But despite a lot of talk about how they hated the automobile, people still were fascinated by it, and at some time or another nearly everyone wanted to try it out. Of course, there were those who railed against this latest addition to modern living, fearing such smelly, smoky and noisy inventions would put the blacksmith and the stable keeper out of business. But what these people failed to realize was how many new businesses and jobs the automobile would create.
By the summer of 1907 there were a number of new automobile garages in Southwest Kansas. In most cases, the garages not only sold gas and did repair work but also rented an automobile to someone not fortunate enough to own their own. The going price was about $10 a day, or 20 cents a mile for a short journey, and any number of passengers up to full capacity of the car could ride at that rate. Of course, a chauffeur was furnished at this price because very few people knew how to drive the new-fangled contraptions! If you did want to buy an automobile, they could be available in Garden City from the local Ford agent, who in 1911 was selling a Ford open roadster for $680.
The arrival of early-day autos made changes not only in business practices, but also in the laws of our land. In 1906, the Kansas road laws mentioned motorists for the first time. As reported in the Cimarron Jacksonian, “Under the new state law, machines may be driven ten miles an hour in the country, but all the rules of the road must be observed and the driver of the car is compelled to stop his machine or slow down and do all in his power to keep teams that have become frightened from running away.”
Another area of change dealt with the roads themselves. New or improved roads were vital to the future of the new machines, and Finney County counted itself in the forefront of progress. In fact, they were ahead of the game, for in 1904 there was only slightly more than 150,000 miles of improved surface roadway in the entire United States, and Finney County was proud to claim 16 of those miles. The Jones Highway, which ran from Garden City’s downtown northwest along what is now Highway 50 had been built in 1898 to accommodate horse-drawn vehicles. In the early 1900s when most Kansas roads were still rough, narrow and completely unimproved, the elevated dirt road that was the Jones Highway became a favorite place to drive the new metal horses that would soon change the entire economy of rural America.
Thanks to the late Barbara Oringderff and Territorial Magazine for contributing information for this story. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Debra Bolton in Manhattan Kansas.
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio.
