Trail of the centuryold journey that changed america. Hugh did it change america . Along the route, thousands came out to cheer the convoy on, to look at the vehicles, talk to the men who remember in the caron voy and it spurred a lot of interest in travel by motorized vehicles. Were going to catch watch the film. Did it get a lot of attention in the press . It did. They happened a major sendoff at the white house. President wilson was in europe but secretary of war newton baker waved them off. There were speeches, the press was all there and there was quite a scene at the white house. Theres a district through maryland through frederic, maryland, where they spent the first night. Walk us through the genesis of this idea and why 08 vehicles as part of this convoy . You have to look at it in the context of the time. World war i had just concluded a few months earlier and the American Military leadership realized that in future warfare motorized vehicles would play a very important role. They had a number of different motorized vehicles but they wanted to know how would they perform under different circumstances. If it was necessary to move troops from one post to another, would they be able to do it, how long would it take . So they were interested in the conditions of the vehicles and which ones performed and which didnt. Early in also interested in the condition of the roads. Until you got to california there were no paved roads at the time so they wanted to know how long it would take and how difficult. A young Lieutenant Colonel who would go on to serve as president of the united states. Dwight david eisenhower. What was his role in this . Its an interesting story because at the present time he was very disappointed that he didnt get to europe during world war i. Most of his west point teammates did. He was contemplating resigning frment from the military and he heard about this trip at the last minute. He had to go to the campsite where they spent the first night but it really kept him in the military and of course that changed his life and changed the history of the u. S. So lets watch in film the u. S. Army motor convoy and who had the idea of filming this . The u. S. Military wanted to film it because first of all they wanted to be able to show people back in washington, the military leadership, heres the condition of the roads, heres the condition of the vehicles and which vehicles performed well or not and they wanted to record it for history but because they realized that this would be an historic trip so they wanted to have a record of it for everyone who would be interested. As we watch this film, when did you first hear about it . I read a Magazine Article in an American History magazine about 20 years ago about this trim and it piqued my interest and ive been fascinated about it ever since but it wasnt until i retired from my first career that i was actually able to take the time to follow in the footsteps of the trip. What are we looking at right now . This is the Zero Milestone marker. Its right across from the white house. The cameraman is standing with his face immediately to the white house. Newton baker there in the light suit. He was the secretary of war at the time. President wilson was in europe so newton baker waved them off and he dedicated the Zero Milestone marker and its still there today. And you can see the backdrop of the washington monument. Now were at, sit camp megs . Example meegs. It doesnt exit exist today but all the vehicles had assembled there and drove to there from the white house and took off. Its important to understand how april active the roads and bridges were. There were confinement a number of covered bridges at the beginning of the trip in the east and nose were fairly precipitous. Of course, these bridges were built for horse and buggy, not trucks. On mac some of them had to be restructured. And modified. The engineers there, they had to look off the top of the bridge so the trucks could come through. So the engineers were really be is at each of those bridges. Did they have drivers licenses . Not everybody, interestingly enough, had drivers licenses. They drafted from the Service People who said that they could drive. Eisenhower later wrote some of the men were more familiar with horse and buggy than they were with motorized vehicle. They learned at as they went along and became better. Talking about primitive primitive, these were very primitive trucks but howd they train on them . They happened very limited training. Remember, were right after world war i so theyd not been able to train very much in preparation for this terrorism. They did do some preparation at camp meegs where the trip started but not Long Distances. Kind of a big deal in ohio and elsewhere . It was a big deal all across the country. People lined the roads all across the country and cheered them on. T was a frontpage headline in virtually every newspaper of the day and people really found in a source of National Pride and in the aftermath of the war sort of like a vickery lap. You can see someone waving. The roads go from concrete and asphalt to dirt roads, as we see in franklin grove, illinois. Yes, once they got toy, illinois, just