The first car in Fremont County was a “Great Smith” purchased by J.B. Okie. Hauled by the Chicago North Western to Moneta and then driven by Okie to Lost Cabin. Earlier by a few weeks, the first car in Lusk, a one-cylinder Cadillac, was purchased by Edwin Hall. Lusk was still part of Converse County in 1906, but had a vibrant community with interests in cattle, oil, and mining.
Hall operated the Copper Belt Mines about 20 miles south of Lusk in the Rawhide Buttes. The underpowered Cadillac was later the first used car purchased in 1914 when Hall sold it to Anton Bruch.
Two years later, there were a handful of Kissell, Apperson “Jack Rabbits,” Reo, and White Steamers on the dirt streets of Lusk.
Hans Gautschi worked with Hall at the Copper Belt Mine. In 1909, Gautschi had a four-speed Studebaker.
Traveling by automobile in early 20th-century Wyoming was an adventure, sometimes a disastrous one. Gautschi decided to test his new Studebaker E.R.F. on a trip to Cheyenne. Today, a motorist can make the 140-mile trek south on U.S. Highway 85 in about two hours. That wasn’t the case in 1909.
Gautschi left Lusk at 6 a.m., he arrived in Cheyenne 15 hours later at 9 p.m. He had his Studebaker loaded with 2×6’s and used these planks often to build temporary bridges across creeks and ravines on his way south to the “Capital City.” A 15-hour trip covering just 140 miles today seems ludicrous, but it set a speed record that summer.
Hall was so impressed with the performance of his friend’s Studebaker that he bought a Studebaker E.M.F. for personal use.
In 1909, Studebaker wasn’t an independent car manufacturer. Studebaker was a wagon-building company with a history dating back to before the Civil War. The four Studebaker brothers, Clement Sr., Peter, John, and Henry saw the future and began attaching gasoline engines to wagon frames. A fifth brother, Jacob Franklin, joined the corporation later.
The brothers were excellent wagon makers, but the step from the 19th to the 20th century was one organized and driven by John’s son-in-law, Frederick Fish, an attorney for the corporation. It was Fish that combined the efforts of his father-in-law and his brothers with innovative industrialists Byron Forbes “Barney” Everitt, a carriage maker, William E. Metzger, a Cadillac dealer and race promoter, and Walter E. Flanders, an engineer with experience at Singer and Ford.
The Studebaker EMF came in either a 22- or 30-inch clearance option. Hall wisely purchased a car with an extra eight-inch clearance.
A world-famous event in 1908 piqued the interest of Hall, Gautschi, and another man, Calvin Wesley Williams. The New York to Paris race roared through Lusk in the summer of 1908.
Sponsored by The New York Times and the French newspaper Le Matin, the race covered over 22,000 miles across three continents. Originally, it was supposed to go through Alaska and across the Bering Sea to Siberia, but the weather made travel impossible. Instead, teams started from Times Square in New York City, loosely following the future route of the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco. They entered Wyoming at Van Tassell and headed into Lusk. They crossed America in 41 days, and the winning team, driving a Thomas Flyer, won the race in 169 days.
The Pacific Portion of the race took the cars by ship from San Francisco to Seattle and then across the North Pacific to Vladivostok, Russia.
Gautschi, Hall, and Williams noted that the winning car, the Thomas Flyer, had the highest clearance of any vehicle in the race.
Hall was appointed Wyoming State Engineer by Governor Bryant B. Brooks. Brooks also appointed Williams as Wyoming Immigration Agent. Williams was the publisher/editor of the Hartville Uplift, a newspaper in the booming little mining town in present-day Platte County, but in 1909, it was on the northern edge of Laramie County.
Hall and Williams were friends and came up with the idea of making a trip across Wyoming in 1909, driving the Hall Studebaker EMF.
Wyoming Tribune, June 10, 1909: “State Geologist Edwin Hall and C. W. Williams, Secretary of the State Board of Immigration, started on a tour of the mining camps of the state in Mr. Hall’s car. During this trip of 3,500 miles, mountain ranges will have to be crossed and numerous rivers and mountain streams forded. Altogether it will be an endurance test for the Studebaker.”
The Studebaker was an excellent choice for a vehicle to test sagebrush, rocky mountain passes, shallow streams, and the extreme isolation of 1909 Wyoming. Roads were almost non-existent, and those that were established were little more than cow trails, or perhaps remnants of stage and freight routes from the previous century.
“One of the first attractions of the Studebaker make was its widely advertised ease of operation, anybody could drive it and so I don’t remember if Hall ever giving me a hunch. We went to the depot, unloaded Hall’s car, put in gasoline and oil, and were soon on our way to Wheatland,” Williams remembered in a 1939 memoir.
It took them almost five days to reach Wheatland. They cut across the open range, ignoring the few roads that were in existence. From Wheatland, they drove to Guernsey, Hartville, Sunrise, Lusk, Manville, Lost Springs, and to Orin Junction.
It was a rainy June in eastern Wyoming. Surface deposits of bentonite stuck to the tires like glue. Through the heavy gumbo, it took them three weeks to reach Douglas.
“To explain briefly why it took so long, I will say we made several side trips and lingered a little bit here and there, but the chief holdbacks up to this point were high centers, mud or gumbo and bridges yet unbuilt. To say it in one mouthful: we were stuck all the way. We visited the iron mines at Sunrise,” Williams wrote. “At a copper property in the vicinity of Lusk, which my traveling companion was managing in addition to his state job, we took what I thought was a grand ride, going to the bottom of a 600-foot shaft and back, without having to push, crank or wish I had never been born.”
Most of Wyoming’s topography could be crossed by backtracking, finding alternate routes, or building simple bridges of planks that Hall and Williams carried with them. That wasn’t true for barriers like the North Platte.
“We were in and around Douglas for several days, during which time we crossed our first railroad bridge, not knowing when a train would come and, speaking for myself only, not caring very much. The vague thought had occurred to me several times and I had once passed it on to the geologist for what it might be worth, namely: that this was not forced on us; that we could go back, at least by train; that life had been more pleasant; that a bath is something, and that a clean shirt is not without circumstance. In reply he said nothing, but he would have given me the same look if I had offered to cut his throat; and I knew then that whatever happened we would do some funny stunts, crossing railroad bridges being one of them and actually developing into a habit,” Williams wrote.
Every place they passed, between Lusk, Douglas, Casper, and Lander, the geologist in Hall would come out, and he would take note of the possibility of oil in the area. They traveled from Shoshoni to Thermopolis twice, over the rugged stretches of Birdseye Pass. The Studebaker was tested to the limits, crawling through the Copper Mountains, but a dip in the hot springs relaxed the crew.
After staying in Riverton for a couple of days, they set out for the Wind River Reservation and Fort. Washakie.
“We created more excitement than an old-time trappers’ rendezvous and for a time completely upset the poise of the reservation. From the way the Indians looked, our outfit surprised them more than Brutus surprised Caesar,” Williams wrote.
Returning to Lander Hall, Williams had to take a couple of days to repair the Studebaker.
“We worked over the old bus for 48 hours, day and night, to keep the spark of life from total extinction,” Williams wrote.
The news of their exploits filled dozens of small-town newspapers. They were a hit wherever they went.
“At Basin they made our coming an occasion for something fit to eat, then spoiled the whole evening by asking us to make speeches. Hall couldn’t talk any better than he could swim, and as for me, if I couldn’t swim better than I could talk, then assuredly I wouldn’t have been there that night,” Williams wrote.
From Basin, they drove to Meeteetse and then on to Cody. The plains were hot and dry in July. They carried extra gasoline in five-gallon cans at an average price of 50 cents per gallon. Over the entire 3,500 miles, they never ran out of gas.
They arrived in Cody tired, wind-burned, and chapped by the sun and the alkali dust at dusk, seeing the town lit up with electric lights.
A quick trip to Yellowstone found the best road on the entire trek. The same wasn’t true when they tried to reach Sheridan over Beartooth Pass.
“We undertook to go east from Cody to Sheridan but found, after a week or ten days, that it wasn’t being done, except by mountain sheep and their kind. Once we shipped the Studebaker 30 miles on a flat car, gave it a ride for a change,” Williams wrote. “The loading was interesting. Hall got a couple of long, heavy planks, such as railroads used at crossings, leaned them against the flat car, at its more exposed end, jockeyed the E.M.F. up and over and we were on.”
They rode the rails from Cody to Frannie, then were back on the Studebaker. They headed east but missed the pass and ended up in the mountains, tired, hungry, and lost. They drove in circles through the Wyoming forest for a while.
“Hall gave the order to pile in. I turned the crank. And the fun began. We went round and round like something at the fairgrounds. The E.M.F. looked like the alphabet. I never saw the geologist happier, even when he was pecking on the side of a mountain with a hand-pick,” Williams wrote. “We sank into another world, different men, at least for the moment. The force of gravity was not long getting us back on the right road and shortly we were actually east of the mountains, headed south. It was a hot day, I suspect, in early August.”
They ran out of water. Radiators frequently leaked in early 20th-century automobiles, requiring frequent refilling.
“We were out of water and the engine was hot. I dug out the old collapsible canvas bucket and started. When I came to a place where cattle had congregated not long before. In their tracks was water,” Williams wrote. “As the day waned the heat became more intense and a strong wind from the northeast steadily grew stronger. Much of the time we were in our own dust. A cloud appeared in the sky behind us. It was black and ominous. We did not know what was coming, but we had misgivings and were trying to reach Hardin before it hit us.”
They were in southern Montana when a tornado tore across the countryside. The twister rolled across the prairie, destroying everything in its path.
“The livery stable (no garage) where we would have sought shelter, was wrecked, with a casualty list, including nine head of horses; while we were in the open, three miles north of town, taking all the elements had to give in our shirt sleeves, silk shirt sleeves at that and lived to tell the tale thirty years later,” Williams wrote. “We were in a fence lane when overtaken by a triple threat, hail storm, tornado and waterspout. Hall undertook to stop, but the wind was in authority and carried us to a low place in the road. I was on the receiving side. Instantly I realized, as never before, the weakness of human flesh, mine especially.”
