of the trip out of the way first, while the car had very few miles on it, right?

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, which was a, you know, a nice little copy, but then they made a really, really great decision. And I think the decision that frankly made them a success in the end. Did I just spoil it? I guess we talked about what a great story it was. It wouldn't be great if they conked out in Michigan.

• 29:04Josh Clark?

  True, true.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  But they decided to go at hundreds of miles to their trip by not just taking a right and going across the country, but going north up through Oregon to avoid that Nevada desert. And that, my friend, even though there was some treacherous mountains that they had to go through, avoiding that desert, I think, is what ultimately made them successful.

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, hundreds of miles added to the trip, but it was incredibly smart because again, Winton had bottomed out in that sand. That sand wasn't going anywhere. At the very least, there were wagon trails and stuff up in Oregon. And they were able to kind of make their way along these, the railroad tracks that were there. So there were railroad right of ways, which is the land cleared on either side of a railroad track. And they would drive on those, or if they had to, drive on the railway themselves. And they would, they would ride on railroad bridges in a car that could go 30 miles per hour max.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:10Josh Clark?

  And hoped God that there wasn't a train that was going to come. And I was like, man, I'm so glad I watched Stand By Me a couple of days ago.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  I was just about to bring that up. I know you watched it.

• 30:19Josh Clark?

  It's such a great part of that movie. And I was telling you, like, that was a masterpiece. Like, that is Rob Reiner's masterpiece. And he's made some pretty great movies. But it is exponentially better than I even remembered as a kid.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  I'll throw Spinal Tap in there, but I know, have you still not seen that?

• 30:37Josh Clark?

  That's what I'm saying. No, it's great. That's a great movie. I think When Harry Met Sally is a great movie. Like, there's tons of great movies Rob Reiner's made. But I think Stand By Me might be the best.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great movie. I love that scene when he, they put their hands on the rail.

• 30:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  And it just gets real quiet and they're listening. They're like, do you feel any vibration at all? And that's probably what these guys were doing.

• 30:58Josh Clark?

  I'm sure, but they were doing it bumping along in their open car.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:02Josh Clark?

  Also, shout out, I don't know if Will Wheaton still listens to us. I know he used to, but man, all of those kids did a great, great job, but he really did a magnificent job acting in that movie. So way to go Wheaton, if you're listening.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Great movie. I love it. I'm gonna watch it too now. Talking about it in Vegas. It made me nostalgic for it, for sure.

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  Alright.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Um, alright, so we are at, uh, leave time, which was May 23rd, 1903.

• 31:29Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  That was a Saturday. Apparently it was a hot spring in California. And, uh, it rained that afternoon and they took off from San Francisco and very quickly blew a tire out.

• 31:42Josh Clark?

  It was like Romeo and Michelle.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 31:45Josh Clark?

  You know?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  And, uh, the, the Chronicle, uh, in San Francisco wasn't even covering it, basically. The San Francisco Examiner had a very short little piece about it, about a horseless carriage going from sea to sea. But it, it would build, as you will see, uh, with the press as things went along. Uh, but it wasn't well-covered at first and this, the tire thing, it was an issue. I mean, the car tires at the time would routinely blow out. Uh, they had a hard time on the trip finding new tubes.

• 32:15Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  They would stock up on used tubes whenever they went to a town. It seemed like that had any kind of tubes, they would just buy them.

• 32:22Josh Clark?

  Right. To be able to tubes.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it was, it was, um, tires were an issue. That was, seemed like one of the main issues.

• 32:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, because I mean, you can imagine, there's not people selling car tires because there were so few cars. And out west, they kept encountering people who had never seen a car.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:40Josh Clark?

  I saw, um, mention of that Packard team that was riding. I think Tom Fetch was the Packard guy who was driving the car. And they pulled into one town, uh, that where a murder had just been committed. And so few people had seen a car in that town that everybody left the fresh murder scene, including the sheriff, to come look at the car that had just rolled into town. Like, that was like what it was like out west at the time. So of course you weren't gonna find car tires easily. You had to improvise any way you could.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  Sure, and a, and a murdered body out there back then was a dime a dozen.

