William McKinley, first U.S. president to ride in a car, is born
On this day in 1843 William McKinley who will become the 25th American president and the first to ride in an automobile is born in Niles Ohio.McKinley served in the White House from 1897 to 1901 a time when the American automotive industry was in its infancy.During his presidency McKinley (who died from an assassins bullet in September 1901) took a drive in a Stanley Steamer a steam-engine-powered auto built in the late 1890s by brothers Francis and Freelan Stanley.
The Stanley Motor Carriage Company produced a number of steam-powered vehicles before going out of business in the early 1920s after being unable to compete with the rise of less expensive gas-powered cars.Theodore Roosevelt succeeded McKinley as president and during his administration the government owned a Stanley Steamer although Roosevelt allegedly preferred horses to automobiles.William Taft the 27th president replaced the horses in the White House stables with a fleet of cars including two gas-powered Pierce-Arrows and a White Model M Stanley Steamer.(In 1951 Congress officially eliminated horses and stables from the White House budget.) Warren Harding the 29th commander-in-chief was the first to ride to his inauguration in a car a Packard in 1921.Calvin Coolidge Americas 30th president was the first in a long line of chief executives to be chauffeured in a Lincoln limousine (Lincoln has been a luxury division of the Ford Motor Company since the 1920s).
President Franklin D.Roosevelt traveled in a 1939 black Lincoln convertible nicknamed the Sunshine Special it featured steel armor plating and was the first presidential vehicle to be constructed to the specifications of the Secret Service.(Roosevelts fleet at one time also included an armored Cadillac that the U.S.
Treasury Department had seized from gangster Al Capone.) John F.Kennedy the 35th U.S.president was assassinated on November 22 1963 while riding in a navy blue 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible in Dallas Texas.Cadillac a division of General Motors has also provided a number of presidential limousines dating back to Woodrow Wilson Americas 29th commander-in-chief.
On January 20 2009 Barack Obama rode to his swearing-in ceremony as the nations 44th president in a new Cadillac presidential limo referred to in the media as a rolling tank with windows and nicknamed The Beast.For security reasons specific details about the vehicle were kept under wraps by the Secret Service.(In 2001 the Secret Service for security reasons instituted a policy of destroying presidential limos once they were taken out of commission.)
