June 18 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Clinton, IA to Naperville, IL)

Lyons-Fulton Bridge, c.1898

"At Clinton I was nearing Chicago, within 150 miles of it, and on the morning of June 18, when I left Clinton, Ia, at 6:30 a.m., I hoped to reach it before noon on the following day. Shortly after leaving Dixon(sic. Clinton)  about two miles, I crossed the "Father of Waters" and was at last east of the Mississippi and into Illinois, where I was told at the start I never would get with my motor bicycle. The roads improved at once after crossing the great river, though I had some difficulty finding the correct one going out of Fulton, Illinois. The country in general also improved. The soil was darker and more fertile looking, and the farms had a thriving look about them that was superior to anything I had seen since leaving Sacramento. I chose the road on the north side of the Rock River, and remained on that side until I crossed the river at Dixon.

Persons of whom I made inquiry at Dixon advised me that the best thing I could do was to take the old Chicago stage road. I did so, and that road will be ever memorable to me, for on it my troubles broke out afresh. I rode from Dixon, which Is 99 miles from Chicago. Southeast about 45 miles to Earlville, and then rode northeast about 25 miles toward Aurora.

A great part of the road was so poor that I wished I had stayed on the railroad, and I learned afterward that I might have ridden on roads much nearer the tracks. Still, other parts of the road were good and I made fair time. I was getting near Aurora when the crank of my motor broke. This was the most serious accident that had happened to me, and it meant trouble. There was no possible way of repairing the damage, so, like the steamer that breaks its engine and hoists sail, I resorted to the pedals, and mighty glad I was that I had fixed the coaster brake at Cedar Rapids, so that I could pedal and did not have to walk. I pedaled about 10 miles before nightfall, and then put up at a little store at a crossroads, where they gave me accommodation for the night."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 17 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Clinton, IA)

Wyman did not account for his activities on June 17, 1903.  In the passage below, he states he departed the Stoddart Hotel in Marshalltown at 7 am, Tuesday, on "July 16"(sic - should be June 16), clearly a transcription error that made into the September 1903 issue of The Motorcycle Magazine.  (See page 145, right column, last paragraph)

"With my nerve fortified by a resolve to brazen it out with the section hands on the railroad, and a stock of interesting stories arranged in mind for their benefit, I left Marshalltown at 7 a.m. on July 16, and proceeded to the tracks of the Northwestern."

It is likely Wyman remained overnight in Cedar Rapids, repairing his motorcycle at Hall Bicycle Company on Second Avenue. Then finding overnight accommodations, departing for Clinton on the 17th of June..  It was over "77 miles" from Marshalltown to Cedar Rapids. And, another 85 miles from Cedar Rapids to Clinton. Wyman cites his daily mileage, likely traveled on June 17th.

"Darkness overtook me before I reached Clinton, and, being afraid of smashing into something. I walked the last few miles into that place, arriving at 9 p.m., after having covered eighty-five miles."

Wyman's next date/time reference is when he departs Clinton at 6:30 am on June 18, heading north to cross the Mississippi over the "Lyons-Fulton Bridge."  There is another transcription error in the reference to "Dixon" instead of Clinton.  Dixon is community east of and after going through Fulton, just across the Mississippi river.  Wyman goes on to mention "Fulton" correctly in the passage below.  (See page 147, first full paragraph)

"At Clinton I was nearing Chicago, within 150 miles of it, and on the morning of June 18, when I left Clinton, Ia, at 6:30 a.m., I hoped to reach it before noon on the following day. Shortly after leaving Dixon(sic. Clinton)  about two miles, I crossed the "Father of Waters" and was at last east of the Mississippi and into Illinois, where I was told at the start I never would get with my motor bicycle. The roads improved at once after crossing the great river, though I had some difficulty finding the correct one going out of Fulton, Illinois."

It is remarkable there are relatively so few transcription errors in the whole of the Wyman narrative.  If you think of the communication flow-process that was necessary to end in the final printed copies of The Motorcycle Magazine articles.

Wyman would have to keep a journal of his daily progress, noting dates, times, locations and a descriptive narrative about activities.  He also had with him a Kodak Vest Pocket camera that he used to take pictures along the way.

At the end of each riding day, after tending to the motorcycle, getting fed and securing lodging, he would compile his notes into a narrative suitable for publication.  Then, depending on the telegraph, telephone and postal services available in the place he stopped for the night, he had to package it up and send it to Goodman Company publishing facilities in San Francisco and/or New York City.  He never mention getting film developed so one can assume it was sent to the publisher for processing.  Also, we imagine the editorial staff at the Goodman Company offices would polish the narratives before sending the copy to the press for typesetting and printing.  So, the opportunity for "copy errors" were ever present.

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 16 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Marshalltown to Clinton, IA)

"With my nerve fortified by a resolve to brazen it out with the section hands on the railroad, and a stock of interesting stories arranged in mind for their benefit, I left Marshalltown at 7 a.m. on July(sic) 16, and proceeded to the tracks of the Northwestern. Imagine a man so anxious to ride a bicycle over railroad ties that he would lie awake at night planning how to prevaricate to the section men! My luck in the gentle art of telling fairy stories was variable. Some passed me on with a doubtful look, but others were rude enough to refuse me credence and order me "back to the highway." Although I was east of there, I was like the man going to Omaha, who persistently returned after being put off the railroad train. Some section bosses and track walkers I went past, others I went around, and by using road and rail bed alternately I kept making headway. In this section of the country I saw more Indians than I did in all that portion of the country west of the Missouri. There is a reservation at Tama, Iowa, through which place I passed and most of the Indians I saw were

G.Wyman

from there. They were tame redskins, given to the wearing of shirts and coats and trousers, and to agricultural pursuits. In fact, one sees few blanket Indians in this locality. Once, while I was on the road I tried to get a snapshot of one of the parties of Indians that I met in wagons. There was a squaw in the party, and she yowled like a coyote when I pointed the camera at her and made haste to cover herself with a blanket, for most of the Indians have not gotten over the superstition that, like the man's watch in the photograph gallery, their soul is taken in any picture of them. This squaw waved her arms and threw herself about so that I thought she would fall. I persevered, however, and got a snapshot; although it was an unsatisfactory one, because, after all, it shows only the Indian lady seated in the wagon with a blanket over her head.

