Doddridge of the 1920s Part 3

The Texas and Pacific Railroad lost all of this hauling because the trucks and vans were quicker, cheaper, and could make deliveries from door to door. The only hauling left for the railroad at this point was cotton, pulpwood, and oil.

By 1940, cotton production in Sulphur Township was gone, and more and more, pulpwood was being hauled by truck. The railroad was finished. In the early 1960s the railroad closed the line all the way from Texarkana to Hosston, Louisiana. In 1966, the track was taken up. It was a sad time for railway buffs, especially those who had seen the railroad built through Doddridge in the first place. A colorful element of Doddridge history had passed from existence.

Cars, Cars, Cars A man from Canton, Illinois, named Charles Duryea, and his brother, Frank, both bicycle mechanics, introduced the first commercially successful automobile in America September 21, 1893. In 1894, they built two more, one of which won the Chicago Times Herald Race in 18«?5. By the end of 1896, they had built eighteen cars. It isn’t known what happened to the company subsequent to this accomplishment.

In any event, auto making was a wide-open field, and many entrepreneurs tried their hand at it. It has been said that since the advent of the automobile, there have been as many as 700 auto manufacturers who have come and gone in the United States, alone.

Cars quickly became an obsession with the folks of Doddridge, which was sufficient evidence to show that Doddridge people were not different from anybody else in the country.

It’s interesting to note that the telephone arrived in Doddridge before the car. People bought their own telephones by mail order and connected themselves on “party” lines, there being no telephone service company before around 1908.

Cars at first were rare sights. Alta Hicks, the daughter of Floyd C. Hicks of Era, tells of seeing her first car at about the age of eight. A car going from Ida, Louisiana, toward Era, Arkansas, passed the Bob Thomas home. This caused a flurry of excitement, and Mrs. Thomas called ahead on the party line to let everybody know that a car was coming. Thus, everybody down the road was ready and waiting outside when the car passed by.

According to Kelley McCarty, the nephew of William Kelley Blanton, his father, Alonza McCarty, owned the first car in Doddridge. This was around 1908 or 1910. Kelley says it was either a Pullman or a Maxwell. Others who were early owners of cars in Doddridge were Joe Bryant, an Overland; Will Templeton, an Overland; Col Bigby, a Model T Ford; Dr. S. E. Adcock, a Model T; and Lee Larry, an Overland. Lee ran what they then called a “jitney” (taxi) service, and used his car for that purpose. Most cars prior to 1918 had to be hand cranked. This was a necessary action fraught with some danger because, on rare occasions, a car engine would start backward for a second, causing the crank handle to fly backward and break an arm. “Engine kick” or “kickback” were the terms for this phenomenon. Mr. Willis Cauthorn, a garage owner, had a stiff arm for much of his life because of his arm having been broken in this way.

A woman who could hand crank a car was considered extra strong, perhaps even an individualist in some cases. “Spinning” the engine was the act of turning the engine continually at high speed. This took real muscle power however, and few men were up to that kind of output. Spinning was especially useful, however, in getting a cold or stubborn engine to start. The following is a prescription for starting a Model T on a freezing morning after all else has failed: 1. Stick a corn cob onto the end of a twofoot piece of wire. 2. Soak the corn cob in kerosene. 3. Light cob and hold flame under intake manifold and against cylinder head until hot. 4. Crank. Still another technique is 1. Heat water on the stove to boiling. 2. Pour slowly into empty radiator so that metal won’t crack. 3. Crank.

If neither of the above techniques work, then one is probably in big trouble.

Few cars of the time had batteries, or if they did, the batteries were short-lived. Battery development, too, was in its infancy. Electricity for ignition and lights came from the car magneto (generator). Consequently, lights on these early cars would burn only when the engine was running. Prior to the 1920s only the head lights were electric. The tail lights and side lights burned kerosene.

Although such light systems were dim, the cars were also slow; twenty-five miles per hour might have been an average speed for Sulphur Township. At top speed, the Model T could only reach about 40-45 miles per hour. The Maxwell and Overland could go faster, but there were no roads that could handle such speeds.

According to Lorene Poole McCarty, Mark Sexton had the first filling station in Doddridge. This consisted only of a fifty-five-gallon drum of gasoline, and a smaller drum of motor oil. There were no grades of gas or oil. Gas was gas and oil was oil. Gas was hand pumped into a measuring container, then poured through a funnel into the tank of the car. It wasn’t until much later that hoses came to be used.

Oil changes were unheard of because such a procedure wasn’t considered necessary; indeed, it would have been looked upon as wasteful. Consequently, oil was only added to an engine when it was low. It was never taken out. For this reason alone, engines of that day could not have had long lives.

Dr. Adcock also sold gas and oil, but not for a living. He drove his car constantly, and therefore had his private stock of fuel which he would sell to people when there was a shortage in town. Later, Ney Magee set up a filling station with large pumps and hoses which delivered gas directly into the car. High tech had arrived. In the beginning, Doddridge received its gas by train in fifty-five-gallon drums.

Later it came by small gas trucks from Louisiana.

Cars were such a novelty prior to W. w. I that, at the large community picnics, owners would take people for rides up and down the road or around the cow pastures. A fee was charged which helped to pay for the car. Many people got their first ride this way. Interestingly, a parallel to this activity was taking place with airplanes at the same time. It was called “barnstorming.”

The following automobiles are those that “made it” in America, at least for a time. None of these cars are produced today, but this isn’t to say that some were not highly successful, or even glamorous. Some of these might never have stirred the dust of Doddridge, but probably most of them have: Stutz Bear-Cat, Moon, Erskine, Marquette, DeSoto, LaSalle, Oakland, Nash, Hupmobile, Star, Rockne, Duesenburg, Pierce Arrow, Packard, Studebaker, Graham-Paige, Auburn, Cord, Checker, Gardner, Chandler, Baker Electric, Stanley Steamer, Pullman, Brewster, Rio, Durant, Daimler, Whippet, Maxwell, and Overland.

Many of these cars still exist today in museums and among antique car collectors. Some are considered classic beauties, and those such as the Duesenburg and the Cord are bought and sold at prices in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars.