Around the United States by Bicycle

By Claude C. Murphey190628 chapters34 images

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Contents

• Introductory (opens in a new tab)

  Explains that Clarence M. Darling and Claude C. Murphey, aged 19 and 20, left Jackson, Michigan, on May 2, 1904, to bicycle through every U.S. state and territory on a $5,000 wager, funded only by the roadside sale of an aluminum card-receiver ash-tray, and finished 13,407 miles later.
• A Word from the Author (opens in a new tab)

  Murphey's brief foreword asserts the account is a truthful record of the trip's hardships, apologizes for his plain, untrained writing style, and credits all the book's photographs to his travelling companion, Mr. Darling.
• Chapter First. The Start. (opens in a new tab)

  Darling and Murphey conceive the wagered bicycle trip years earlier and plan the route by railroad mileage so they can walk the tracks in bad weather, keeping the scheme secret until the plans are made public a week before departure.
• Chapter Second. In Which We Get Held Up in Chicago. (opens in a new tab)

  Riding out of Jackson through Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Michigan, the pair struggles through deep sand near Oshtemo and samples fresh grape juice at a Southern Michigan vineyard press before pushing on toward La Porte, Indiana.
• Chapter Third. We Ford a River in Illinois. (opens in a new tab)

  From Chicago to Joliet and Wilmington, Illinois, the riders slog through sticky black "gumbo" mud carrying their sixty-pound-loaded wheels, then walk the railroad track by night past Bloomington's marble courthouse toward McLean.
• Chapter Fourth. We Reach Madison, Wisconsin. (opens in a new tab)

  Crossing the Illinois coal belt from Springfield toward St. Louis, the pair is blocked by a flooded Mississippi, ferries from Venice, and passes through St. Louis before heading north toward Madison, Wisconsin.
• Chapter Fifth. Nearly Lost in the Black River Wilds (opens in a new tab)

  Leaving Madison, the pair takes a wrong trail into the rocky bluffs near Devil's Lake, Wisconsin, getting lost in dense forest before stumbling onto a railroad track, then admires the sugar-loaf rock formations between Baraboo and Tomah.
• Chapter Sixth. We Have Our Troubles in the Dakotas. (opens in a new tab)

  The riders reach the hilly twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, noting the new six-million-dollar state capitol under construction, before heading on toward the Dakotas.
• Chapter Seventh. We Cross the Rockies. (opens in a new tab)

  Crossing sparsely settled sandhill country toward Valentine, Nebraska, the pair waits in vain for a misdirected souvenir shipment, sleeps in boxcars, and walks the track past cactus and sod houses through Alliance toward Denver, Colorado.
• Chapter Eight. The Many Perils of the Green River Desert. (opens in a new tab)

  Down to twenty-seven cents, the two attempt the 173-mile Green River Desert in Utah in 120-degree heat, are reduced to two cents at the Ruby telegraph station, and are given crackers by the operator's son before crossing a red-rock canyon along the rail line.
• Chapter Ninth. The "City of the Saints," and the Great Salt Lake. (opens in a new tab)

  Following the Rio Grande Western Railroad through Helper and the Wasatch Range, they pass the rough mining town of Colton and cross Soldier's Summit, the steepest main-line railroad grade in the country, en route to Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Chapter Tenth. A Dash Through a Forest Fire in Idaho. (opens in a new tab)

  North of Salt Lake City through Ogden and Brigham City the riders sell souvenirs well and sleep economically in hay-lofts and depots; near Kaysville they spot smoke and race to a burning barn after narrowly avoiding arrest for their vagrant sleeping habits.
• Chapter Eleventh. Nearly Suffocated in a Two Mile Tunnel. (opens in a new tab)

  Beyond Missoula, Montana, the pair walks long trestles into Sand Point and crosses the Washington-Idaho line toward Spokane, where they are entertained by the Spokane Amateur Athletic Association and see Spokane Falls.
• Chapter Twelfth. We Cross the Sierra Nevadas Under Difficulties. (opens in a new tab)

  On the erratic rail grade of the western slope they view Mt. Rainier's 14,519-foot summit and fire-scarred timber, then reach Tacoma, Washington, crossing the bicycle-only bridge built by Tacoma wheelmen in 1896, before riding on to Olympia through deep dust.
• Chapter Thirteenth. The "God's Own Country" Section of California. (opens in a new tab)