Five miles from Cedar Rapids my batteries got so weak that my motor began to miss and finally gave out. When I tried to pedal the clumsily repaired coaster brake it broke again and I had to walk into Cedar Rapids. The rapids, which I passed as I entered the city, were pretty, but I, plodding along and pushing my bicycle envied their rapidity more than their beauty. I traveled about 77 miles this day, though the distance by rail from Marshalltown to Cedar Rapids is only 69 miles.

Hall Bicycle Co. 2nd Ave.
Cedar Rapids, IA c.1903

When I reached Cedar Rapids my bicycle needed attention more seriously than at any previous time, and this was not to be wondered at, for it had carried me more than 2,300 miles. I went to a bicycle store on Second Avenue where I soldered the loose sprocket lock nut on to the hub. My handlebars were cracked near the head, where holes are drilled for the wires, so I brazed a piece of reinforcing onto them. Leaving Cedar Rapids, I found the roads still muddy, and, as the country is of rolling character, I sought the railroad, but I found the bed so strewn with sharp rocks that I returned to the wagon road. Why I did not get lost several times In this country I do not know. The telegraph poles branched off at every crossroad, and it was simply a toss-up to decide which was the line of poles to follow. The roads were a little better east of Cedar Rapids, which itself has splendid roads, but they were still wet and in places sandy. Darkness overtook me before I reached Clinton, and, being afraid of smashing into something. I walked the last few miles into that place, arriving at 9 p.m., after having covered 85 miles."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 15 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Ogden to Marshalltown, IA)

"At Ogden I found a blacksmith, and had him cut a new thread on my rear axle, and we wedged the lock-nut of the coaster on with pieces of brass so that it would act properly. Ogden is in a fine farming district on rolling land, and going out of the place there it fine view across the mountains. I had a good chance to look around, for it was 11:30 o'clock before I got my coaster brake fixed so that I could start. I rode 11 miles on the road to Boone, a town with model asphalted streets, and there I had luncheon, after which I sought the railroad tracks. After a while I met a section foreman, in the person of a big Swede, who ordered me off the track bed. No amount of blarney would persuade him even to let me continue to a crossroad. I must get off the railroad property right then and there. The harshness of this edict became apparent when I had to climb through a barbed wire fence, drag my motor cycle after me and then walk with it for half a mile through a grain field before I reached a road. The prospect of being caught by the farmer while I was in the act of trampling down his grain did not add to my cheerfulness of mind during this enforced detour. 

Shortly after I got started at riding on the road again my wheel twisted in a rut and I fell in a heap with the machine. In this fall I broke my cyclometer, the fourth one smashed since leaving San Francisco. I had been thoroughly subdued by my two days experience with the Iowa gumbo, and I did not swear over this mishap. I was taking everything with becoming humility by this time, and my most fervent hope was simply that it would not rain until I got safely out of the country. Fortunately it had not rained since I left Council Bluffs, and the mud I was encountering was simply that left over from the flooding storms of the previous week. I knew that if it rained before I

Stoddart Hotel, c.1905
Marshalltown, IA

got out of the region I would be laid up for days, for the roads get so bad during a rain that horses cannot make their way along them. Horses have been stuck in the roads out that way so badly that it was necessary to hoist them out with tackle. After my fall I returned to the railroad tracks, determined to take a chance with the section hands in preference to the chances of the road. I had no more difficulty with the railroad men, and eventually reached Marshalltown at 7 p.m. with 71 miles to my credit for the day. By following the railroad tracks I missed passing through Des Moines, which is on a spur of the road down from Ames. At Ames I stopped and got a new screw for my carburetor valve, which was damaged by the same fall that broke my cyclometer. At Marshalltown I registered at a hotel run by a widow and her sons. After supper I gave my belt a lacing and went to bed."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 14 - Across America on a Motor Cycle

(Denison to Ogden, IA)

"I started from Denison at 8 a.m., taking to the railroad. After going five miles the roadbed became so bad that I could not ride, and I sought the highway. This did not help me much, for I was able to ride only a little way at a time, and then walk anywhere from 100 yards to a mile. My coaster brake, which had begun to give me trouble the day before, became on this day a coaster broke. The threads of the axle were stripped, and, while the brake would not work, the coaster worked overtime, so that I could not start the bicycle by pedaling; I had to run it along and then hop on. 

This day, July(sic) 14, was the hottest I had yet encountered. My clothing was drenched with perspiration, and it was hard to decide whether it was easier and cooler walking or riding. I hated the task of dismounting every half mile, walking in the gumbo mud and pulling my feet out at each step as if I was breaking them away from the hold of a rubber rope; yet when I was walking it seemed about as easy to keep at it as to start the motor by running along with it and jumping on, knowing that I was apt to fall immediately, as I did several times because of the ruts, and knowing, also, that if I did not fall as soon as I mounted that I was likely to be compelled to dismount after going 500 yards. One fall that I got through performing this stunt of running with the bicycle and jumping aboard on the rutty road nearly laid me up, I fell and struck my knee so hard that I had to sit down and nurse my strength for a quarter of an hour. My leg was lame for a couple of days. It was all I could do to keep going, and had the blow been a little harder I would have been crippled. It may be tiresome to react about the hard luck passages of my trip, but it is less tiresome than enduring them; arid they all come back to me so vividly that the story would seem incomplete without some of these mishaps. At best, the hard knocks pale in description. and I try to state them mildly. In actual fact, some of them were sources of real agony. It was not a sentimental journey at any stage, nor a humorous one, and often I was too sadly used up to perceive what humor there might have been in a situation, though usually I am not slow in catching any glint of humor there may be abroad. I must have appeared comical at many times, but unfortunately we have not been blessed by the gods with the gift "to see ourselves as others see us," and so missed many a laugh and smile at my own appearance. 

A part of the aggravation of this hot day was due to the remarks of those I met on the road. “What's the trouble?" "Puncture?" "Motor busted, eh?" These were some of the queries and comments I had hurled at me as I floundered along through the mud.  Sometimes the remarks were uttered from sincere solicitude, sometimes from mere curiosity, and occasionally from a desire to ridicule. "Why don't you ride?" was several times asked by persons who really did not understand why a motor bicycle could not go through anything. There is, in fact, a great deal of ignorance still remaining among the farmer folk as to the limitations of a bicycle. They seem sometimes to think that it must be able to skim on the surface of sand and mud, run through water, or on a telegraph wire, or anywhere; yet, on the other hand, there is great incredulity as to the ability of anyone going any great distance. The worst taunt I got while walking and pushing the bicycle came from a grizzled farmer old enough to be more polite to strangers. He called out: "Hey, young fel'! Is it any easier walkin' in that gumbo when yer push one o' them things along-side?"  The paradoxical ideas of the farmers about my bicycle were revealed in the evening when I arrived at a small place called Ogden after covering 76 miles. While I was talking about my trip and telling of the troubles of the daunting journey there were several expressions of disbelief in my story of having come from San Francisco, and I was told that I couldn't get to Chicago with a "little thing like that." At almost the same time a man solemnly asked me why I didn't avoid all the bad going by riding on the steel rail, he having no doubt of the ability of a me to ride right along on a rail without any attachment."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 13 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Council Bluffs to Denison, IA)

"I left Council Bluffs at 6:30 a.m. on June 13, and, in spite of what Mr. Smith had told me, I felt glad to know that I had crossed the Missouri, for, with the "Big Muddy" at my back, my journey was two-thirds over. I started on the roadway and followed it nearly 40 miles to Woodbine. The June floods had preceded me surely enough and the roads were so muddy that I could hardly force the bicycle along. I took a snapshot of my bicycle in one place where it

G.Wyman

was kept upright by the mud. Where the roadbed was not muddy it had dried with deep ruts and "thank you, ma'ams" in it. I frequently had to get off and walk for short stretches, wading through the mud or getting over the ruts. I had gone about 10 miles from Council Bluffs, riding and walking alternately, when I got off to foot it past a bad piece, and discovered that the jolting over the rough places had loosened the bundle in which I had my tools and parts and they were all gone. I did not care to leave my bicycle by the roadside for any tramp or small boy who might come along to fool with, so I trundled it along back with me hunting in the mud for my lost tools. I do not believe in profanity, but my unbelief in this respect was greatly helped by the experience. In the course of two miles I recovered everything except the pump connection and a small bundle of battery wire. After regaining my tools and starting to ride again I had not gone a mile before I ran into a rut and the machine slewed and hurled me into a slough of mud about 10 feet away. The mud along that part of the world is of the gumbo variety, that sticks like glue when it is moist and dries as hard and solid as bricks. I held quite a good sized tract of Iowa real estate when I arose, but I reflected that it was better to have landed in a soft spot than it would have been to have struck a place where the flinty ruts were sticking up five inches like cleavers with ragged edges. This philosophical reflection served to modify my exclamations at the time, and I went on carrying the mud as a badge of membership in the grand order of hoboes, to which I felt at this time that I belonged. Nor was the mud, both wet and dry, the sum of my troubles. It was a rolling country, with plenty of farms about. Through which I was traveling, and I met quite a number of wagons. Motor vehicles of any sort are not common enough thereabouts as yet for the horses to be unafraid of them. Eight out of ten horses I met wanted to climb a telegraph pole or leap the fence at the sight and sound of my harmless little vehicle, and the farmers used language that would make a pirate blush. I was frankly expecting any one of them to pull a gun and take a shot at me during all my 40 miles on the road that forenoon.

One experience of the road that day, in which I tried to play the part of a gallant, mud-covered though I was, but succeeded only in becoming unpopular and ridiculous, occurred when I met a buggy containing a couple of maiden ladies past the boom of youth. At an eighth of a mile away or more, the animal they were driving began to cavort and show insane alarm. The women screamed, and I dismounted as quickly as I could, and laid the bicycle down in the gully at the roadside. One of the women got out and tried to lead the animal. He did not lead very well, either, and I approached, intending to take him by the bridle, quiet him and then let the lady return to the seat and remain there while I led the refractory brute. Usually I get along well with horses, but this one went crazy when I got near him. He acted like a rocking horse, standing first on his hind legs and then on his front ones, and kicking out in the rear to the accompanying screams of the women. I supposed I smelled motory or looked it. At any rate, he would not be quiet as long as I tried to hold him, and I had to shamefacedly retire from view and let the spinster return to his head. I felt foolish, and must have looked it, for the woman in the carriage glared at me with manifest contempt and indignation while her partner in single blessedness led their good steed forward. The beast did a hornpipe as he passed the place where my bicycle lay in the gully, and the last I saw of him he was ambling along and shying every 10 yards after both women were again in the buggy. I started on my journey again, wondering if they bred fool horses especially for old maids in that region.