west of chicago, the asphalt ended and they were on dirt roads then all the way to San Francisco or to nid california and you could see a problem there was the dust, which was really troublesome but when it rained they had muhammad. What is this here . This is one truck that overturned. Remember, they were built for horse and buggies so they were quite narrow and the drivers werent always the most experience. This driver lost control and it landed upside down off the road but they were able to right it and with block and tackle and manpower get it back up on the road. Today when you travel crosscountry there are hotels and restaurants and a lot of gas stations. What did these folks do . They camped out. They had a couple of kitchen wagons so they cooked all of their own meals. Eir marching orders were sob selfundertaker. They did have to stop for gasoline but they had two tanker trucks so they were pretty well prepared. In looks like a pretty impressive bridge in iowa. They were concerned that all of those trucks would be too help for the bridge so they sent them across one or two at a time. Your book after ike, explain the genesis of youre your research. I was interested in this trip. I think its a very important trip in the history of the and i was interested in the fact that eisenhower went along on this. He was only 28 years old at the present time and later, i think partly because of the inspiration of this trip was the driving force behind the interstate highway system and i wanted to see the actual route they followed. I was able to follow their exact route. This is just west of lexington, nebraska. These roads, obviously there had been rain so theyre pretty muddy. Yes, and you can see a truck sort of slipping and sliding there. Ian that had one or trill artillery tractor which was able to pull them out in most places but sometimes it was really slow going. On this particular day, according to the log, they traveled 34 miles in 10 hours. And what if the tires broke down, if they were flat . Did they have enough materials to sustain themselves . They had two trucks that carried only spare parts and they stopped at military bases along the way to reglenish those parts. They had to make do sometimes. Of the 81 vehicles that started the trip, 71 made it all the way through. Thats a pretty good track record considering the conditions. And all were enlisted in the army at this time . There were. There were some civilians who followed them or went with them for part of the way. Did anyone write a diary about what was happening during this time . Several people kept direries but the most complete one was kept by a lieutenant, jackson. He was in the east. He lived in passive and new jersey and hed never been to the west. He kept a detailed diary and thats how i was able to follow the route because he said precisely which towns they stopped in along the way. How far would they travel on any given day and what were their evening evenings like, their routine . It varied depend agoen the roamed conditions. With Road Conditions like that, as i said, on some days they only went 30 or 40 miles. When they were on concrete they went quite a bit farther but still it was fairly limited because there were breakdowns with vehicles and inexperienced drivers caused some problems. Even on the best days they didnt go much more than 100 miles. You talked about how some thought they were riding horses instead of operating a vehicle. Thats something eisenhower wrote about. He said he heard some of them when the truck stalled hollering giddyup. Giddyup and go and some of the drivers didnt know what a clutch was, which was why their vehicles kept stalling out. Do you know how many vehicles, cars interest and trucks were in the u. S. Vs. How many horses were operating approximately . At the time of the convoy they were about 400,000 motorized vehicles, including cars and instruction trucks and everything but that quickly surged in the years following so that by just a few years later, in the mid 20s, there were millions of motorized vehicles on the roads. Where would this film have been shown and what would those in neerts have thought as they watched this silent film in 1919 1919 or 1920 . Flood watches there was a lot of american primed. Remember, the world had just come out of the First World War victorious. There was a feeling that the u. S. Was becoming a world power. Only a handful of people had actually driven in their individual automobiles from one coast to the other so this was the first real crosscountry convoy that was officially sanctioned and it was front line front page in numerous across the country. It was estimated that about 3. 5 Million People witnessed the convoy first hand and that was about 3. 