  South from San Francisco through palm-lined San Jose and over the Coast Range to Santa Cruz, then down through Salinas, where the country turns wild and rugged as they head into Southern California.
• Chapter Fourteenth. Across a Thousand Miles of Desert and Wilderness. (opens in a new tab)

  Leaving Los Angeles, they cross the 162-mile Colorado Desert from Redlands to the Arizona line, warned by a circuit judge at Colton of outlaws and mirages, and set out from Banning toward Yuma, Arizona, with $160 in souvenir earnings.
• Chapter Fifteenth. A Five Hundred Mile Walk Through Deep Snow. (opens in a new tab)

  Walking and riding icy roads along the Red River boundary between Texas and Indian Territory, they cross 107 miles of Indian Territory and enter Oklahoma at the Canadian River, finding it a marked improvement with good section-line wagon roads.
• Chapter Sixteenth. "Trouble, Trouble, Trouble, Morning, Noon, and Night," Until We Reach New Orleans. (opens in a new tab)

  Out of Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the pair wades chest-deep swamp mud near Camden and Eldorado, crossing long wooden trestles on their way toward the Louisiana line.
• Chapter Seventeenth. In Which We Discover That There Is "Still Something Doing." (opens in a new tab)

  Walking the rail line through Louisiana marsh into Mississippi, they follow an oyster-shell wagon road along the Gulf Coast resort towns of Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Gulfport, and Biloxi, dodging a Louisville and Nashville express train on a trestle.
• Chapter Eighteenth. The Famous Lookout Mountain at Chattanooga, Tennessee. (opens in a new tab)

  From Pensacola, Florida, they backtrack to Flomaton, Alabama, and push through sandy pine country to Montgomery, the only stretch of the entire 13,407-mile trip on which they doubled their route.
• Chapter Nineteenth. Across the Carolinas by Means of "Shanks' Mares." (opens in a new tab)

  From Chattanooga to Atlanta, Georgia, via Dalton, Calhoun, Cartersville, and Marietta, they lodge with a Confederate Civil War veteran at Ringgold and pass Kennesaw (Big Shanty), scene of the Andrews Raiders' locomotive chase of "The General."
• Chapter Twentieth. In Which We Have a Few Pleasing Experiences With the "Old Dominion Aristocracy." (opens in a new tab)

  Crossing into Virginia, souvenir sales dry up in the impoverished postwar South; a barber shaves them for free at Henderson, and they ride 106 miles of railroad track to Richmond, meeting genteel but hard-pressed Virginian families.
• Chapter Twenty-First. Beautiful Washington and Historical Philadelphia. (opens in a new tab)

  In Washington, D.C., they climb the 555-foot Washington Monument and tour the White House's East Room under Secret Service watch, admiring the capital's tree-lined avenues before continuing to Philadelphia.
• Chapter Twenty-Second. New York, the Most Wonderful City in the World. (opens in a new tab)

  Ferrying from New Jersey to Manhattan, they spend three and a half days seeing Broadway, the thirty-two-story Park Row building, the Tombs prison and its "Bridge of Sighs," and the Flatiron Building.
• Chapter Twenty-Third. We Cross Three States and Reach the Rock-Bound Coast of Maine. (opens in a new tab)

  They ride from White Plains through New Haven, home of Yale College, to Hartford, Connecticut's Gothic-style state capitol, then on through Providence, Rhode Island's marble capitol, heading toward the coast of Maine.
• Chapter Twenty-Fourth. The Bitter, Bitter End to Our Dreams of Success. (opens in a new tab)

  Leaving Portland, Maine, with only a dollar left, they head west through a thinly settled corner of Vermont toward Montpelier, their finances so depleted that failing to earn their way would force them to break the wager's no-work condition.
• Chapter Twenty-Fifth. The Marvelous Niagara Falls. (opens in a new tab)

  Ferrying Lake Champlain to Plattsburgh, New York, they ride via Malone, Ellensburg, and Chateaugay to Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence, then past the Thousand Islands' millionaire estates to Oswego on Lake Ontario, heading for Niagara Falls.
• Chapter Twenty-Sixth. We Finish Our Long Journey. (opens in a new tab)

  From Buffalo along Lake Erie's Lake Shore Turnpike through Erie, Pennsylvania, and Conneaut and Cleveland, Ohio, the riders push through storms on the final leg home to Jackson, Michigan, arriving August 11, 1905, after 13,407 miles.