G.Wyman

About 20 miles from Omaha, at Lovelands, I took a picture of an orchard and field still under water from the rains. This was not the only place of the sort by a great deal, but it gives an idea of how the country suffered and how I suffered. At Woodbine I concluded to take to the railroad tracks to escape the affectionate hugging of the gumbo mud and the objurgations (sic) of the farmers, a number of whom told me I "ought to keep that thing off the road altogether." I went on the tracks of the Northwestern, and had not ridden far before I was ordered off by a section boss. This was the first time this thing happened to me, but it was not the last time. The railroad waves in and between the bluffs there, so that there is hardly a straightaway stretch a hundred yards long, and It is because of the danger due to the many sharp curves that no one is allowed on the tracks. After making a detour through the fields, I returned to the tracks, but I was chased off a second time, and then I shifted my route over to the tracks of the Illinois Central about 50 feet the other side of the Northwestern rails, and I had no more trouble with the section bosses. I reached Denison at 8 p.m., after covering only 75 miles in 13½ hours. I found a comfortable commercial hotel, with modern improvements, at Denison, and had It not been for the roads I would have thought I was well out of the wilderness. I had to have my driving belt sewed again that night, and it was midnight before I went to bed."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL

• June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 12 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Omaha, NE to Council Bluffs, IA)

"Although it was evening when I reached Omaha, Nebraska, on June 11, I at once hunted up the largest bicycle store and repair shop I could find in the city - that of Louis Flescher, 1622 Capitol Avenue - and began putting my machine in trim for the last 1,600 miles of my trip. I found that six new spokes were needed, and, after putting them in and truing up the wheels, I put on a new belt rim to replace the old one, which had been literally chewed up by the rocks along the road. It looked, in fact, as if it might have been a rail on the manger of a cribbing horse. Also, I put on the second one of the pair of tires that I got at Ogden and soldered up a small leak in the gasoline tank. Knowing that from that time on I would be able to get almost anything I needed, I decided to remove my carrier, with its extra gasoline tank and tools, and ship them to Chicago. I kept only a pump, a tire repair outfit, a wrench, a spark plug and my lubricating oil. All this was not done at night. It took me until 1:30 o'clock the next day to finish my work, and then I had lunch.

It was three o'clock on June 12 when I left Omaha. The streets of that city are fine, many of them having vitrified brick pavement. It might have been all imagination, or the exhilaration I felt at leaving the deserts and the Rockies behind me, but the bicycle seemed to skim the earth like a swallow as I started for the steel bridge across the Missouri River to Council Bluffs, Iowa. The carrier and its freight made the load lighter, and the fine pavement had much to do with it, but the difference seemed greater than could be accounted for by these things. At the time it seemed to me as if I was having the finest ride of my lifetime. Unwitting I cheated the toll collector at the bridge and crossed over into Iowa without paying anything. I was going at a smart pace when I reached the bridge and had gone along on it some distance when I heard a man shouting to me. I learned afterward that he was the toll collector. I glanced back and saw him waving his arm excitedly, but at the time I thought he was expostulating because I was riding between the tracks, so I kept on and, as far as l am aware he did not undertake to pursue me or have me stopped. 

At Council Bluffs I made the acquaintance of Mr. Smith, of the Nebraska Cycle Company, who has traveled all over the country. He sent the barometer of my new-born confidence and enthusiasm down. From what he told me of the roads and the condition in which I would find them at that time, after all the rainy weather, I about made up my mind that I would have to ride on the railroad ties all the way to Chicago. Perhaps it was the effect of what he said that led me to explore Council Bluffs to a greater extent than I had any other place through which I passed, though, truth to tell, there was not opportunity for exploring in more than a very few, most of my stops west of Omaha having been at places that could be seen at one glance - "tout ensemble," as the Frenchmen say. The brick pavement of the Council Bluffs streets is superior to anything I ever saw before and I have seen some fine roads in Australia and other countries. It is laid with such scientific method and such consummate art that you might think you were riding on a board floor when rolling over it. 

It had been my design when I started to take the more southerly route from Omaha, by way of Kansas City and St. Louis to Chicago, because I understood that, although the distance Is greater, I would find better riding by so doing. When I came along, however, all that country was under water, one might say, so I decided to follow the route of the Northwestern Railroad past Ames, from which a spur of the road runs south to Des Moines. For the credit of the country, I hope the southerly route is better than the one I followed. On the whole, Iowa gave me as much vile traveling as any State that I crossed."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903

June 11 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Columbus to Omaha, NE)

"I left Columbus, Nebraska at 7:40 a.m. My start was later than usual, because I had to wait to get gasolene. They do not keep it in the stores there, but a wagon goes around in the morning to the various houses and supplies what they want for the day. I had to take to the railroad once more from the outset. After going 28 miles over the ties I noticed that the roads looked better, and I rode on them for the rest of the day, stopping at Fremont for dinner and arriving at Omaha at 5:30 p.m.