5 of the entire population either. This took place from july 7 to september 7100 years ago in 1919 but who mapped out the journey . There was a nascent highway known as the lincoln highway, which some civilians, who were enthusiasts or motor trips had mapped out it went from times square in new york all the way to lincoln park in San Francisco and that route was established but in many places, especially west of chicago, it wasnt just more than just two results across the prairie, as some people called it. It was a difficult route but it was a route that they could follow and they tried to follow that with a few minor detours all the way. You wonder if they were envious the train was working going a lot faster than the convoy. The u. P. Had been there for over 50 years. They chose the u. P. Tracks because they wanted a flat surface. Also, of course this would have been the height of the summer no. Air conditioning, of course. What was the conditions like for them on these trucks . It was hot and sweaty and of course they had to stop and push and exert a lot of e. Along the way. So it was difficult and its hard to know what was worse, the heat and the sweat or the dust as you can see, that was swirling. With the dust they decided to space out the convoy so there was a Long Distance between vehicles. What are we looking at here . This is wyoming and gives you a condition of some of the bridges out west. As i said earlier, these bridges were built for horse and buggy. So a lot of them had to be reinforced or rebuilt and the engineers, to their credit, did a great job. If any of the bridges were damaged they rebuilt them. Michael owen, who you do you know who made these trucks . Packard made a lot of them. Ford made some of them and garford was a big manufacturer of vehicles them. Some are no longer in business. Did these men, and they are all men at the present time, have a sense of what this mission was all about, what they were trying to accomplish . Well, they did. Some of the diaries that ive read suggest that it was only at the end when they got to california that they realized that what theyd actually done and say saw the scommleds thought gosh, this is really something. I write in my book that i wondered if years later some of the men looked back and said that was the greatest experience of my life. Because were celebrating the First Anniversary of armstrong on the moon and i wonder if it was the equivalent of that . It was. The moonwalk of 1919 or early 20th century. Explain how it all came about, as we look at these indianapolis and see just how antiquated it was 100 years ago but it didnt start with eisenhower. No, others had ideas for an interstate highway system. F. D. R. Promoted one and he had fairly specific ideas on what it should look like. Here should be a transcontinue nell road but not until eisenhower was it passed. E interstate high waive bill of 1956. The bill passed in 1956 and construction started pretty soon after that. And as i look at these tires, they really look so thin. Im wondering how they were able to sustain the weight of the vehicle, the truck and also the journey from washington to San Francisco. A man by the name of frank seenerling, who was the c. E. O. Of goodyear, rode a fairly significant part of in along with the convoy and later he wrote about the need for better tires so i think better tires came out, as a consequence, out of this terrorism. Just as so many other things did. Now were heading further west past the rockies in utah and this this as this film depicts, they are going very slowly. They are. Ive been on that road and eres a precipitous vertical dropoff on the left side and even though theres a small guard rail, a truck that size would easily blake through the guardrail. The road is only one lane and ian that had to stretch out a little bit because of the dust but unfortunately fortunately they got through and that and over the paz. This is close to a high pass going over the sierras and down into california. I think the top of it was about 6 7600 feet. They were able to get across with no other mishaps. Were there any other vehicles at the time . The police and Highway Patrol did not allow other vehicles on that highway while they were on that pass. What are they doing here . This is in utah, the road was very bad there. Theyre actually cutting sage brush to put underneath the vehicles to get some traction for them. Because they were in this deep sand. They had difficulty getting through the sand. In fact, they said some of the vehicles were so heavy, they sunk down two feet into the sand. So they were putting down sage brush to get some traction. A journey that lasted a couple of months. You mentioned earlier they were selfsustaining but howd they wash their clothes, make sure they had enough to eat, what if they happened medical issues . They had a couple of parallel cars with medical supplies and really remarkably, there are were very few serious injuries. A few people dropped out but no really lifethreatening injury along the way. In terms of keeping clean, i think they stayed pretty dusty west of chicago. When they got to San Francisco, there was a big washdown. Now were even further west, almost in San Francisco but there is a pretty baron part of yoilt. This is why they had to be selfsumbt. Of course they had a couple of kitchen wagons and you can see one on the left. Theyre preparing a meal there. Pretty primitive way to cook but thats how they did it and of course, cooking for 81 men on a contraption like that wasnt easy. And they happened to be hungry. They did. They has a lot of complaints about the food in the beginning in part