11/15/2010:
Automobiles were still a novelty in most places in 1907 and the editor of the St. Thomas Times was delighted to accept a ride in a Buick Touring car, the results of which appeared on this date in the Lakota American.
At first, the editor likened the purr of the two cylinder motor to a kitten whose stomach was filled with milk. He wrote that the driver then manipulated the levers and clutches and the pace grew faster and faster. The telegraph poles came by so rapidly that they looked like spindles on a picket fence. Every automobile accident the editor had ever heard of or written about crowded his memory.
Today, highway speeds of 75 miles per hour are common, but in 1907, the head bobbing, knee knocking, estimated speed of 28 miles per hour in a Buick Touring car must have seemed like flying.
Dakota Datebook written by Jim Davis
Source:
The Lakota American November 14, 1907