At Omaha I feel that my self-imposed task was as good as accommodated. The roughest and most trying part of the country has been crossed, and I have traveled more than 2,000 miles of the total distance. I have reached the great waters of the Missouri; the promised land of the East, where I hope to find good roads, lies ahead of me. My anticipations of what lies before me are bright."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 10 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Kearney to Columbus, NE)

"The roads were still impassible going out of Kearney, and I followed the railroad tracks to Grand Island, and even then I had to walk over several short stretches where it was sandy, and every half mile I had to dismount for the crossing of the wagon road, the highway being in such vile condition that its dirt was piled upon the tracks so that I could not ride through it. In the 11 miles between Grand Island and Chapman, where I stopped for dinner, I broke six spokes. I rode, with the rear wheel thus weakened, over the ties 10 miles to Central City, where I stopped for repairs. 

I left Central City at 4:45, and rode 44 miles to Columbus, arriving there at 8:25 p.m. This made 108 miles for the day and I felt satisfied. On this day again I narrowly escaped being lifted from the roadbed by an engine pilot. It was a fast mail train this time. I was riding along outside the rail, where the space between the rail and edge of the embankment was only six inches, and I could not look around without danger of banging into the rail or slipping over the edge. I did not hear the train until the whistle sounded, when the engine was within 100 feet of me. I just went down that embankment as if I had been pushed."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 9 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Maxwell to Kerarney, NE)

"I left Maxwell at 7:15 a.m. on June 9, and followed the wagon road for the first eight miles. Then it got so sandy that I took to the railroad. I remained on the tracks for 12 miles, and then tried the road again. After an hour on it, the mud began to be so thick that riding was impossible, and I then returned to the railroad and stuck to it until I reached Lexington, where I had dinner. When I emerged from the dining room it was raining so hard that it would have been folly to have attempted to ride. My batteries required attention, and by chance I met J.S. Bancroft, who has the most complete bicycle and automobile repairing

Looking west, c.1900

station that I saw between Cheyenne and Omaha. Mr. Bancroft stopped when he saw me at work on the batteries and invited me to his store. He is a motor bicycle rider, using a 2 1/2-horsepower Columbia. I lost an afternoon in Lexington, but it stopped raining at 5 p.m., and I went over to the railroad and made a run of 20 miles in an hour and a half to Elm Creek, where I had supper. I was anxious to make all the mileage I could, so after supper I started again, and by 8:20 p.m. I had ridden 16 miles more and was at Kearney, where I put up for the night. I had a fall and broke my ammeter in this last stretch. I had the same experience with my watch back in Nevada. A note in my diary, made at Kearney reads:

'There are some of the greatest pace followers of their size in the world in this region. A bunch tacked on to me back at Ogallala, and for two days I have been unable to shake them. It looks as if they will stay with me all the way into New York. The natives call them gnats. They bite like hornets.' "

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 8 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Ogallala to Maxwell, NE)

c.1900

"It is now the time of the heavy rains, cloudbursts and freshets that devastated so much of the Western country during the month of June. It is my luck to be right in the particular great basin where the waters flow most copiously. At Ogallala, Nebraska, I was told that there had been nothing but rain there for the last two weeks. The roads were in terrible condition, I know, when I left there at 6:45 o'clock, on the morning of June 8. After 10 miles of heavy going through the mud, I struck sand, and then took to the railroad track once more. After going six miles over the ties it began to rain so hard that I had to get off and walk three miles to the station at Paxton. There I waited for three hours until it stopped raining, and set out again at 12:30 o'clock. From there it is just 31 miles to North Platte, and as the sun had come out, I returned to the road. I found it good in places and sandy in spots. There was one stretch, two miles long, so sandy that I had to walk it. It was like being back again in the deserts. I got gasoline at North Platte and pushed on 16 miles to Maxwell, which made 70 miles for the day's travel.

Maxwell is a little bit of a place, and I had to take accommodation in a room that had three beds in it. A couple of surveyors were in one of the other beds, and at midnight, a commercial traveler was ushered in and given the third bed. I was fortunate in having a bed to myself at all the small places, for "doubling up" is quite the common thing where accommodations are limited. One more cyclometer was sacrificed on the ride from Ogallala to Maxwell, snapped off when I had a fall on the road. I do not mention falls, as a rule, as it would make the story one long monotony of falling off and getting on again. Ruts, sand, sticks, stones and mud, all threw me dozens of times. Somewhere in Emerson I remember a passage about the strenuous soul who is indomitable and "the more falls he gets moves faster on." I would like to see me try that across the Rockies. I didn't move faster after my falls. The stones out that way are hard."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 7 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Kimball to Ogallala, NE)

"On Sunday morning, June 7, I left Kimball, Nebraska, and made the biggest

G.Wyman

day's run that I scored west of the Mississippi. It is a fine, grain-growing country that I rode through from Kimball, which is a prosperous town. For the first 12 miles the country was rolling and the roads sandy. After that I found good hard roads all the way to Sidney, 35 miles from Kimball, and I made it in just three hours, reaching Sidney at 10:15. When I rode into the place, which is a division town, I passed as tough a bunch of citizens as I met all through the West. They were young fellows loafing on a corner, and they tossed all manner of taunting comment at me, as if inviting trouble. I kept on my way without replying, which was wise, but not easy to do. After getting some gasolene(sic), I left at 10:30, and had no trouble making Chappell at 12:15, where I had dinner. 