because the person who was doing the cooking was also a supply officer. And in omaha they got a fulltime crook cook and the food improved quite a bit. Howd they determine who was going to be the twin . They asked for volunteers and then they found people who said they were familiar with vehicles. As it turned out, some of the drivers had a very limited experience with driving. We are so connected today with cell phone technology. How did the leaders of this communicate . Person who kept the dialies, jackson, once they would set camp for the night. E would write a telegram reporting. So he was the one responsible for staying in touch and its nose submissions that make up a key part of his daily log. In terms to have timeline, did they have a certain schedule that they were determined to meet . Did they want to be in San Francisco by Early September . They had an openended commitment. They wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Part of the goal, objective of the trip was to see how difficult it would be since nobody had tried Something Like this before and the military wanted to see how quickly could we get troops trained and trucks out to the west coast if we ever needed to get them there. Have any of these trucks been preserved . These particular trucks, i dont believe so once they got to San Francisco they were cleaned up and refurbished and sent off to Different Military bases all over the western part of the u. S. So they were separated then. But they had to deal with every time of terrain and weather condition. Heat, rain, probably no snow at the time of the year but a lot of potential storms. Elwell and the jackson was complaining about the dust. But the alternative to dust was heavily rain in which they would have sunk down into the mud. The dust was preferable to the rain and mud. What surprised you the most in researching this journey . I think the fact that so few people knew about this trip. It seems to me it was such an important part of American History and laid the foundation for motorized travel in the u. S. But very few people knew about it. I stopped in libraries in every town along the way and looked up in the log of newspapers of the newspaper that was published the day after the convoy had been there. It was always front page material in each of those numerous along the way but people nowadays rarely know about this trip. Did they have somebody ahead to give them reports . Thats an important point. There were two men on Harley Davidson miracles so they went ahead of the convoy all the way. First of all, they would mark if there was a fork in the road and if they saw difficulties, they would look at how to deal with it and come back and consult with the convoy so those two men on harleydavidsons really played a key role. How fast or slow were they going right here . They averaged inspect west about 6 Miles Per Hour so it was Police Department slow. And do you know who shot this film . They had some publicity people with them to take film. They really wanted to have am good record of the film. If youre heading out in the east and heading out above lake tahoe, some spectacular sights. Yes, you can see lake tahoe in the background there. Today its still a spectacular sight, such a blathe blue. Arly in right on the border of california and they knee knew that soon there would be pavinned roads. So they had a sense theyd almost reach it would finish line . Thats right. How far is this from San Francisco . This is still in eastern california but right along here they got on paveled roads. No, it looks like thats yet unpave bud very soon there will be paved roads. This is in eastern california. Very small town even do youa nowadays. I saw they have a sign, welcome to the town. Now leaving it right next to one another. Here were on a pavinned road gwynn and it was pretty good pavement, recently paved all the way to San Francisco. Lieutenant colonel eisenhower, was he one of the leaders . Knob, testifies he was not. He was one of the officers but the leader, the Commanding Officer was charles mcclure, who retired after this terrorism. We just saw a moment ago in sacramento it looked like a parade of sorts. Yes, they knew that they were coming. The governor of california actually welcomed them at the nevada state line and had big,ming parties set up at major towns. So were midway between the capital of california, sacramento. And its about an hour and a half today from San Francisco. It took them quite a bit longer and of course they had to take twoferies to get across from oakland to San Francisco. But you see there are power lines there. You can only speculate but theyre there waving. What do you think they were thinking and its almost over. Ive gone the worst part and now in oakland, they really knew the end was in sight and quite excited about getting in. And here theyre at the port in oakland. Theyre getting ready to get all the trucks on twoferies that would cross the bay there. Again, by now, they had 75 vehicles. Big news, there were plenty of people who turned out. And this is the bridge you an talking about a year ago . They were ferries, no bridges. They went across to the water front in San Francisco. Did somebody