Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue History & Genealogy Culver, Marshall, Indiana

One Township's Yesterdays Chapter Chapter XLIV  



The Battle of the Highways


The motor cars! They came and came. As Riley remarked in verse, the roads were "full o' loads-full . . an' all hot, an' smokin' an' chokin' with dust." Riley knew. It was the same here as elsewhere. Riley knew that too, for he sojourned at the lake in those times.

The motors multiplied, something after the fashion of rabbits and flies, while the steeds diminished in numbers, like a vanishing race of aborigines. After a valiant struggle, the horse finally all but gave up and succumbed to the inevitable, which was the ignoble fate of being literally run off the highways by the chugging, grinding, back-firing and evil-smelling gas-buggy.

In Union Township there were many fine road-horses and many horse-lovers as well. But, with the coming of the Twentieth Century, the urge to become "modern" was early felt in this section and, beginning with a few daring individuals possessing mechanical and experimental streaks, the motor craze was not long in taking hold.

Many of the finest of the driving horses were high-strung and spirited beasts, and naturally they resented the intrusion of the strange contraptions that were appearing on the roads. Drivers of those days still remember vividly certain experiences with balking and rearing and capering horses, with animals suddenly becoming wild-eyed and almost vicious on the appearance ahead . . . or behind . . . of some snorting monster not of their own ilk or kind. With Riley, they "heerd the hoss snort and kick up his heels like he wuz skeerd." Horsemen tell of being compelled to take to the fields in order to circumnavigate the motor cars. Thus the horse gave in, and the automobile secured the right of way.

Since this section of the country was so little removed from the original home of what was claimed to be the very first of the automobiles, it was a natural consequence that experimentation should begin at an early date in Union Township. People soon became "motor conscious," and, in the language of the day, horse and horseman were forced to "go 'way back and sit down."

There was much talk in Culver and vicinity, during the early years of the New Century, about cruelty to animals, and the. S. P. C. A. movement was gaining momentum.

Runaways became more common, mostly runaway horses, but once in a while the motor car did the running, while the horse stood aside and gave it the horse laugh. There had always been runaway horses, however, even before the advent of the motor vehicle, but with such things now in the roads, it was no wonder that the horse more frequently "took to his heels and made off." Motorists complained that they always got the blame, no matter what the circumstances were. The truth is that, even in this new motor age, horses ran away and got into accidents and other kinds of trouble of their own accord. Sometimes a gas-buggy was nowhere in sight. Sometimes it was just a case of "nerves."

J. D. HEISER of Burr Oak, in 1905, had the misfortune to have his team run away between Culver and Burr Oak. One horse was killed.

A law suit claimed attention in the summer of that same year. It was a local collision between rig and buggy. No automobile figured in it at all. Injuries were sustained. It was claimed one driver had been under the influence of liquor. Fire-water prevented careful driving.

Those terrible auto horns often did the trick. The tooting of one of them frightened the horse GEORGE OSBORN was driving in Culver in July, 1905. An unusual mix-up followed. Auto and buggy collided. GEORGE OSBORN, his wife and daughter were all thrown and injured, not seriously. The OSBORN horse, perhaps resenting the horn, had made a sort of dive for the offending antagonist. All came to grief in a pile of bricks at one side of the street. G. E. KIMMEL of Hibbard was the autoist. The scene of action was in the thoroughfare now known as Lake Shore Drive, and nearly in front of the SHILLING residence.

This accident of the GEORGE OSBORN family was consequential: it drew attention to the automobile law, which had often been ignored or disregarded, as almost all laws are. The law was very stringent. It had been passed by the last legislature previous to the accident.

Speed limits were defined: no greater than eight miles an hour in business and closely built up portions of municipalities, nor more than fifteen miles in other portions of such municipalities, nor more than twenty miles an hour outside such municipalities. Motorists were to provide an: efficient brake and suitable bell, horn or other signal. Persons with horses on the road could hold up a hand as a signal and the automobilist had to bring his motor vehicle to a stop and allow the Horse & Co., Ltd., to pass.

Just a hint of the future, when the bottom was destined to drop out of the market, could be found perhaps in conditions along towards the 'Fall and Winter of 1905, when certain stocks were beginning to be sold cheap.

In Culver, for example, Hayes Son's Livery had for sale "first and second-hand buggies and carriages at your own price." That was in the fall, but in the Winter the same concern had bargains in sleighs. In time, sad to relate, even sleighs and the merry jingle of the sleigh-bells were to become antique things. Times were soon to go against them all, except the gas-buggy. Even sleighing snow began to get scarcer and scarcer, and old timers in this section remark in this later day that "we don't have nowheres near the snows we used to have 'round here. Say, I can remember when . . .

Sic transit gloria mundi. So passes away the glory of the world.