(Continued from page 8)

J. Frank Duryea (on the left, with the referee who rode with him)

Cruise to the Rock… Why do we do it?
Background of this historic event…


The centennial observance in 1995 included the placement of a large rock bearing a plaque about the race at the start/finish point of the route that ran to Evanston and back. The Race had been planned for November 2, 1895 but was postponed because only 2 out of the 75 prospective entrants were prepared to run the event. When it was finally held on Thanksgiving, a crowd of thousands awaited the start of the race in Jackson Park, with the ground covered by a foot of snow. Only six of the final eleven entries were able to make it to the starting line, due to the weather, mechanical problems or accidents en route. Of those six, two were electric and the others were gasoline-powered. Of the gasoline-powered cars, three were Benz vehicles that had been brought from Europe, and one of these had won the Paris to Bordeaux race that was the inspiration for this race.

The fourth gasoline-powered car had been designed and built by J. Frank Duryea, the 25-year-old chief engineer, and only real employee, of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. Duryea was born in Washburn, Illinois, northeast of Peoria, and grew up on a farm in Stark County. After completing high school, he had followed his older brother Charles to Washington, DC, then to New Jersey, and finally to Springfield, Massachusetts, where eventually, between 1894 and 1895, he designed and single-handedly built the vehicle that he entered and drove in the race. The Times-Herald erroneously referred to the Duryea entry as the “result of three years’ inventive effort on the part of Charles E. Duryea of Peoria”. Although Charles had arranged financing and took credit for much of the enterprise, he had returned to Peoria in 1892 to manufacture bicycles, and it was actually Frank’s creativity, skill and persistence that brought the car into being.

Twice during the race Duryea had to stop to make repairs: When the steering broke, a support vehicle was on hand to locate a blacksmith shop, but the “sparking plug” failed after Duryea had detoured off course, and he was on his own to find a tinsmith to repair the part. The wrong turn added an extra 2 miles to the route. The umpire who rode with him wrote “We finished at 7:18…Our correct time was 7 hours and fifty-three minutes. We covered a distance of 54.36 miles- averaging a little more than seven miles per hour”.

Of the three Benz vehicles, one collided with a hack (carriage for hire) that would not give it right of way and was eliminated from the race, another made little progress through the snow at the start of the race and withdrew, and the third was the only other vehicle to finish the race, at 8:53 pm, taking 24 minutes longer than the Duryea to complete the course.

This victory by a young man from Illinois over established European interests on the snowy streets of Chicago makes a great story. But the true significance of Duryea’s successful showing in the race lies in its influence on attitudes toward these “horseless carriages”. The Duryea “Chicago Car” was a true prototype for the automobiles that followed it and introduced many important mechanical design features. And the Race itself proved publicly that these vehicles were a match for horse-drawn carriages.

~~Jake & Ann Snyder