G.Wyman

I started again at 1:07 p.m., and quickly found that the good road was at an end. It became so bad, in fact, that I took to the railroad and rode the ties most of the way into Ogallala, 114 miles from Kimball. Of this distance I made the first 65 miles in five hours, and had I had as good going in the afternoon as I had in the morning, I would have made 140 miles. It began to rain shortly before I got to Ogallala, and I had to pedal over the last 15 miles. Of the 114 miles I made this day, 46 were ridden in the State of Colorado, for the railroad and road both put in a bend from Chappell southward to get to the South Platte River at Julesburg, Colorado and then the road follows the river valley back again into Nebraska; so that 46 miles was all of Colorado I saw. I found one good stretch of road five miles long in the 46 and this was a relief from the railroad ties so I blessed it and took a snapshot of it for a Colorado souvenir. Ogallala is only a "little jerkwater station," as they say in this country, but it was nightfall when I reached there, and it was raining hard, so I put up there for the night."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 6 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Cheyenne, WY to Kimbell, NE)

"It was raining a little when I left Cheyenne, and the roads were too heavy to ride. I took to the railroad again, and the railroad ties were not much better than the road. For 43 miles I had to pedal. If you ever went for a ride on a tandem and took your best girl, or some other fellow's best girl, and she was a heavyweight, and about 30 miles from home she gave out and you had to do all the pushing to get home, you have a slight idea how I felt pushing the motor over the railroad ties. I got to Egbert at 12:45 and had dinner at the section house there. It is downhill all the way now. I have turned my back upon the Rockies and their grandeur and am nearing the great prairie lands. I can see Elk Mountain, which, with its snow-capped peak is a landmark for hundreds of miles around and in spite of the troubles I have had in the rocky country, I feel somewhat regretful at leaving it. I do not know what troubles the prairies hold for me, and I shall miss the inspiration of the mountain air, the gorgeous view, and the coyotes and the glimpses of antelope that I caught a couple of times back near Laramie. One new sight I do have is that of prairie dogs, and as they sit beside their holes and yelp at me I take several pot shots at them. They dodge into their burrows so quickly that you cannot tell whether you hit them or not: even when shot through the head or heart these creatures dodge into their holes to die. It began to rain when I had gone a mile and a half from the station house, and, remembering my last experience with the rain and the gumbo mud, I turned back and waited at the telegraph operating room until the middle of the afternoon, when the rain slackened. I got to Pine Bluffs on the state line between Wyoming and Nebraska, at 4:40 p.m. To furnish an idea of how rapidly I have come down it may be mentioned that at Pine Bluffs the elevation is 5,038 feet, and this is only 90 miles from the summit, where the elevation is 8,590 feet, a drop of 3,500 feet in less than 100 miles.

During my first few miles of travel in the state of Nebraska I was nearly killed by a freight train. l was riding alongside the track, close to the outer rail, where the dirt over the ties is level, and a strong wind was blowing in my face, so that I did not hear the rumble of the train. Suddenly I heard the loud shriek of the whistle right in my ears. I looked back and the train was not more than 10 yards away. I just had time to shoot down the embankment, which, luckily, was only about four feet high at that place when the train ran past me. As it was, the engineer had whistled "down brakes" and was scared himself. It is fortunate that I was not riding between the tracks at the time, or I would have surely had to sacrifice my bicycle to escape with my life. If it had been a fast passenger train and got that close to me, it would have hit me before I got out of the way. This was worse than the mountains, for nothing that happened there came so near to causing heart failure. I got to Kimball, 65 miles from Cheyenne at 6:50 p.m. They told me there that the roads are good when it is not raining. I had to take their word for it, and conclude that I still carry some sort of a hoodoo with me, in spite of having shed my fancy waistcoat, for when I get into a region of good roads it rains and spoils them, and when it doesn't rain I am in a district where the roads are never good."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 5 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Layover in Cheyenne, WY)

"The next morning I washed and pinned up my rags as best I could and went out to replenish my wardrobe. I must indeed have been a tough-looking specimen the night before, because the first place I went into in the morning, a furnishing store, the dog growled at me savagely and disputed my entrance until called off by his owner. It rained hard all day, and I remained in Cheyenne. while there I weighed myself and found that I was 12 pounds under my normal weight, the scales tipping at 141 pounds. I spent most of the day cleaning and fixing my wheel. Again, I aimed a hose on it, and after that I had to use a scraper and brushes before I could get down to work with a rag. I worked in the bicycle shop of G.D Pratt while there, and he extended me every courtesy."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 4 - Across America on a Motor Cycle

(Laramie to Cheyenne, WY)

G.Wyman

"Up in the air was the program from Laramie - almost straight up it seemed to me at times, so steep was the road. They told me in the town that by leaving the railroad and taking the road over the ridge I would save 20 miles. Maybe I did. I went over the "ridge" anyway. I climbed steadily for 8 miles, and when I reached the summit I was at the highest point I touched in my entire trip, and higher up than I ever was in my life before. The altitude at the top is 8,590 feet. Going up I followed a narrow trail full of stones and sharp twists around boulders and the best guide I had to keep from going wrong was the hoof-prints of the presidential party that had gone over the summit the day before. It would have been easy to have lost the trail had it not been for the hoof-prints, but I followed them and knew that I was right, for the President's party had a guide. At the summit is a flagstaff, put there by a survey party I believe, and someone in the Presidential party had hoisted a handkerchief on it the day before, so I took a snapshot of it. Then, before I left I rested myself by putting this inscription on the pole: "G.A. Wyman, June 4, 1903, 11:30a.m. - First motorcyclist to cross the Rockies, going from San Francisco to New York."

