Travel Tuesday - Nonstop American Legion Goodwill Trip

Spokane Daily Chronicle March 28, 1930

LEGION BOYS SET 

FOR UNIQUE TRIP

Nonstop Canada to Mexico Drive Ready for Start at 6:30 Tonight.

"Everything is ready." This was the report from Grant Ware Frank P. Smith, who will leave Spokane at 6:30 p.m. today on a proposed nonstop good-will  American Legion auto tour from Spokane to Mexico and return to Spokane.

Final checking of the car today proved to be in satisfactory condition.  Special refueling and oil changing apparatus were given a final examination and mechanics pronounced the machine ready.

  Plan Week's Drive

The car will be home for the two overseas veterans from the start this evening until 2 p.m. next Friday, if the schedule averaging 20 to 21 miles an hour is maintained.

American Legion members will be out in force this evening to give Ware  and Smith a rousing sendoff.  When the car starts, the legion membership drive to get a member for each 10 miles the car makes will be launched.

    Drivers Are Confident

 Both Ware and Smith were confident today they successfully make the 3700 mile trip without letting the wheels of the machine come to a momentary stop.

"Suppose," Ware was asked, "you had to stop for an instant because of a traffic jam, a train or something from which you could not turn and avoid?"

"We just don't figure on stopping," said Ware. "We haven't given it enough consideration to know what we might do if we had to stop; whether we would continue or come back and start over.  We just aren't going to stop."
   
"We are going to tell obstacles we meet, how they are overcome and conditions  which hamper or help us in exclusive telegrams to the Chronicle."

Census Sunday - 1900 US Federal Census, Chicago, Cook, Illinois - Joseph C Smith househould

Twelfth Census of the United States

State: Illinois
County: Cook

Township or other division of county: West Town

Name of incorporated city, town or village within the above names division: City of Chicago Ward of city 28.

Supervisors District: 1  

Enumeration District; 854

Sheet: 14

Enumerated on 12th Day of June by John T. Robertson

line 74 Smith, Joseph C Head W M Oct 1873 27 M 7 IL, IN, IL

line 75 Smith, Josephine Wife W F Mar 1873 27 M 7 2 2 IL OH IN

line 76 Smith, Mary Dau W F May 1894 6 S IL IL IL

line 77 Smith, Francis P Son W M Dec 1898 1 S IL IL IL  

Francis P Smith is my grandfather, Frank P Smith.

Unfortunately I could not read the occupation on for Joseph C Smith on the Census. I would really love to know what he was working at and what brought from the Chicago.

The family lived at 2626  W Polk St.

According to the Census, this is 2626 W Polk St, Chicago Illinois. I went to Google Earth and put in the address and this is what I got.  If this is true, I assume that in 1900 there were houses here. 

Travel Tuesday - Nonstop American Legion Goodwill trip

March 27, 1930 Spokane Daily Chronicle

UTILIZE GRADE TO CHANGE OIL

Work Out Novel Device on American Legion Good Will Car

    Oil-changing apparatus on the Spokane-Canada-Mexico-Spokane nonstop American Legion good-will automobile was tested today and found to be in readiness for the start from legion headquarters tomorrow at 6 p.m.  It is estimated three or four changes will be necessary before the car completes its trip of more than 3700 miles.

        Fill From Running Board

      A valve has been placed in the lowest point in the crankcase, and is controlled from the driver's seat.  When an oil change is necessary,  the plan is to utilize a long grade, stop the motor, close its valve and refill from a gallon can which one of the two drivers will handle on the running board.

      "We are all set," said Grant Ware who with Frank P. Smith will pilot the  car. "Tonight we shall get all possible sleep to be ready for the long grind."

       Drivers to avoid stopping have been worked out.  Railroad crossings will be approached slowly, to insure against a train blocking the pathway and forcing the wheels to stop turning.  Should a traffic jam appear invisible,  the car must be turned on the road to avoid it.

Must Anticipate Trouble

    "It means looking far ahead to try to anticipate trouble which might force a stop," said Ware.  "An instrument in the car is sealed and makes a complete record, showing beyond any doubt if the car is kept going or whether is has stopped." An improvised bed in the tonneau will permit one driver to sleep while the other proceeds.

    Daily wired reports will be sent to the Chronicle for exclusive use in Spokane.

Travel Tuesday - Nonstop American Legion Goodwill Trip

NONSTOP DRIVERS PRACTICE REFUELING

 Success marked the refueling at Main and Monroe today of the American Legion's nonstop border-to-border automobile drive.

 Frank P. Smith and Grant Ware clad in white work suits, rode while an employee of the Richfield service station poured gasoline into the tanks as the car moved around the station.

A valve is being placed  in the bottom of the crankcase, worked by a lever near the driver's seat, which will permit emptying and refilling while in motion.

Travel Tuesday - Nonstop American Legion Goodwill Trip

Smith and Ware Both War  Vets - Both Got Shrapnel  in Legs

    Guns were booming ________ German armies were driving forward.  Americans were arriving to stem the tide Tenton advance.

     In the Argonne Grant Ware was doing his bit while in the equally famous encounter on the Meuse-Champagne Frank P. Smith was using his Springfield on Germans whose helmets showed above the trenches. Strange Coincidence

    October 9, 1918, saw heavy encounters in both sectors and on that day both Ware and Smith were shot down by shrapnel, each hit in a leg.

     Both had enlisted in Spokane, Ware with the 361st infantry of the 91st division and Smith in the 161st infantry of the old second Washington.

     Now the two buddies, whose careers have been marked by events so coincidental, are working together on a  Spokane-Canada-Mexico nonstop automobile tour under the auspices of the Spokane post of the American legion.

      One will drive while the other utilizes specially arranged sleeping facilities, and they will take turns in refuelingand oiling.  The six-cylinder car body will be their home for a week while the trip progresses, it they are successful in their efforts.

    Leaving Friday night, they will go to the Canadian line at Laurier and then back through Spokane, to California by way of Portland on the Columbia River highway and to old Mexico.

     Legion posts of the Pacific slope are cooperating with them to insure they will not be forced at any time to make a momentary stop which would be marked on the sealed recording ______ "failue" for the journey.  The two men know they have a hard battle ahead, but say after what they have been through it isn't going to seem so tough.

    Daily reports of the trip are to be published exclusively  in the Chronicle.

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