TRUCKING'S PIONEER - THE WINGFOOT EXPRESS STORY
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The immense pressure that World War I production was placing on the railroads in 1918 caused shipping delays across the country. Responding to an appeal from the American Red Cross, Litchfield sent his Wingfoot Express fleet to Chicago. They hauled a commercial load of tires to the Windy City, then reloaded immediately with 18 tons of Red Cross medical supplies destined for France.
Using the Lincoln Way east-west route from Chicago, the trucks delivered urgently needed supplies to transport ships at Baltimore's harbor in just 100 hours. Average highway speed was 15 mph, considered remarkable at the time. A letter sent by Red Cross officials in Chicago to their office in Baltimore advising of the shipment arrived only two hours before the trucks.
The success of the Wingfoot Express was reflected by a spurt in highway construction, as state governments strived to improve roads within their jurisdiction.
The Lincoln Highway movement, conceived in 1913 to create a modern coast-to-coast highway, was strongly supported by Goodyear's President Frank Seiberling.
In 1918, the same trucks that had conquered the ten-foot snow drifts of Pennsylvania's worst winter in decades, left Boston for San Francisco. This time, the caravan faced a round trip of 7,763 miles, some of it across trackless desert.
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| A broken Bridge is repaired by drivers as they continue their maiden journey to Boston. |
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In Wyoming alone, 36 of 56 wooden bridges gave way beneath the highway giants. This time the commercial cargo was aviation tires needed by the Army on the West Coast.
Again, the persistent Goodyear teams overcame all obstacles of road conditions and weather. After completing four round trips totaling 30,000 miles, the Express trucks had established a new world transcontinental record, coast-to-coast in just 14 days.
So began the long battle to unchain the truck from its parochial chores of shuttling cargo between the local railroad platform and nearby loading docks.
The Wingfoot Express had literally re-invented the truck, freeing it from its confinement to town or city streets.
Prophetically, a month after the start of the Express, Seiberling told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that "the introduction of the motor truck into our commercial life sounds the death knell of the short line railroad."
So, as the railroads had originally opened up the country and Ford's Model 'T' put America on wheels, the Goodyear Wingfoot Express put business on wheels, creating a swift and reliable highway transportation industry that is still growing.
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