Auto racing is the world’s most popular live spectator sport. But that distinction could hardly have been predicted by the drivers and onlookers who showed up in Chicago’s Jackson Park on Thanksgiving Day 1895 for the first organized American auto race (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
Staged by Herman H. Kohlsaat, publisher of the Chicago Times-Herald, the race was seen as a way of promoting the newspaper while increasing public interest in the newfangled horseless carriage. The machine (then called a “motocycle”) that would soon become the automobile, had been in production in Europe for about a decade. But as of 1895, no American automobiles were being commercially produced.
That year, Kohlsaat announced in the Times-Herald that the newspaper would sponsor the first organized American race of horseless carriages and would fork out $3,500 in prizes, including $2,000 for the winner. According to Richard A. Wright, director of the journalism program at Detroit’s Wayne State University, freelance writer and author of “Detroit Inc.”, Kohlsaat was besieged with dozens of letters and telegrams from would-be racers.
“The publisher had discovered that there was a widespread effort in the United States to build automobiles and that most of these inventors were not aware of the work of others, either here or in Europe,” Wright notes in his book.
Kohlsaat planned to stage the race on Labor Day, but many inventor-drivers who wanted to run the race notified Kohlsaat that they wouldn’t have their cars ready by then. The event was rescheduled for Nov. 2, and by then 80 automobiles had been entered. But only two made it to the starting line in Chicago’s Jackson Park.
“Most of the other 80 entrants urged Kohlsaat to delay the race one more time, until Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28,” Wright relates. “Kohlsaat was in a difficult position. A race with only two contestants seemed a bit ridiculous, and rival newspapers, sensing a possible humiliation, were already picking up the scent. The Times-Herald had hyped the event, and there would be spectators waiting to see the race.”
A compromise was reached whereby the race would be delayed until Thanksgiving, and the two cars that had shown up Nov. 2 would be put to an exhibition.
That 90-mile round-trip exhibition between Jackson Park and Waukegan pitted Oscar Mueller in a German-made Benz against Frank and Charles Duryea in their own Duryea motocycle. The Mueller-Benz won handily when a team of horses bolted into the Duryeas’ path in Evanston, forcing the car into a ditch. The car suffered a crumpled differential housing and had to be towed to the railroad station by horse for transport back to the Duryeas’ headquarters in Springfield, Mass.
By Thanksgiving, six cars had assembled in Jackson Park for the start of the race. Along with the Mueller-Benz and Duryea, there were two other Benz autos. In addition, two electric-powered cars–The Sturges Electric Motocycle of Chicago and Morris and Slalom Electrobat of Philadelphia–had been entered.
Though there were enough cars to race, a new problem presented itself: Chicago had been blanketed with 10 to 12 inches of snow, according to the account in the Times-Herald, preventing many other would-be participants from reaching the starting point. As a horse-drawn plow cleared snow from the starting area and boys hurled snowballs at the motocycles, the organizers hurriedly shortened the course to a 55-mile round trip between Jackson Park and Evanston.
Shortly after the race began, both electrics depleted their power and dropped out.
The Duryea initially trailed the Benzes, Wright reported, but soon “the Duryea passed the Macy-Benz, which later collided with a hack and did not finish. On the way back from Evanston, the Duryea passed the Mueller-Benz, then overtook the De La Vergne Benz. The Duryea crossed the finish line with no other car in sight. An hour and a half later, the Mueller-Benz appeared, the only other car to finish the race.”
The Mueller-Benz was driven to the finish line not by Oscar Mueller but by Charles Brady King, who hadn’t been able to prepare his own car in time to enter the race. A key figure in early automotive history, King was the first man to drive an automobile within the Detroit city limits and would go on to found two Detroit-based automobile companies, the Northern and the King companies, said Mark Patrick, curator of the National Automotive History Collection at the Detroit Public Library.
Though the field was hardly impressive and the Duryea’s winning time was just 7.5 miles per hour, the race “made clear the days of the horse as the prime mode of transportation were numbered,” wrote Wright. “No team of horses could have done what the Duryea did.”
Just as important, the race was the catalyst for American auto racing, said the Detroit Public Library’s Patrick.
“It was the first in a series of (organized) races in the United States,” he said (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). “It inspired other promoters to stage auto races. Auto racing was one of the big ways for early manufacturers of cars to promote their products. The cars didn’t even have to win. If they just placed well, that was enough. The car manufacturers were shameless in promoting their showings in races.”
