Six Cars Raced to the Finish Line of the U.S.’s First Automobile Race—at Speeds of Seven Miles Per Hour

On Thanksgiving Day 1895, six cars lined up near Chicago’s Jackson Park to compete in the first automobile race held in the United States. Given the frigid conditions—30 degrees Fahrenheit and deep snow—only two were destined to finish the 54-mile round trip to Evanston and back. The average speed of the winner was seven miles per hour.

Despite these quaint statistics, America’s first car race was full of hope, drama and significance for the development of the nation’s nascent automobile industry.

This American story really begins in France in June 1895, with one of the world's first automobile races. Participants had 100 hours to make it back and forth between Paris and Bordeaux. The fastest car—a two-seater with a gasoline engine—finished in just 48 hours.

The race stimulated “great interest” in cars and racing in the U.S., writes historian James Flink in The Automobile Age. Patents related to motor vehicles skyrocketed, and less than a month afterward, the Chicago Times-Herald announced that it would sponsor the first-ever American car race that November.

The Times-Herald race was the brainchild of newspaper publisher Herman H. Kohlsaat. Inspired by the French, Kohlsaat wanted to promote American automobiles, which he believed would soon outstrip horse and carriage travel, while also celebrating the 50th anniversary of his own paper. 

The automobile industry was still so new that the paper’s editors didn’t know what to call the vehicles that would be racing. Names under consideration included the Horseless Carriage, Vehicle Motor, Automobile, Automobile Carriage and the eventual winner, Motocycle (not motorcycle).

The race was originally set to run between Chicago and Milwaukee, with a prize of $2,000 for the winner (around $75,000 today). But poor road conditions in Wisconsin prompted the organizers to settle for a more modest 54-mile round trip from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois.

"Second City Firsts": The History Of The First Automobile Race In America

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A storm the night before the race blanketed the roads with six inches of snow, prompting most of the 83 registered drivers to drop out of the competition. Just six cars made it to the starting line on the city’s South Side.

Four of the cars were gasoline-fueled; three were manufactured by Karl Benz, the German namesake of Mercedes-Benz, and the fourth was made by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. The other two cars were electric, racing not as serious contenders but instead to show off the capabilities of electric motors.

At 9 a.m., the six “motocycles” took off, though not at the thrilling high speeds that modern racing audiences crave. As they chugged along toward Evanston, each car had to make room not only for its driver, but also a race umpire to ensure they stayed on the course.

Along the way, “the Duryea lost one of its big rubber tires, and the attendants stopped to tie the big circular tube onto the wheel with ropes,” the Chicago Chronicle reported. One machine was “wrecked by a frightened horse,” and its driver and umpire “were thrown into a heap of snow on the roadside.” Another driver lost control of his vehicle and was “crushed in the rear of a streetcar.”

Only two cars finished the race. At 8:53 p.m., after more than ten hours on the road and nearly an hour of repairs, the American-made Duryea motocycle, driven by J. Frank Duryea, crossed the finish line. Second place went to a Benz car sponsored by Hieronymus Mueller & Company of Decatur, Illinois, and driven by Charles B. King.

The American-made car’s victory was a huge boon to the country’s automobile industry.

“A better test of the utility of road machines could not have been made,” Kohlsaat later said, noting the inclement conditions and celebrating the Duryea’s victory. “I feel assured that the beginning has been made in a new method of transportation.”

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.