Before Daytona or Indianapolis, American car racing got its start in Chicago 119 years ago on November 28, 1895. The Chicago Times-Herald sponsored the race, and heavily hyped it as a way to boost the nascent automobile industry (and newspaper sales). One problem: The “horseless carriage” was only two years old at the time, and there was no set agreement on what to call these proto-cars. For the purposes of its race, the Times-Herald settled on the “Moto-cycle” and mapped out a 54-mile roundtrip course between Chicago and Evanston, Illinois. (A longer planned route was scuttled thanks to a blizzard.)

After being delayed multiple times (Chicago’s Finest had to be instructed by the city to stop detaining drivers and allow them to drive their cars on the roads without having them pulled by horses), the race finally began on this date, which was Thanksgiving Day. More than 80 cars had entered. Six showed up. German inventor Karl Benz entered three cars, while American Charles Duryea brought the four-wheeled “Motor Wagon” he and his brother Frank had created (pictured). There were also a pair of two-wheeled entrants, who couldn’t climb the course’s snowy inclines. One of the Benz cars was fueled by an electric battery, which died in the cold air. Another struck a streetcar, or possibly the horse pulling it, and had to leave the race.

In the end, it was Duryea crossing the finish line first. He made the trip in seven hours and 53 minutes, at a blistering pace of 7 mph. The only other finisher, the surviving Benz car, crossed the finish line an hour and a half later. This all sounds silly today, but the race was riveting material for newspaper audiences in 1895. The publicity around this race is said to have moved up American automobile production by five years. Charles and Frank Duryea got so much attention for their victorious run that they sold 13 of their Motor Wagons in the following year…enough to make them the leading American car manufacturers in 1896.

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