Events here today to celebrate woman’s 1909 cross-country drive
The first years of the new millennium have witnessed a parade of centennials celebrating Buffalo’s central role in the birth of the automobile industry.
It started in 2000 with the 100th anniversary of the Buffalo Auto Club and putt-putted forward in 2001 with the centennials of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co. and North America’s first automotive race, held in Fort Erie, Ont. Then came “Art on Wheels,” a public art project, in 2002 and last year’s tribute to the 1908 Great Race from New York City to Paris, won by a Buffalo- made Thomas Flyer.
Get ready to buckle up for yet another event reviving the memory of an automotive milestone: the first cross-country drive by a woman.
A rebuilt 1909 Maxwell with Emily Anderson of Seattle behind the wheel left New York City on Tuesday on the same route Alice Huyler Ramsey took 100 years ago on her journey across the United States to San Francisco.
Anderson ran into a setback Wednesday. The car broke down in Cobleskill, west of Albany, preventing her scheduled star turn in today’s Buffalo Transportation/Pierce-Arrow Museum celebration of Ramsey’s achievement.
The Maxwell entourage is not expected to arrive until Saturday or Sunday, said James T. Sandoro, museum president.
But festivities will proceed with a procession of vintage cars, including a Stanley Steamer, along the Main Street transit mall to One M&T Plaza for a noon performance by the Ladies First Jazz Combo.
The group will continue to the Seneca Street museum for a luncheon and tour and a talk by Patrick Mahoney about the Frank Lloyd Wright filling station to be built on the site.
An afternoon bus tour will feature the city’s automotive landmarks as well as the Darwin D. Martin House, other historic sites and the waterfront. Participating cars will be on display outside Coca-Cola Field and then circle the infield before tonight’s Bisons game — weather permitting.
Saturday’s itinerary includes a drive along Canada’s Niagara Parkway to Niagara Falls, Ont., to the Inniskillin Winery in Niagara- on-the-Lake for a reception and car display.
Anderson’s entourage is due to leave Buffalo on Sunday, stopping at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Graycliff estate in Evans before heading to Erie, Pa.
Few women drove cars in 1909, which made Ramsey’s adventure all the more remarkable. The Hackensack, N. J., resident was just 22 years old but had won several road races in upstate New York in the driver’s seat of Maxwells.
A public relations executive of Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Co. took notice and offered to sponsor the cross-country trip. She got her husband’s approval and recruited three female companions for the history-making excursion.
Anderson, accompanied by friend and navigator Christie Catanie of Colorado, plans to follow Ramsey’s route closely during the five-week trip.
Traveling in separate vehicles will be her father, Richard Anderson, who owns the restored Maxwell, and her mother, Margaret, as well as chief mechanic Tim Simonswa and his wife, Barb, of Sacramento, Calif.
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