Wm. Brown and dog team, 1909
The caption on this vintage postcard says: “Wm. Brown made the trip from Grand Forks [North Dakota] to Seattle [Washington] at an average of 45 miles per day.” Dick Thompson has penned in the date of 1905 and a note: “If you look close you find me there.” There is a barely visible “X” just above his head at the upper mid left of the photo.
This is one of several postcards found in Dick Thompson’s scrapbooks. I’m not sure when he assembled the scrapbooks but probably toward the end of his life in the 1960s. He used magnetic photo albums that were popular at that time but have proved to be ruinous for photos. He also used glue and tape on many of the pictures and clippings. As a result, most cannot be removed from the pages to see the reverse side and many have been damaged over time from the glue and tape. This image has been altered to remove some of the damage from tape. Also, since he put the books together long after the events, some of the dates are inaccurate, as is the case in this example. A newspaper clipping from the Bismark Daily Tribune [North Dakota], dated 30 April 1909, provided information about the upcoming race.
Two men, W. G. Buchanan and William Brown with their buggies and dog teams started out from Grand Forks, N.D., on the 10th of May 1909 heading for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition just opening in Seattle, Washington. On their way across the country, they planned to do some “boosting” for Grand Forks. They hoped that local Grand Forks businessmen would help support them as a form of advertisement.
Buchanan and Brown both had similar four-wheel buggies. Buchanan’s dogs were bird dogs while Brown’s team were Newfoundland dogs and stag hounds. Both men had been training their dogs all winter. Brown estimated that his team could average 45 miles per day and where the roads were good, better than that. He admitted that the mountains would be more challenging and slower. Among his long-distance training runs were trips from Grand Forks to Minneapolis, and another trip to Winnipeg, he said, to give the dogs some exercise. Buchanan’s bird dogs, (Labrador retrievers, German short-haired pointers, Boykin Spaniels, Golden retrievers, Vizslas, and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retrievers), were slightly lighter weight dogs but he was confident they would give Brown’s team a good race.
As can be seen from the card, Brown and his team of dogs were the winners, averaging about 45 miles per day. Other stunts like this were carried out by walkers, such as Helga and Clara Estby who entered a $10,000 challenge from a sponsor in 1896, and walked from Spokane, Washington to New York City. Although they walked the distance and hoped for the money to save the family farm, they did not receive it. In 1905, for the Lewis & Clark centennial, a pair of 7-horse power Curved Dash Oldsmobile Runabouts, Old Scout and Old Steady, went from New York to Portland, Oregon following the Oregon and California Trail and the Union Pacific railroad. Since there were no regular roads from Nebraska westward the route was chosen to facilitate supplies along the trip. Old Scout, the winner of the race, was driven by Dwight Huss and his mechanic and co-driver, Milford Wigle. Old Steady was driven by Percy Megargel and Barton Stanchfield. In more recent times there have been a number of individuals who have biked or walked across the country to raise funds for various causes.
For additional information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poeple_who_have_walked...
https://en.wikipedi.org/wiki/Newfoundland_dog
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30361914/william-brown-and-wgbuchanan-to-race/
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