• 33:12Josh Clark?

  Dime a dozen, yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  It's not going anywhere.

• 33:15Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Let's go check out that new car.

• 33:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's not going anywhere.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  So they're going east, they're going through some treacherous terrain, they're going through the Cascade Mountains. Uh, it's, it's fun in the documentary to hear the, the diary or, or letters, uh, home to his wife. Where he was talking about, you know, the roads that are, uh, basically big enough for one car because I can't remember exactly how he said it, but like, because nature has made it that way, basically, like, it, it's a cliffside on the side of a mountain, so.

• 33:46Josh Clark?

  Oh, man.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Uh, luckily, you know, they're having to share the road with stagecoaches and horses and stuff like that, not really any other cars probably. But they would, it was what you would think, they were constantly getting stuck, constantly blowing tires. They, I think, uh, the record was 18 times in a day. They had to use that block and tackle to pull themselves out of a ditch or a river or a mud hole.

• 34:10Josh Clark?

  That must have been the suckiest day ever.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then the maps were an issue too, right?

• 34:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they would have to rely on locals for directions, when, when they could find locals, a lot of times they just had to guess. Um, I saw, again, the Packard team, sorry to keep bringing them up, I know they're not what the story's about. But they learned to avoid the nicest roads because out west, that usually meant that it just dead ended in some rich person's house. And, um, when you could find locals, they would sometimes just literally misguide you. There was one that Horatio and Sewell ran across, a woman on horseback who told them to get to the next town, they should go down this road, and it dead ended in her family's farm.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  It was her driveway, basically.

• 34:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they, they, they came back the way they went and ran across her again, they're like, why did you do that? And she's like, oh, my dad and mom and husband would have wanted to see a car, they'd never seen a car before, so she purposefully sent them the wrong way, down a dead end, miles down a dead end, apparently too. I did not hear that they had gotten angry with her or cross even, I think they probably just said like, "Good day to you, madam," and kept on.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  They should have said, "You don't know this yet, but one day giving directions will be very important and this will not be cool."

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  "This is not going to reflect good on your family, Tina Manson."

• 35:29Josh Clark?

  Did you like that?

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Tina, I just loved Tina was so not a name back then.

• 35:35Josh Clark?

  Tina Manson.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  I love it. Great choice. Uh, the brakes were kind of what you would imagine. They weren't great. So it was quite thrilling when they would get on these downhill runs and there wasn't a lot you could do about it. The clutch went out a lot. I mean, I, you know, we talked about our, our various van journeys out west. We were in a Volkswagen van for mine. And the mountains killed it. Like, we had to, to get a rental Jeep Cherokee in Nevada for the whole second half of the trip because going through the mountains literally killed his, and it wasn't like a brand new VW van. It wasn't one of the old ones, but it was like the Vanagon.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  But like, it drove us from Atlanta to the mountains just fine, and the mountains killed it. So imagine what the mountains did to the clutch system on this, you know, lawnmower, basically.

• 36:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I have to admit, until today, I did not know what a clutch did. I knew that the clutch is the thing you push in to shift gears. Never understood why. The reason why you push in is because you actually want to stop the clutch from working temporarily.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:43Josh Clark?

  What the clutch does is it transmits the motor power or the motor's torque to the transmission, which in turn turns the axle to the, the tires, the wheels, right? That's my understanding of it. And when you're pressing in the clutch, what you're really doing is keeping that, that transfer from taking place so that you can go into another gear and then you let the clutch out and that transfer begins again. So yes, the clutch is an extremely important instrument. The car does not go without it. And apparently Sewell Crocker had to fix that thing almost as many times as they used the block and tackle to pull themselves out of mud.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Well, he was worth his weight, wasn't he?

• 37:23Josh Clark?

  Oh, boy. Yeah, he was.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  They did have one modification they made, uh, like on, on the way there is they added a, a headlamp and a celine headlamp so they could drive at night. Cause they wanted to make up time, you know, because there were times when they

• 37:38Speaker 03

  had to go to a town and wait for, I think one of them was like three or four days where they're waiting ironically for a stagecoach to show up with parts that they had ordered. There were times when a stagecoach or a guy on a horse would pull them out, ironically, again.

• 37:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I didn't get the impression that Horatio was trying to prove that horses were obsolete.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  No, I don't think so at all.

• 38:02Josh Clark?

  I think he still saw it as pretty ironic that he still relied on horses in this horseless carriage.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think he threw shade. Even when blacksmiths would make repairs, they pointed out in the documentary that, I think it was in one of his letters, he said it like the irony wasn't lost on him, but I don't think he was like, "You're not gonna have a job in a few years, sucker."

• 38:22Josh Clark?

  Right, right. That's what Segway makers said to people on foot.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Didn't the inventor of the Segway drive off a cliff on a Segway?

• 38:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, that sounds like an urban legend, but maybe one that's just crazy enough to be true.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  I'll have to look that up. Should we take a break?

• 38:39Josh Clark?

  Yes, we'll take a break and look that up.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  All right, we'll be back here with the truth right after this.

• 39:00Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgard, Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Fgart Tigamod Alpha F-Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 39:37Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 39:53Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 40:16Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 40:56Josh Clark?

  World Mental Health Day takes place in October, and it's really meant to be more than just awareness. It's about actually taking the next step and getting support if you need it.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  But a lot of people still talk themselves out of therapy. They think it's too expensive. They're not sure if it'll actually work. They don't know how to find the right therapist, or they just get overwhelmed trying to navigate the whole system.

• 41:15Josh Clark?

  And that's exactly what Rula is built to fix. Rula makes therapy feel a lot more approachable, a lot more human. You can find a therapist who actually fits your needs, not just whoever's available. And with insurance, sessions average around $15 copay.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can sign up in just a few minutes. You can get matched with the right provider and even book something as soon as the next day.

• 41:34Josh Clark?

  And it's not just about starting. Rula helps you stay consistent and actually make progress because taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time thing. So if you've been thinking about therapy, don't talk yourself out of it. This is a really easy way to take that first step.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com, that is R-U-L-A dot com, to find a therapist the easy way.

• 42:10Josh Clark?

  Okay, we're back. And Chuck, it's true. BBC News says it.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Did he really?

• 42:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 42:17Josh Clark?

  Jimmy Heselden was 62 when he rode off a cliff on his company's Segways.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  It killed him, obviously?

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  Yes, in West Yorkshire.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  That's sad.

• 42:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is sad for sure, but my God, that's quite a legend.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  It is. It's like Fabio getting hit in the face with a duck on a roller coaster.

• 42:36Josh Clark?

  What?

• 42:38Speaker 03

  No, you know that.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  No?

• 42:41Speaker 03

  Fabio on a roller coaster, a duck flew across his path and hit him in the face.

• 42:47Josh Clark?

  And killed him?

• 42:48Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 42:49Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  But it's, uh, it's one of these pictures on the internet where you're like, oh, that's gotta be fake. And it's, and it really happened.

• 42:57Josh Clark?

  Poor Fabio.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  I know. I feel bad for the guy, but it was also like of all the people to get, for this to happen to, it was just, it was pretty rich.

• 43:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I can imagine. What, is he a jerk?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 43:11Josh Clark?

  Is he? Okay.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  But he's Fabio and like, you know, that kind of stuff doesn't happen to Fabio. That stuff happens to me.

• 43:17Josh Clark?

  For sure. And me too. Totally with you on that.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Did you look up that picture?

• 43:22Josh Clark?

  I'm watching the video right now. I can't not, Chuck. Maybe we'll have an episode someday where we just tell each other internet memes and the other one will look it up and then react on, on mic. And that's how we'll do it, okay?

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Stuff, stuff you shouldn't, couldn't care less about will be the name of that new show.

• 43:40Josh Clark?