While I was on this summit, it clouded up and began to thunder ominously. I had no more than started on the descent than it began to rain in torrents. The water just dropped from the clouds as if they were great lakes with the bottoms dropping out. In one minute I looked as if I had been fished out of a river. There was no place to seek shelter. either(sic), not even a small tree, for the mountaintop is "bald," so I had to keep going. After running down about three miles my belt would not take hold and I had to get off and walk. So long as I was on the ridge where the ground was all rocks it was not so bad, but when I began to get down to the lower-lying land my trouble settled upon me in earnest. Down at the bottom I struck gumbo mud, and it stuck me. Gumbo is the mud they use in plastering the crevices of log louses. It has the consistency of stale mucilage and when dry is as hard as flint. It sticks better than most friends and puts mucilage to shame. When you step in it on a grassy spot and lift your foot the grass comes up by the roots. My wheel stood alone in the gumbo whenever I wanted to rest, and that was pretty often. Every time I shoved the bicycle ahead a length I had to clean the mud off the wheels before they would turn over again. I kept this up until finally I reached a place where I could not move the bicycle another foot. It sunk into the gluey muck so that I could not shove it either forward or backward. I found that it had taken me two hours to travel half a mile, and I could not see New York looming in front of me with any particular prominence. In fact, I could not see a sign of any settlement or human habitation anywhere, and I was in a quandary what to do. I had set out to travel to the Atlantic coast with my motor bicycle, and thus far I had done so, though I had done some walking, I did not like to part with the machine right there, for in the long run, the walking would be worse than the riding. I finally left the bicycle sticking bolt upright in its bed of gumbo mud and set out to find a place where someone lived. This move led me to a pleasant experience, the hospitality of the Wyoming ranchers.

After walking two miles I came to a ranch house, and I was lucky to find it for there is not another house within seven miles. The young man I met there immediately hooked up a team of horses and went back with me and pulled the wheel out of the mudhole. When I got to the house my rescuer, who was R.C. Schrader, of Islaly(sic) Station, Wyoming lent me a hose, and with the aid of a stream of water and a stick, I got the machine fairly clean after an hour of hard work. Mr. Schrader was a hearty host. I had eaten nothing since an early breakfast, and it was then 5 p.m. He made me stop and eat, and then, as I insisted on pushing along, he showed me the way to the railroad track. I was glad to see the ties again. It was about 20 miles to Cheyenne, and I walked most of the way, arriving there at 10:30 p.m. About an hour after I left the Schrader farm it began to rain and kept it up till I was within two miles of Cheyenne. When I reached there I was a sight for men and dogs. I was mud and tatter from head to feet. A colony of tramps would have been justified in repudiating me, for my face had been washed in streaks and the mud remaining on it was arranged as fantastically as the war paint of an Indian buck. My shirt is splashed with mud, too, and I miss my vest because I could remove it and make a better front in the town, I have missed that waistcoat all the afternoon, for there was snow mingled with the rain and I was cold: but I took off he vest, a light, fancy affair, some time before reaching Laramie and threw it away because I took a notion it was a hoodoo.

With my coat torn in several places and one sleeve of it hanging by a thread, my leggings hanging in shreds, no waistcoat on, dripping wet and splashed with mud all over, I checked my bicycle at the baggage room of the railroad station and set out to find a room in Cheyenne. "All full" was the word I got at the first hotel, and at the next it was the same. After I had tried three and been refused, I was satisfied that it was my appearance that was the reason. To make the matter worse, I discovered that my big ".38" revolver had worn a hole in my pocket and was sticking through so that it showed plainly between the torn part of my coat. I must have looked like a "bad man" from the wilds that night, and, realizing this, I made it a point to tell my story In explanation, after I had been refused accommodations at the hotels. After visiting a couple of boarding houses and being turned away I finally found a woman who kept furnished rooms, who eyed me suspiciously and said she had no room, but would fix me up a cot. She listened to my story and finally fixed me up a nice room, and I stayed there two nights. "

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3

Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

Wyman Memorial Plaque Dedication - Kearney Nebraska

The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument Partners With the George A. Wyman Memorial Project to Celebrate a Historic Ride

Imagine in 1903 being the first person to complete a transcontinental trip across the United States using a motorized vehicle. George A. Wyman did just that on a 50-day ride using a single cylinder, 1.25 horsepower 1902 “California” motorcycle. Starting in San Francisco and ending in New York City, most of Wyman’s route across Nebraska closely followed the Great Platte River Road. In recognition of that historic event The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument along with the George A. Wyman Memorial Project will be dedicating a Wyman Memorial Plaque & Waypoint sign at the Monument as part of the Archway’s 25th Anniversary celebration on June 14th 2025.

For 25 years The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument has told the story of one of the most important transportation routes in American history. With its outstanding museum exhibits and expansive campus grounds located adjacent to the landmark Archway across I-80, the Archway Monument has consistently been ranked as the Number 1 tourist attraction in Nebraska. Stacy Schwartz, Executive Director of The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument stated, “Working with the George A. Wyman Memorial Project to establish an official Wyman Waypoint on our campus grounds will add another important chapter to the history of the Great Platte River Road and is an oft forgotten part of the roads’ history. We look forward to everyone joining us on June 14th to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Archway Monument and dedication of the Wyman Waypoint.”

The Archway Monument with its focus on the history of the Great Platte River Road is a most fitting location for a Wyman Waypoint. 

Additional information on The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument and their 25th Anniversary Celebration 

Special thanks to David & Tracy Hoover, Wyman Memorial Project Waypoint Coordinator for Nebraska and Iowa. They are also the sponsors for the Wyman Memorial Plaque for waypoint 609-3 Kearney.  

