The 20th century could be called "The Age of the Automobile."

This innovation re-shaped America, including Leelanau County.

One finds scant references to cars in turn-of-the-century issues of the Enterprise, but, by the 1920s and 1930s, they often came up in print in the newspaper.

Very early on, cars were viewed as a “plaything of the rich,” but they later became seen as a necessity.

THE NATIONAL Motor Carriage Company compiled these tables in 1899.

Local “casualties” of the automobile included the steamship, the horse, and, finally, the railroad as well.

The first to be displaced was the steamship. Operators of lines on Lake Michigan saw it coming on strong and tried to work with it.

Michigan Transit, operators of the steamers Manitou and Puritan, encouraged travelers to bring their car with them from Chicago.

In 1926, their brochures touted “special low rates on automobiles when accompanied by passengers.”

“No delays – no detours – no dust – no bad roads. Everything considered, it is cheaper to ship your car by Michigan Transit steamer, than to drive around the shoreline,” the brochures claimed.

One-way automobile rates to Glen Haven ranged from $12 to $21.50, depending on the vehicle’s wheelbase.

Nevertheless, just a few years later, improved roads, coupled with the Great Depression, killed the steamship.

The horse survived, on the farm at least, a bit longer, but it increasingly became an animal for pleasure, rather a beast of burden.

As trucks, with their flexibility, came into wider use, rail traffic steadily declined and, finally, the trains stopped running.

The handwriting was on the wall, remarkably early, even before the old century expired.

Studies published in 1899 showed self-powered vehicles, primitive as they were by today’s standards, had the edge on man’s willing servants.

And this infant industry was prodigious, indeed. Furthermore, it wasn’t necessarily closely associated with Michigan, as it would be later.

And why is the Indianapolis 500, a major automotive event, held in neighboring Indiana, rather than Michigan each year?

Actually, Indiana was once a major manufacturer of automobiles, such as the Studebaker, Cord, Auburn, and the legendary Duesenberg (“It’s a Doozy”).

In July 1899, McClure magazine published an article by Ray Stannard Baker titled, “The Automobile Up to Date.”

It was related “that what was yesterday a mere mechanical toy is today a gigantic industry. Between January 1 and May 1 of this year companies with the aggregate capitalization of $388,000,000 have been organized in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia for the sole purpose of manufacturing and running these vehicles.

“Eighty establishments are now engaged in building them, and 200 different types of the machines are being made, with nearly 100 different methods of propulsion.”

Methods of propulsion included a truck propelled by compressed air. It was reported capable of traveling 20-30 miles before recharging was required.

Electric vehicles were favorably reported upon as having “many advantages, especially for the city. It is practically noiseless and odorless and nearly free from vibrations. It cannot explode, will climb ordinary hills, and will give all speeds from two miles up to twenty or more.”

It was also reported that “two cities at least are using self-propelling fire engines.” One might ask, if they weren’t self propelling, why would they even be called “fire-engines?” Nineteenth century fire-engines were actually mobile steam powered pumps – they were pulled by horses to where they were needed.

Another of the 100 methods of propulsion has a present-day familiarity to it.

“One inventor in Chicago has built a truck combining gasoline and electric power – a truck with a carrying capacity of eight tons.”

It was reported that “Chicago is trying a motor ambulance,” and “one of the most practical uses (of a motor vehicle) is for the purpose of doctors in reaching their patients quickly.”

That was in an era, of course, when doctors normally traveled to the patients, rather than vice-versa.

Finally, the new types of vehicles meant “all stable odors and flies are done away with, and a second man is never necessary to ‘watch the horse.’”

In five-year comparisons between motor vehicles and horse drawn vehicles, the motor vehicles consistently came out ahead.

“At the end of five years, the motor vehicle should be in reasonably good condition, while the value of the horse and carriage would be doubtful. There is always a possibility that at least one of the horses may die in five years, while the motor vehicle can always be repaired at a comparatively nominal cost. This comparison is really doing more than justice to the horse, because a motor vehicle can do the work of three horses without injury.”

And, it was reported it was “wonderful how little fuel it takes to run a gasoline wagon. The American Motor Company builds a phaeton that will run 100 miles on five gallons of gasoline, which cost barely a half dollar.”

In 1899 it appeared that the French were a bit ahead of us in the use of the “horseless carriage.” It was reported “the French have formally adopted the word ‘automobile’ for all kinds of self-propelling vehicles, and they call the driver the ‘chauffeur,’ or stoker.”

Mackinac didn’t wait for the “horseless carriage” to become prolific. It was banned from the historic, and already heavily visited, island before 1900. Today, its very absence contributes to the charm of the place.

“Highway news” often commanded front-page prominence in the Enterprise. Whether it was local or not, it was deemed of local interest.

One example of this was the “Dixie Highway.”

In the edition of Dec. 1, 1939, the headline at the top of the front page read, “May Have Four-Lane Highway From Michigan to Gulf States.”

And the lead paragraph of the story read, “the four-lane highway with dividing parkway extending approximately 1,800 miles from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Miami, Fla., and New Orleans, La., is the goal of sponsors seeking to streamline the Dixie highway.”

The proposed road essentially followed the route of I-75 to the Florida state line. Decades would pass, however, before it was a four-lane divided highway all the way to the Sunshine State.

In the early and mid 1920s all roads, it seemed, led to Florida. Cross-country motorists at the time, if they could have seen the future, would probably have considered today’s motorists wimps.

“In dry weather the automobilist will find little difficulty in running from north of Washington to Southern Florida in six days,” Kenneth Roberts wrote in 1926, just before the great Florida “boom” went bust.

“The run from Washington to Richmond is approximately 130 miles; from Richmond to Durham, 179 miles; from Durham to Greenville, 276 miles; from Greenville to Tifton, 306 miles; from Tifton to Orlando, 290 miles; and from Orlando to Miami about 250 miles. Each one of these runs can be made handily in one day’s time, if the automobilist escapes wet roads in Georgia, and especially if he is supplied with a pneumatic pillow on which to sit and thus avoid a complete or partial breakdown of the sitting nerves.”

So many people flocked to Florida that illegal parking became a problem in a number of the larger cities. In Miami, police simply removed the cushions from the front seats of errant autos. When the owner came to the police station to claim his seat, he had to pay a fine to get it back.

In its edition of Aug. 11, 1938, the Enterprise reported that 90 percent of all the automobiles made in the world were manufactured in Michigan.

The newspaper then went on to say that 40 percent of all the vehicles built in this country were built by General Motors.

The automobile was here to stay, and, for the time being at least, Michigan was its headquarters.

“Nobody realized it for a while, but the overpowering era of the internal combustion engine imposes a law of its own which becomes more rigorous with age,” famed Michigan author Bruce Catton, who grew up in neighboring Benzie County, wrote in his autobiography. “If it is at all possible, no matter what the inconvenience or expense, to get from this place to that place by automobile, it will eventually become impossible to get there by any other means whatever.”

Amen.