One of the first to test the limits was the guy who set off the Klondike gold rush, George Carmack. He famously brought in gold from Bonanza Creek in the Yukon in 1896 and filed claims before other stampeders got there. In 1900 he moved to Seattle with his fortune and invested in mines, real estate and recreation.
In 1902, Carmack bought a state-of-the-art car: a Mobile Model 13 Long Distance steam touring wagon. It set him back more than $70,000 in today’s dollars. It had room for his second wife, Marguerite, camping gear and a bigger-than-standard boiler for its engine.
With a puff of vapor, the Carmacks headed south on wagon and stagecoach roads and trails too small for even a two-horse team. With nothing paved, mud turned parts of the route into slick mush. At 2,000 pounds, the car and its load sometimes slid down the steep tracks of Siskiyou Pass without its wheels turning. The Carmacks drove off-road too, bushwhacking, removing large rocks and cutting trees to clear the way.
The Carmacks traveled about 60 miles per day, and it took a month to reach San Francisco. They were the first folks to take that drive. “If I had known what sort of trip it was going to be, I don’t believe I would have started,” George told the San Francisco Chronicle on arrival. “I would not go back over that route,” the sourdough declared, but he was emboldened: “I would go anywhere with that automobile now.”
George and Marguerite Carmack start their trip to San Francisco. (Wikimedia)
In the next few years autos proliferated and prices came down. Despite the lack of roads and maps, the allure of the outdoors drew steam, gasoline and electric autos and their increasingly middle-class drivers into the woods. By 1907, a smattering of horseless carriages were making their way to Mount Rainier National Park but were turned away. From Seattle, a trip to Rainier was a three-day round-trip at a minimum. Roads into the park were limited. Tacomans were especially vociferous about getting new and better roads in and around Rainier, which was the first national park to allow them in 1908. By 1924, of some 160,000 park visitors, only 12,000 didn’t come by car. Cars and scenic beauty were now wedded.
The Cascade Mountains posed a great challenge to early drivers. At Mount Hood in Oregon, an annual contest was held to see who could drive fastest and farthest up the mountain near Portland. In 1908, ranchers along the route objected to cars terrifying their livestock, but the racers continued. In 1910, a Franklin runabout made the trip in a record three hours from the Rose City to Government Camp at nearly 4,000 feet.
Getting over Snoqualmie Pass was also a goal of early autoists. Planked logging roads and dirt trails through old-growth forests were tried. Cars drove up portions of the Snoqualmie River if wooden bridges washed out. When they broke down, they had to be hauled out by old-fashioned horsepower. In 1910, three young men drove their Chalmers car from Seattle to Ellensburg. “We’re going through the pass if we have to build our own road through,” one said. They almost had to. It took a grueling three-and-a-half days, but they finally hauled themselves over.
In 1915, the Sunset Highway over Snoqualmie was completed. That year another milestone was reached: At Mount Rainier the road to Paradise was finally open to motorists, a huge boost to tourism. Joni Mitchell was right: Paradise did become a parking lot.
New roads bring an abundance of automobiles to the Paradise lot in Mt. Rainier National Park. (NPS)
As more folks drove to parks and scenic spots, local entrepreneurs introduced new devices to aid campers in making their autos a home away from home. A Spokane company made an “Indispensable Auto Bed”: a wooden bedframe that fit in the latest cars for overnight comfort. A Tacoma lumber company manufactured the “Gypsy Dyner,” a wooden pantry that could be lashed to the running board and keep camp food fresh. And some outfits designed tents that could shelter both campers and their vehicles.
A couple enjoy a picnic with help from a car tent. (NPS)
When you think about it, van life was nothing new here. The covered wagons that brought settlers across the continent were essentially vans pulled by mules and oxen. One Oregon Trail pioneer who came out was Ezra Meeker, famous for his Puyallup hop farm. In 1913, adapting to modern technology, he outfitted a 12-cylinder Pathfinder automobile with a canvas top just like the old Conestoga wagons. He called it his “Schoonermobile,” and he and a driver retraced the Oregon Trail that Meeker had first crossed in 1852.
Meeker’s trip was made possible by trailblazers like George and Marguerite Carmack on their trip from Seattle to San Francisco. They were pioneers of a new era connecting more people to our scenic splendor.
They didn’t shout “Horseless Carriages, ho!” when they set off, but they might as well have.
