We love a good road trip, but we’re really not so far removed from a time when there weren’t any roads in Traverse City at all. What was it like when the horseless carriage came to northern Michigan? Pretty exciting, actually. 

1899 was the first busy year for automobile news, as everyone began to realize the invention was going to revolutionize most aspects of American life. In February, the Morning Record ran a full-page feature proclaiming “The Age of the Automobile,” even before one of the machines had arrived in Traverse City.  “The age of the horse is passing away,” started the manifesto. “Already the demonetization of the faithful equine might be said to be taking place,” wrote someone who very much needed an editor.

Even the purchase of an automobile made the papers. From the “Told of Michigan - Short Fresh News Stories” section of January 1899, amid stories of Saginaw divorce scandals and a warning from Big Rapids that “about a dozen Italian peddlers boarded the northbound train Monday forenoon” the Morning Record also reported that “A Grand Haven ex-marine man has purchased a horseless carriage and will operate next season between Grand Haven and the summer resort at Lake Harbor.” Hold on to your bonnets and top hats, tourists. 

Perhaps the high point of the year came during Traverse City’s Fourth of July celebration — reportedly the first time a horseless carriage was ever seen in northern Michigan. In June of 1899, the Morning Record reported on the year’s program for the annual Independence Day hullaballoo. “One of the features of the display will be a horseless carriage, to mark the departure of the horse as a means of locomotion and the introduction of more modern methods of propelling vehicles. This will be the first craft of its kind ever introduced in Michigan and will be a great feature…the outlook is for the biggest and most elaborate celebration ever witnessed in these parts,” the paper reported.

That elaborate celebration was reported on extensively in the Morning Record of July 5th. It was a rainy holiday, but “one of the greatest feats of modern electrical science” still made its way to the parade route. It was represented “by Caldwell & Loudon, whose horseless carriage attracted considerable attention, and was worthy of special notice.”

Just a couple weeks later, the Morning Record wrote that “in this age of applied science our old equine favorite is passing away. The electric gong of the automobile has sounded his death knell and now, no matter how old-fashioned cavaliers may struggle against the tide of current events, the horse, as a piece of locomotive machinery, is bound to go.”

They continue: “The automobile is clean, economical and convenient. It never eats its head off. It never balks or shies into a ditch. It does not get distemper and have to be shot … so it is no wonder that we are approaching the reign of the automobile. The king is dead! Long live the king!”

The excitement about the horseless carriage continued into the new century, even as the invention was already being used for advertising. From the June 1900 Morning Record: “Hi Henry seems to be about the first of amusement managers to use the horseless wagon and it will be seen on parade with his minstrels band of 40 pieces and his company of 50 performers…"

Another July 4th parade appearance in 1900 saw the “horseless electric carriage” also advertising Steinberg’s Grand (Opera House, a competitor to the City Opera House that operated where Amical stands today) “not only during the parade but at frequent intervals during the day, and always caused a laugh.” 

Early automobiles equaled early automobile accidents, of course: In May 1901, the Record-Eagle reported that a downstate doctor drove from Metamora to Lapeer “and near Hunter’s creek, on his way home, it is alleged that his new horseless carriage blew up. The doctor was not seriously injured.”

1905 saw even more progress come to the “asylum town” of Traverse City. The Cadillac News reported in June that “Metropolitan airs are becoming quite the thing at Traverse City. This time it’s an automobile omnibus line, succeeding the old two-horse affair, and the traveling portion of the race temporarily sojourning at the asylum town is enjoying the luxury of a ride along the streets, to and from the hotels, in a horseless carriage.” By 1907 Buckley was getting into the automotive fun, with a report from the Grand Traverse Herald calling their July 4th parade “excellent, there being thirty floats in line, led by the unique horseless carriage. The display of fireworks was excellent. Not a single person was hurt.” 

By 1908, just three months before the introduction of the Model T, the sight of a car was still making news in Traverse City. Per the Evening Record in June 1908 under the headline “HAD HIGH WHEELS,” the very first “high wheel” auto was seen on a drive down from Petoskey. “It looks like an ordinary surrey with the exception of the engine down below the body … and eight people came down in the machine, the return being made yesterday. These high wheel autos are becoming quite popular and it is probable that they will soon replace many a family horse.” 

As for Henry Ford, it’s often told that he tested the Model T in early 1908 as part of a hunting trip to Wisconsin and northern Michigan. That trip did not take him through our part of the state, though: Automotive archives from the time note that he traveled from Detroit to Chicago and up to Iron Mountain in the U.P. and back the same way. Clearly he found his way here often enough to learn to enjoy it, though – Ford began advertising for a new TC-area dealership in 1910, and he bought what’s now known as Power Island less than a decade later in 1917.