Along about the spring of 1909, there were rumors that Judge Barney
Briggs was losing his mind, as some said he had no more sense than to
think that one of those horseless carriages could run on the streets of
Gilmer. Some said he had already ordered one; others that he was just
talking about it.
One Sunday, as we came out of church, we heard a noise like a young
cyclone! The sky didn’t seem to be too overcast, but the noise
persisted, and seemed to be coming nearer! We started for home with an
uneasy feeling. The noise seemed to be coming from the west, so we
looked back and, to our utter amazement, we saw a horseless vehicle
careen around the corner in the deep sand at the Jim Mings place. It
came toward town! Christine tried to hide behind us as there were no
sidewalks to speak of, and the thing was wabbling from one side of the
sandbed road to the other. To escape it, we ran upon the high board walk
at Ray Brothers, and when it ran alongside, we saw it was Judge and Mrs.
Briggs and the two Seagle girls, and they were holding on for dear life!
There was a crowd of people running along on each side to see how the
thing looked and how it navigated. When it would come down the street
people would hunt cover, as they never knew which side it would be on
when it reached them. Sometimes it would stall in the sand and
spectators would have to push and pull it out. More often it took a span
of mules to make it budge!
Of course there were no garages or filling stations in those days, and
Mr. Will Bauman, who ran a blacksmith shop, repaired the best he could,
but it was in the shop so much folks decided that the blacksmith had
taken it over to pay the repair bills! But a milestone in Gilmer’s
history was that first automobile, to brave the sandbeds of the city’s
streets.