  Stuff you really probably shouldn't bother listening to.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  All right. So let's pick up with the trip. Uh, it, it sounds like we're painting, and Ed, I'm glad he pointed this out. It sounds like we're painting a picture of an awful time because of all of the delays and all of the things that happened. They knew what they were in for with this. They didn't think it was going to be a pleasure cruise. It was also a great fun adventure. Like, these guys are having a great time. They were seeing things that few people had ever even seen in person before, even by horse at times. And they had no schedule. I mean, they were trying to beat this 90-day thing. But like, I get the feeling he really just wanted to finish the trip. So, you know, he had money. They were staying in hotels. They were staying with people along the way, who opened their homes to them. They were driving about two hours at a time.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  And it seemed like they were, they were having fun at the same time.

• 44:31Josh Clark?

  I have that same impression too, for sure. And plus, don't forget Sewell Crocker was making some pretty good money too.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I didn't find that. What was he getting paid?

• 44:40Josh Clark?

  I didn't see either, but we can go ahead and say, at the end, they tallied up how much Horatio Jackson spent on the trip. And this included Crocker's pay. It was about eight grand back in 1903, which is 267 grand today.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  That's so much money.

• 44:58Josh Clark?

  So if you think about it, hotels, food, supplies, gas,

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Repairs.

• 45:03Josh Clark?

  Car parts, repairs. That still leaves a pretty decent amount for Sewell Crocker, and I hope he got a big chunk of that.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  I hope so too.

• 45:11Josh Clark?

  Chuck, I cannot for the love of life find this stupid picture of Fabio getting hit in the face. I found some ABC report and it just shows him going into the, the roller coaster station after the ride. His face is all bloody and he looks really upset, but nothing about the actual hit.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  You know, I wonder if I, what I saw was a faked recreation of that, and there is only a before and an after.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  That would make sense that it looked photoshopped then.

• 45:40Josh Clark?

  I'm sorry, I just had to, had to circle back on that because my disappointment was palpable.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  Oh, boy. So they're making their way out west, or I'm sorry, back east. And it's funny, they say back east, out west, up north, down south. So they're back, they're heading back east, and they come to Idaho. When I mentioned a third party in that photograph.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  We were holding out for this big surprise in Caldwell, Idaho. They left without Jackson's coat, turned back to go get it. And this guy said, here, I have this pit bull named Bud. And he wants to go with you and be your mascot. And they said, hop aboard Bud. And all of a sudden, they have this beautiful white pit bull in between the two of them.

• 46:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's routinely described as a bulldog, but he's pretty clearly a pit bull.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  He's a pity and he's beautiful and like, if this story couldn't get any better. Now you have a pit bull in between you and they made him doggles to protect his little eyes. And there's a wonderful photo of it in the documentary.

• 46:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so they were, you know, like you said, they were getting pressed as they went from town to town. And they were like, oh, my God, a car. There's people actually trying to use it to cross the, the United States in that car. When Bud joined it, people just went berserk over this whole thing. Um, in part because he was wearing these goggles, but also he very quickly learned how to ride in the car. He would look ahead.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  He loved it.

• 47:11Josh Clark?

  To look for ruts or bumps or whatever, and would like brace himself like he's, he just took to it very easily. And became like this great mascot. Um, so everybody started to really find out about this when, when Bud joined. And I don't get the impression that Sewell or Horatio were the least bit jealous.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  No, uh, he paid him $15, which is $500 today for this dog. And Crocker said, hey, adopt, don't shop. And Jackson said, what does that mean?

• 47:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  And he said, no, don't worry about it. That comes later.

• 47:40Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  So they're getting all this press, thanks to Bud. Uh, they, um, make their way through sort of that toughest stretch of terrain. They're running out of food. They finally sort of cross out of the mountains and they're like, all right, that was sort of it. Like, we think this is, um, not literally, but this is sort of downhill from here. And he, in his letters, he was saying, I've, I've never felt more confident now that we're gonna make it to New York. And this is when they were in like Wyoming.