make a recording of this . A group had driven previously in their own private automobile. One. Most fascinating individuals to drive crosscountry was the etiquette expert emily post. Explain what were about looking at now. This is the sort of closing ceremony. They were agreemented by military personnel. Thats the mayor in the top halt. This is the Ferry Terminal in San Francisco. They were coming around that and driving toward lincoln park, compl is where they parked vehicles. You can see them going down toward lincoln park. Thats sort of the water going off what is now the golden gate bridge. Your overall assessment of this film and its impact on history . I think the trim first of all was what had the greatest impact on history because so many people saw this and this was the dawn of the automobile age and it really led people to think automobiles are really the wave of the future so i think that had a major impact. I think the film is interesting as an historic artifact and just to remind us how far weve come in really only a century because it was exactly a century ago. This, of course, had a major impact onizen how were and he said himself that trip really led him to be interested in an interstate highway system so it had major impacts in that way. He wrote a summary extended trips by trucks through the middle western parts of the states are impractical until roads are improved. It is believed that the Motor Transportation corps should pay more attention to disciplinary drills. They should be intelligent, snappy soldiers. Eisenhower, like all the other people of the convoy, so how bad the roads were. They were shocked. The military is interested in moving trucks and equipment and man across the country quickly. They knew they needed to improve roads in the west not only for the military but for civilians. The lackr wrote about of discipline early on, especially in the first two weeks of the convoy. Not usedmen who were to driving vehicles, they were more used to horse and buggy, they were not able to follow orders very well. He felt that some of the officers who did not get the discipline that they should have from the men. 1919. S is the interstate system was not created until 1956. Why did it take so long . There was interest but the Great Depression came along and there was no money. And then world war ii came along and there were other priorities. Fdr did say we need to have crosscountry highways. After the war, truman was under trumand there were some roads built but it was not until eisenhower came along that a full interstate highway act that was passed. I know you are about to make the journey again. For those who want to recreate the route, how can they do that . They can read my book, first of all. The lincoln Highway Association of thousand active members. Their annual conferences. They have been very busy promoting the lincoln highway. Keeping knowledge of it active. Go to the associations website. Look at what they have for the information they have. In each of the states along the way, tourist bureaus have information. The roads are certainly better today, but those who make the route, with a c similar topography . Yes, absolutely. They would see more farms and small towns coming up. More buildings along the way. The topography is the same. Now you have the interstates. If you want to do this fast you can get out there in just a few days. I found it a lot more fun and interesting to go on the small roads. They still go right down main street of all the small towns. Made their way through these communities, the reaction among the townspeople was what . Very enthusiastic. They had to advance men on the motorcycle saying the convoy will be here in three hours. They knew it was coming at some point. The got advance notice from two people on Harley Davidsons. They could bring out the people and have a little parade as the convoy passed for. That was important. Convoyimportance of this was what . It showed a trip like this could be done but it was challenging. If the military wanted to get Cross Country quickly, they needed to improve the roads. There were a number of civilians who were interested and better roads. Some of them has started the good roads movement. They drove along with the convoy for portions. They used this as a way to recruit more people to the movement. Press different state governments to allocate more money for highways. It was a concerted effort. For you personally, retired from the service. It was a great adventure. I met a lot of people along the way. It was gratifying for me to be able to tell this story. So many people had never heard about this. The book is entitled after i ke. Michael owen, thank you very much for joining us. My pleasure. You can watch archival founds on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series, reel america. Continuing our look at lansing, we visit the Michigan History Museum to learn about the origins of this estate, from its Indigenous Peoples to early manufacturing to becoming the car capital of the world. Tobi we are at the Michigan History Museum here in downtown lansing. We are part of state government, so our museum tells the story of michigan, all of michigan,