First Cross-Country Road Trip by Car

What Year was the First Road Trip Cross-Country?

In 1903, born out of a fifty-dollar bet to see if wealthy Vermont Doctor Horatio Nelson Jackson could cross the country by car in under 90 days, Jackson set out from San Francisco with bicycle mechanic Sewall Crocker and a bulldog named Bud, embarking on an epic journey in his 20 horsepower Winton touring car, across a nation, at the time, with only 150 miles of paved roads.

First Cross-Country Road Trip’s Route

In a nation today that sports four million miles of public roads, not to mention 164,000 miles of paved highways, Horatio’s drive across America lacked gas stations or road maps, and while the intrepid trio wished to skirt a trip across California’s Death Valley, they headed north up to Oregon, before steering east into Idaho, where they averaged no more than 71 miles per day atop primitive and quite barren roadways.

Their journey into the record books led to encounters with pioneer wagon trains, lasso-wielding cowboys who towed them out of ditches and sand drifts, ranch wives who traded home-cooked meals for joy rides, not to mention people who intentionally sent them miles off course, so that their friends and relatives could get their first glimpse of an automobile.

Fraught with mechanical breakdowns, flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable accommodations, Jackson’s sheer enthusiasm for America’s first transcontinental road trip proved as indispensable as fuel for his car, at the same time leading to a national challenge, of sorts, when both the Packard Motor Company and Oldsmobile dispatched their own cars in hopes of beating Jackson to Manhattan.

Once the trio reached Nebraska, paved or well-maintained dirt roads became much more prevalent, increasing their progress to upwards of 250 miles in a single day.

Crossing the Country (and Finish Line)

Finally, during the early morning hours of July 26th, 1903, Jackson was greeted by cheering crowds as they traveled along the Hudson River toward Manhattan, arriving in their battered automobile in front of the Holland House Hotel in Midtown, where Jackson honked his horn joyously to announce their arrival.

Their trip took 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes—well shy of their original 90-day bet—making the first cross-country road trip by car, an early milestone in a nation’s budding thirst for the open road.