• 48:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and then once they got to Omaha, it really got easier. And then after Omaha, Chicago, and then after Chicago, probably Cleveland or something like that. Maybe Indianapolis in between. Like the city after city just started to pop up and they were getting closer and closer. And there were much better roads. The railroad right of ways were just beautiful. Sitting there for the picking.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  It's flat.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  They started to really, yeah, they started to really make some pretty good time.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, uh, how many miles did they top out at the day? I feel like it was like seventy something, which is not too bad.

• 48:49Josh Clark?

  I don't remember, actually.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  I think the documentary said seventy, seventy something miles in a single day, like when they were kind of cruising, which that's, that's awesome. That's good time for that car.

• 49:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's not bad at all, especially considering it maxed out at thirty miles an hour.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:05Josh Clark?

  So that was just like a two and a half hour day for them, I guess.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 49:10Josh Clark?

  So, uh, but that, that really does go to point out like just how slow they were going because of things like breaking down and waiting for parts and just the, the roads being terrible. And I mentioned Cleveland too. They actually, um, when they showed up in Cleveland, that's where the Witten Motor Carriage Company was located. And we didn't say, I don't think that, um, Witten had by this time heard about the whole trip and that they were actually making pretty good headway, right?

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he got, he sort of officially offered to kind of sponsor them from that point on. And Jackson turned him down. He was like, no, I've got Packard and Oldsmobile behind me. And I, I don't want this to become like a corporate sponsored thing. Like we've made it this far, we can make it the rest of the way. And they did go by the factory and they got some fanfare and I think they helped him out with fixing his car up and stuff, but.

• 50:03Josh Clark?

  They got free beer koozies?

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. Refrigerator magnets and they were on their way.

• 50:08Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm sure they probably fixed the car up a little bit, but Witten was talking like we'll have gas like every hundred miles for you kind of thing. We'll send a technician to ride along with you. I'm sure the idea of adding a third stranger. A stranger to this mix by this time, which is just unthinkable. So yeah, they turned them down. But they made it through Cleveland. They made it all the way to Buffalo. It wasn't until Buffalo, New York, that they had their, the worst wreck that they had, where all three of them, Sewell, Horatio and Bud, were ejected from the car because they hit something.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Bud.

• 50:44Josh Clark?

  Horatio only mentions it as a hidden obstruction. So I'm not sure if he ever knew what it was, but none of them were injured and the car was okay. So they just kept on keeping on.

• 50:54Speaker 03

  So take us home. When did they, they pulled into Manhattan, didn't they?

• 50:58Josh Clark?

  Finally, on July 26th at 4:30 a.m., 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes after they set out from San Francisco, they made it to Manhattan, New York and Horatio Nelson Jackson won his bet, which by the way, he never collected on.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  Oh, I was curious about that. He didn't?

• 51:19Josh Clark?

  Nope.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  What a stand up guy.

• 51:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or he's like, I'm never going out west again. It's too long of a ride.

• 51:27Speaker 03

  Uh, and there to greet him where it was a throngs of press and journalists, people from the Witten Car Company and swipes the old girl herself right there.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's so cool. I love that they had like a great relationship and he had a great relationship with Sewell and everybody loved Bud. And if you're wondering what happened to Bud, Bud lived out the rest of his days on the Jackson farm in Vermont, in Burlington.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  And that's not a euphemism for like,

• 51:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  He really got lost and died.

• 51:55Josh Clark?

  Right. No, he really did live out his days there.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  That's great. Uh, Jackson went on to live a, a very interesting life after this even. He had a number of businesses that he ran. Uh, he joined the military in World War One in his 40s and apparently became a decorated veteran.

• 52:15Josh Clark?

  Probably collected tobacco baseball cards at the time.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Probably so. Uh, so I think he ran for governor and lost, governor of Vermont at one time and lost. I don't know how he lost. I don't know who in the world would vote for someone else other than this guy.

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Uh, and donated that car, uh, the Vermont to the Smithsonian, which, and those doggles. Ed has seen this in person. I don't think I have, even though I've been there. So, or maybe I didn't. I just didn't know the story at the time.

• 52:44Josh Clark?

  Maybe. It seems like you'd be able to recall a car like that.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  I don't know. I've been to a lot of museums. Seen a lot of old cars.

