BY WENDY MIGDAL
FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR
Sometime in spring 1907, Fredericksburg saw the future. It might have been April or May. It might have come at the hands of Spotswood Foster or Robert Kishpaugh. At any rate, what Fredericksburg saw that day was its first automobile.
A lengthy (for the time) feature article appeared on the front page of The Free LanceâStar on April 24, 1929, reminiscing about the first automobile to arrive in town on that day 22 years prior. According to this article, Kishpaugh, a longtime owner of Kishpaughâs Stationery Store on William Street, purchased the automobile the day earlier in Washington and watched it depart on a freight car for his hometown. He also received a crash course in how to operate it.