 

 

June 2 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Walcott to Laramie, WY)

"From Walcott, which I left at 6:30 a.m., it is uphill traveling eastward all the way to Laramie. I passed through the mining town of Hanna, peopled mostly by Finns and Negroes, and past the railroad stations of Edson, Dana, Allen and Medicine Bow. At the place last named I ripped out some more spokes, and after fixing up the damage temporarily, I took to the railroad and followed it, in preference to the road, into Laramie. This was the first place that I really felt enthusiastic from the time I left the coast. Laramie is a big, fine place of nearly 10,000 and is in the greenest country I had seen since I left Sacramento. That is how it struck me, and I felt glad to be there. It seemed as if it was a place where someone lived and where folks could live. It is a fertile country all around there, given over largely to sheep and cattle ranching, and has a natural, civilized look that I did not find anywhere in Nevada, and only in little touches in Utah between big stretches of wilderness. I saw some of the finest baldface, big-horn cattle there that the country produces. This is where Bill

Lovejoy Motorcycle Garage, c.1905

Nye appeared on the horizon of humor, I believe, when he was "sticking" tape for the Laramie Boomerang. I recalled this and could understand that a man might be a humorist living in such a place. I could not revel in the delights of Laramie as I would have liked, for I had troubles of my own to attend to. It was 7:05 p.m. when I got there, and I hunted up the bicycle shop of Elmer Lovejoy. He furnished me with five new spokes and placed his shop at my disposal, for I preferred from the first to do all the repairing to the motorcycle myself."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

June 1 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Bitter Creek to Walcott, WY)

"After having breakfast in the boxcar restaurant, I left Bitter Creek for Rawlins. In this stretch, about 20 miles from Bitter Creek, I crossed my third desert, the Red Desert of Wyoming. It takes its name from the soil of calcareous clay that is fiery red, and the only products of which are rocks and

G.Wyman

sagebrush, and they will grow anywhere. There is a Red Desert Station on the map, but there is nothing there but a telegraph office, and the same is true of Wamsutter and Creston, the succeeding names on the map. I took a snapshot of the road in the desert near Bitter Creek and wrote on the film: "Who wouldn't leave home for this?" East of Red Desert the road improved considerably, and from Wamsutter to Creston it was really fine.

It was along this fine stretch, just before reaching Creston, that I came to the

G.Wyman

Great Divide and took a picture of the signpost, which marks the ridgeline of the great American watershed. Standing there and facing the north, all the streams on your left flow to the west and all those on the right side flow toward the east, the waters of the former eventually finding their way to the Pacific, and the latter to the Mississippi River. This is the backbone of the continent and it is duly impressive to stand there and gaze at the official sign. It does not mark the exact middle of the continent though, as some have mistakenly thought. It is about 1,100 miles east of San Francisco. I had rather expected to find the continental divide, if I did come across it, on the summit of a mountain, in a very rough piece of country, but it is in a broad pass of the Rockies, that seems more like a plain than a mountain, although a commanding view is obtainable from there. To the north are the Green, Febris and Seminole chains of mountains, and further, in the northwest is the Wind River range, and beyond that again the Shoshone range, while to the south are the Sierra Madres, all escalloping the horizon with their rugged peaks, here green, there shrouded in a purplish veil, and far away showing only a hazy gray of outline. One realizes that he is in the Rockies positively enough.

G.Wyman

From Creston to Rawlins there is nearly 30 miles of downgrade, and, as it is a fairly good highway of gravel, I made lively time over it. After leaving Creston there come Cherokee and Daly's ranch before you get to Rawlins, and it was between these places, both mere railroad points, that I got the picture of the abandoned prairie schooner that was printed in Motorcycle Magazine. Rawlins, where I stopped only for gasoline, is a town of some size, having more than 2,000 population. From there the country becomes rolling again, and after passing Fort Fred Steele, I began to ascend once more. It is a great sheep ranch country all through here now from Rawlins. At Fort Steele there is nothing left but the ruins of abandoned houses. I now follow the old immigrant trail that winds across the River Platte, and am fast approaching the Laramie Plains, over which my route lies to the Laramie Mountains. Beyond Fort Steele I enter White Horse Canyon, which got its name, so the story goes, from an Englishman, one of the sort known in the West as "remittance men," who drank too much "Old Scratch," and, mounted on a white horse, rode over the precipice and landed on the rocks 200 feet below.

At 6:10 p.m. I reached Walcott, a "jerkwater" settlement, composed of two saloons, a store and a railroad station. It is made important, though, by the fact that two stage lines come in there. The hotels at places of the sort are generally clean, and they are kept more-or-less peaceable by the policy of reserving an out-building for the slumbers of the "drunks," so I concluded to tarry. I found some interest in automobiles here, and, after inspecting my machine, the natives fell to discussing the feasibility of running automobiles on the stage lines, instead of the old Concord coaches, drawn by six horses, that are now used. One of the stage drivers said that if anyone would build an automobile that would carry 12 or 14 persons and run through sand six inches deep. He would pay from $3,000 to $5,000 for it. I told him to wait awhile. After supper I mended my broken spokes with telegraph wire, and entertained quite a group of spectators, who watched the job with open curiosity. I find a variable reception in this country to my statement that I have journeyed from San Francisco, and am bound for New York. A great many do not believe me, and smile as if amused by an impromptu yarn. There is another class, though, that of the old settlers, the real mountaineers who have had adventures of all sorts in the mountains and the wilderness. These men are surprised at nothing, and they rather nettle me by accepting me and my motor bicycle and my statement with utmost stolidity as if the feat was commonplace. For awhile I thought that this class, too, were unbelievers, but later I learned that as a rule they are the only ones who do believe me, because they are men who believe anything possible in the way of overland journeying."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Over the Rockies and the Great Divide to the Prairies" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, August 1903, Vol 1 No 3
Ogden, UT to Omaha, NE
May 28 to June 11, 1903

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