• 52:52Josh Clark?

  Right. Sadly, Sewell Crocker, he died young. He contracted an illness and died in 1913. So he was about 40, no, 30 something, early 30s.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  And he was 31.

• 53:04Josh Clark?

  He had been sent to Mexico, I think, to protect some land during the revolution there. And the stress of it killed him, essentially, is how I saw it.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  Geez, that's really sad.

• 53:18Josh Clark?

  I know, it is. So that's really the only big sad thing that happened, aside from Bud getting ejected from the car in Buffalo, New York.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  A nice little cherry on top here that Ed found, too, was six years after this trip, a woman named Alice Ramsey and three of her friends became the first woman and women to accomplish this same thing. They were sponsored by Maxwell Briscoe, an automaker, and they did the trip in 59 days in basically the same, or maybe just barely slightly better conditions than Jackson and Crocker did it in.

• 53:54Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:55Speaker 03

  So they pulled it off, and they kind of encountered the same issues, and they got a lot of press at the time, and obviously did a lot to advance, you know, the, shine a light on what women were capable of doing, which was driving a car through terrible circumstances for 59 days.

• 54:14Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. Also, despite being described as pretty in every single article that was written about them at the time.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:24Josh Clark?

  So one other thing that was a kind of a note about this is that 30 years after Horatio and Sewell and Bud made their trip, the record was set that stood for decades, 54 hours. So two and a half days. A guy named Erwin Cannonball Baker

• 54:42Speaker 03

  Who?

• 54:43Josh Clark?

  made a famous run from New York to LA. And I think about 40 years after that, in the early 70s, Car and Driver magazine editor said, this Cannonball Baker guy, he deserves his own, his own place in history. So we're going to commemorate him with a recreation of his run. We're going to call it the Cannonball Run.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  That's right. And if you want to learn more about that, we, was that a two parter? Or was just a one parter?

• 55:09Josh Clark?

  I think it was probably one of our 15 minute episodes.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  No, that was a good one.

• 55:12Josh Clark?

  It was a good one. I'm just saying we used to do them real short back then. I can't believe I didn't talk that much back then, that we could actually record an episode that was 15 minutes long.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  I think we probably talked for 15 minutes about Burt Reynolds.

• 55:25Josh Clark?

  Probably, probably, but that was probably the episode too.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right.

• 55:30Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 55:34Josh Clark?

  I don't either, which means it's time for listener mail.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm going to call this, uh, short but sweet, Amazon factoid.

• 55:43Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  Uh, hey, guys, about a quarter of the way into the episode at the moment. Um, the episode reminded me of our trip up the Amazon to, uh, I don't know, is it Manaus or Manaus? M A N A U S?

• 55:55Josh Clark?

  I think Manaus.

• 55:56Speaker 03

  Manaus? Uh, and back on a Viking Ocean cruise. He said, surprisingly, ocean cruise ships can go that far, about a thousand miles. Who knew? Uh, on the cruise, our Amazon guide told us that what I think is the greatest bit of trivia I've ever heard, uh, the volume of water leaving the mouth of the Amazon is equal to the volume of water going over Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls. Uh, I'm going to do my best with my pronunciation on this falls in South America. Iguazu, perhaps?

• 56:27Josh Clark?

  Very nice. Our South American listeners should write in and let us know.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  Right, so it is the volume of water leaving the mouth of the Amazon is equal to those three giant falls.

• 56:35Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  Times 12.

• 56:37Josh Clark?

  Wow, I was not expecting that extra little bit of math right there.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  I think that's what makes it amazing. And that's from Rich Pope.

• 56:43Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Rich Pope. Great name, too. Really gets it across. Rich Pope.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:47Josh Clark?

  Good to meet you, you know?

• 56:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed.

• 56:50Josh Clark?

  Well, it's good to meet you too, Rich Pope. And if you want to be like Rich Pope, you can email us as well. Send it off to [email protected].

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 57:18Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Fgard Tigamod Alpha F-Cab. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease.

• 58:00Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 58:23Speaker 07

  Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  Not an Empower client, paid or sponsored. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.