They took most of the day to drive the three miles to Hardin, avoiding flash floods, washouts, and wind-blown debris. They discovered Hardin devastated by the tornado.
“Hardin was partially off its foundation. Some of the houses were in some of the streets and some of the streets were, more or less, in some of the houses. The livery stable we did not reach was flat like the pancakes we had had for breakfast. The hotel, however, was right side up and open for business. Our next impulse was to look in the trunk. It was heartrending. Everything was ruined, everything,” Williams wrote.
From Hardin, they had to cross the Big Horn River to return to Wyoming. It was swollen by runoff from the recent storm, and the only way across was a Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad bridge.
“The fill leading to the bridge was long, making it necessary for us to ride the ties nearly a mile before reaching the span. Getting stuck in the mud while still in town; cutting the right of way fence and repairing it; coaxing the old bus up and on the track, took time. It took time, too, to cover the distance and cross the river,” Williams wrote. “But it took nothing flat to run the Studebaker off the track and into the ditch on the other side, for a passenger train was coming, head on.”
They narrowly missed a collision with the locomotive. It took them a few hours to dig the Studebaker out of the mud alongside the tracks.
“That was our last stunt of the kind, and I mean last as definitely as Custer’s stand, in this same neck of the woods, was his last. Surprising as it seems, we were soon out of the ditch and on our way, rejoicing, rejoicing that we were not at the bottom of the river with a lot of other people whose lives we had no business jeopardizing,” Williams wrote.
They stayed with a couple on the Crow Reservation, where a man and wife served them supper and then breakfast the following morning.
“She was not only educated and mentally alert, with a good flow of English, but good looking and easy to listen to. When supper was ready they called us and left the cabin, a new log structure built by the man himself and not a bad job. We finished eating and had been out under a tree in the yard for twenty minutes or more when they returned. Going away and leaving us at the table was their method of saying, you are welcome,” Williams wrote. “We were up late that night listening to our hosts. She would talk and he would grunt. Next morning we paid the bill with folding money, which they refused but which we left on the grass at their feet, and hurried away.”
The drive to Sheridan was uneventful, and they made stops in Buffalo and Story. From Sheridan, they drove east to Gillette, then Sundance, and stopped at Devil’s Tower. They made the short run from Sundance to Newcastle and spent the evening with Wyoming senator Frank W. Mondell.
Driving down the old Cheyenne to Deadwood Trail from Newcastle to Lusk, they ran out of water again. This time, Williams was able to find water in windblown, sandstone basins at the top of rises along the trail, enough water to resupply and keep the engine cool.
“Hall, who afterwards made money in oil, was a grand companion; liberal to a fault, he always paid more than expected, rather than less, for what he got. I saw him dressed and ready to step out. I saw him in mud up to his neck. When the going was toughest he was at his best. I have treated the Studebaker something like a joke, but I want to say it had to have plenty to take what we gave it and come back alive,” Williams wrote.
Edwin Hall did make in the oil business, founding the Hall Oil Company in 1914. He discovered the Pilot Dome oilfield near Riverton and began drilling extensively.
Hall was born in Scott County, Iowa, on New Year’s Day 1866. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in metallurgy, assaying, and mine engineering. He was a respected, generous man admired by even his business rivals.
His life was cut short by stomach cancer in 1917, and he passed away in a Denver hospital at age 51. He left behind his wife Lulu Carter, and their son Edwin Carter Hall.
Calvin Wesley Williams married Ada Lillian Kinch in Benton Harbor, Michigan, on May 22, 1898. They met in Chicago, where Ada and her sister Josephine “Nettie” were in Vaudeville performing as the “De Souza Sisters”.
The couple had two children, Rue Jane, born on May 15, 1899, and Allen Leander on August 1, 1901. The couple lived in Chicago before Calvin moved the family to Hartville, where he became the publisher and editor of the Hartville Uplift.
His journalism background served him well as a Wyoming Immigration Agent. He went to work for the Workers Progress Administration in Cheyenne as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, conducting interviews and organizing demographic information for Wyoming. He retired in the early 1940s and passed soon after. Ida remarried and passed away in Cheyenne in 1959.
Williams’ belief in the people and potential of Wyoming came through in an April 1, 1909, interview in the Wyoming Industrial Journal, two months before he and Hall set out on their adventure.
“If Wyoming means anything at all it means opportunity. People in the East and elsewhere who are looking for a new location should remember that this is not only one of the newest states in the Union, but one of the least developed. Furthermore, it is one of the richest in natural resources. Without a doubt there are opportunities here that are offered nowhere else in America.
Ten years in this state to any ambitious young man should mean more to him than twenty years in Illinois, and Illinois is as good as any of the middle eastern states. This statement is made guardedly and there is no doubt about its accuracy. Those who have observed individual progress in Wyoming for any considerable length of time know that such is the case.”
When pressed for a reason why he felt so strongly about Wyoming and the state’s future, he said. “Because Wyoming is young. Because it is rich and comparatively undeveloped. Because there are as many paths leading to wealth and success here as anywhere in the world.”
He was correct in his assessment, and a 3,500-mile trek with his friend in the summer of 1909 proved it.