Volume 11 , Issue 34

Looking Back ... 1909

Orville Wright demonstrates the success of the Wright brothers' airplane and wins assurance of its acceptance by the US Army in July. The brothers would establish the American Wright Company to manufacture aircraft.

The Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad reaches Seattle and becomes the seventh line to link the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast.

The first transcontinental US motorcar race pits two Model T Fords against an Acme, an Itala, a Shawmut, and a Stearns, which fails to start. Five cars leave New York June 1, 1909, and a Ford wins the race, arriving June 22, 1909, at Seattle where the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition was being held.

The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded by R. d. Chapin and Howard Earle Coffin, 35, with backing from Detroit department store magnate J. L. Hudson. Coffin is a veteran of the Olds Motor Works and has designed the Chalmers Motorcar for the Chalmers-Detroit Motor Company.

Marmon motorcars switch to water-cooled engines, and the first Marmon to compete at the new Indianapolis Speedway performs well enough to bring the car some publicity.

General Motors corporation acquires the Cadillac Motor Company from Henry M. Leland for $4.5 million. Cadillacs are made with interchangeable parts and in that respect are unusual in the fledgling automotive industry.

The first Lincoln head penny, issued by the Philadelphia Mint, replaces the Indian head penny that has been in circulation since 1864. The new 1-cent piece would not be redesigned until 1959.

Philadelphia's Shibe Park was completed for Connie Mack's Athletics at a cost of $1 million. The Athletics defeated the Boston Red Sox 8 to 1 on opening day; the 23,000 seat ball park would be Connie Mack Stadium beginning in 1953, and it would remain in use until 1970.
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