It’s summer and the mountains and lakes of Maine are calling. It’s early June 1905, and conditions are just right for a road trip and some trout fishing at Tim Pond in Eustis, north of Kingfield.

For a small group of prominent Twin Cities businessmen, just such a trip turned into an adventure that lives on in stories of one of the most remarkable automobile endurance runs ever attempted in New England.

At that time, Lewiston-Auburn was making a name for itself as a red-hot motoring center. Many prominent men of the Twin Cities owned big automobiles and there was lots of informal competition among them to prove whose was best under all sorts of road conditions. That’s when roads were unpaved, there were no roadside filling stations and trained mechanics were few and far between.

Two Ramblers, celebrated hill-climbing vehicles of the time, were involved in that 1905 event. The gentlemen in one of the cars making this extraordinary trip were O.D. Bliss, president of Bliss Business College, Lewiston, and his uncle, C.A. Bliss of Columbus, Ohio, and Henry E. Goss. In the other was Dr. W.L. Hawkins and Dr. W.L. Haskell. These handsome autos were open models with front and rear seats.

Riding along in the Bliss Rambler was a Lewiston Evening Journal reporter, unnamed but believed to be Arthur G. Staples, a noted Lewiston newspaper writer for many years.

“It was early afternoon of Tuesday that that these gentlemen, armed with a complete supply of fishing tackle, left the Auburn Court House. The two machines attracted a considerable crowd as they speeded up the River road,” the correspondent wrote. 

Storm clouds were gathering, and the autos had reached Howe’s Corner in Turner when a thunderstorm hit with full force. The auto owners stopped and were preparing to “rope” the rear wheels of the machines. Tire chains were not yet in use.

A nearby farmer convinced the party to wait out the bad weather in his barn. Being close to milking time, the city men undertook a milking contest, and “Mr. Bliss finished milking his cow in exactly five minutes and five seconds.”

It was decided to spend the night at the farm, and they set out again in the foggy early morning, reaching Livermore Falls in time for breakfast. At Chisholm’s Mills, a deep washout caused an axle to break on Dr. Hawkins’ Rambler.

The Bliss Rambler continued over the terrible roads, and at Strong they asked for directions over the best roads to Kingfield. By mistake, they wound up on Freeman Hill … “one of the worst in all Franklin County, little less than a full-fledged mountain.” The car powered on. At the foot of the last and steepest grade they had to cut boughs from evergreen trees to place under the wheels for traction. From then on, it was downhill to Kingfield.

The Lewiston auto set several endurance records on that trip to Tim Pond, but the fishing was well-worth the effort. They landed 100 pounds of beautiful trout. The next day, as they stopped for dinner at the Kingfield House, they were approached by a sportsman from New York who had learned of their adventures. He, like most other fishermen at that time, had ridden the Narrow Gauge railroad from Farmington.

“Look here, gentlemen,” said he, with a good-natured smile as he flicked ash from his Perfecto. “I am going out on the Narrow Gauge which leaves this town at one-o’clock today and I have just 20 pounds of as handsome trout as you ever put your eyes on that say I will get to West Farmington before you will.”

Mr. Bliss looked up from packing the King Rambler and said, “We have a few extra pounds of trout to spare, sir, and we will go you.”

And the race was on!

A good assemblage of Kingfield residents cheered the start at 1:12 p.m., and the auto reached Strong at 1:50 p.m. There had been some delay on the road for a Stanley Steamer that was hogging the road, and the reporter said, “at least four standstill stops for teams had to be made (as the horses were in charge of boys or women).”

Nevertheless, the car roared up to the West Farmington station, beating the arrival of the train by four minutes.

Such stories were quite common in the early days of automobiles. Just a few weeks earlier, the Lewiston Evening Journal ran an account of a race to the top of Auburn Heights. It was the first such race in Maine. The Bliss Rambler was matched against a new Buick, and it was the Bliss Rambler winning that race, too.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by sending email to [email protected].