Those old cars most have not been terrible to work on. I like to read about travels and historical stuff and found this page in fb about traveling around central and South Texas back in the old days.
Long story:
This is why OST hard surface road was needed and made travel so much easier
“The Texas Quote of the Day is truly one of the best ever. It's an account of a road trip between San Antonio and Corpus Christi in 1911 and it has everything: humor, Texas hospitality, Texas tenacity, inventiveness --- and mules. I found this in a 1911 San Antonio newspaper and loved it so much that I painstakingly transcribed it, so PLEASE read it. Any mistakes in the transcription are mine. Here you go:
"Some interesting experiences on a tour to Corpus Christi were had recently by a party of local motorists. In the party were R.D. Blackstone and H.A. Moos and wives. The experiences of the party on the Corpus Christi round trip are told very effectively by Mr. Moos:
"We left home on a Sunday morning at 7:30 o'clock, going by way of South Hackberry Street to Pfeiffer's Dairy and then eastward out on the public road to Floresville.
We were going at a fair speed by this time and were all in good spirits, but did not fully enjoy the drive until we got several miles out of town, where we could inhale the fresh country air and white limestone dust.
We passed rapidly through town after town, tooting the horn and wearing that superior air which only people riding in an automobile know how to assume. We met with no accident or occurrence worthy of mention until we had passed Kenedy. Here, at a point put down on the log as 16.2 miles south of Karnes City, and marked "Sand," we got stalled. As the machine refused to move, we decided to put in our time, while waiting for it to get in a good humor, by having our lunch. So we crawled through a barbed-wire fence into a pasture to eat in the shade of a grove of live oak trees near the road. The cruel barbs tore my shirt across the back. After luncheon, as we were all refreshed and the machine feeling much better, it decided to move on, and we pulled out, meeting with no other accident until we arrived at a creek with steep banks and sand in the bed a mile and a half deep, 27.7 miles from Karnes City. Here the auto balked again and it was only after much pushing and puffing and blowing and snorting and carrying of water to cool the engine that we finally got out.
We passed through Beeville to the main road, which is marked on the log 'any speed to Skidmore.' So we went over it at a speed that kept the speedometer wobbling so we couldn't read it, but made out a figure that looked like '3540' ---- until a small and lowly culvert, which meekly stuck its head an inch or two above the road, made us chew off a piece of our tongue ---- when we drove more carefully. About a mile and a half below Papelote we struck another bad sandy creek, but managed to get through without delay. At a point a little further along we entered an immense pasture, but failed to find another gate about a mile beyond, supposed to lead out of it and along the railroad track. So we rode on for a couple of miles to where some 'mischievous' person had piled tome brush in the road. Not to be deterred, we drove over this and on, until the road became the worst we had ever seen, finally being almost choked with chaparral and mesquite. However, we found a gate at last that opened into the public road, but only after a delay of over an hour. We noticed that in the fences enclosing several of these large pastures the gates had the peculiar habit of moving up and down to points where they would attract as little attention as possible.
Where the ferry crosses the Nueces River it got so dark that it was impossible to read the log, so it was 10:30 p.m. before we arrived in Corpus Christi, 18 miles distant. Here we had the automobile overhauled and repaired, necessitating a delay of several days, which we passed most pleasantly.
We left Corpus Christi at noon on our return trip, lunched at the ferry crossing and proceeded without an accident until we arrived at the first of the bad sandcreeks, about forty miles northward, where we bogged in the sand, and although our car made a terrific noise, strained every nerve and limb and kicked up the sand to a great height with its hind feet, it could not move an inch. We all alighted, coaxed it, fed it with weeds and filled its little stomach with muddy water from a nearby tank; but it was all to no purpose. Finally something cracked inside, the wheels refused to revolve, and we knew the poor machine was hopelessly crippled. Luckily, two men with a load of hay passed by a few minutes later, who consented to haul the car up the hill for us, and who, with the assistance of their two mules, Jack and Kate, soon placed it in a shady place in front of a farm house, where we could find shelter for the night.
We had considerable trouble in propping up the hind wheels to we could find out why they would not turn. Then we tore up the floor of the car to see if the differentials and simple equations were at fault, but they all worked out in the correct proportion, so we tore up more of the floor to see if the 'low gear' hadn't crawled up over the 'high gear.' Both, however, were in their proper places, and was only after performing a general surgical operation, exposing all the internal anatomy of the car, and working the engine at frequent intervals, that we located the trouble. One of the floating kidneys (or axles) had about an inch and a half broken off the inside, where it presses into the diaphragm. This was caused by strain on the aortic valve, due to the rapid vibration of the larynx, which, in turn, pressed up into the solar plexus and lumbar garglia, so that, naturally, the poor thing was perfectly helpless. After half a day's work, removing everything that was not riveted together, we got the wheels and the axles off and gouged out half a gallon of black grease from the rear gearings, putting some of in a tin bucket and the rest of it over our faces, arms and clothing. Then we proceeded to fish for the broken piece, which we accomplished after several hundred attempts, though it was playing hide-and-seek in about a yard and a half of 'socket,' with several convenient 'shoulders' to protect it.
Fortunately, we were able to replace the broken axle with an old one we carried with us, which, though somewhat twisted, answered the purpose fairly well, and by noon of the day following the accident we were able to resume our journey. We had been most kindly treated by the hospitable people at the farmhouse and were glad the accident happened at that particular place. However, the people all along the route were most courteous and obliging, though we were sometimes afraid to inquire our way of the farmers whose horses we had frightened almost out of their traces.
Owing to the condition of our car, we had to move slowly, and it was dark before we reached Kenedy. On account of the darkness we got on the wrong roads several times, reaching Poth, which we should have avoided, at about 12:30 a.m., without a welcoming glimmering anywhere to point out where we could inquire our way. After several attempts to rouse the sleepy inhabitants, we managed to awaken a gentleman sleeping on a front porch, who gave us the necessary directions to Floresville. Our engine was very thirsty and had to be cooled off from tanks along the road, until we reached Floresville, where we managed to rouse a Mexican man, who kindly permitted us to help ourselves to his water barrel. It was 2:30 o'clock when we left Floresville and we were beginning to feel fatigued from our long, rough journey, as well as sleepy from the lateness of the hour. The moon was ready to sink behind the western hills, and in her soft light and the dark shadows of the trees, all objects assumed the most fantastic shapes. When we close our eyes, momentarily, the scenes we passed would be reproduced to the mental vision in the most delicate tracings and most gorgeous colors, the whole gleaming in a sea of golden light.
However, we pressed on, tired as we were, until we reached home, after a most strenuous journey of nearly sixteen hours, at 4 o'clock in the morning."
----- Mr. Moos, San Antonio Express, Sept 3, 1911. HOW GREAT IS THIS? The line about the superior air that one assumes when driving a car was fantastic, as was the droll account of the repairs they made to the axle, with its references to the larynx and various parts of human anatomy. Just. Wonderful. There was no photo accompanying the article so here is a 1911 photo of a car in Texas that I thought MIGHT be similar to the car in question. This photo, which is courtesy the The Portal to Texas History, shows the Smith family at an unknown Texas location. EDIT: Harold Antonio Moos was born in San Antonio in 1862 and died there in 1943, so it appears he was a life-long resident of the Alamo City.”
And here is an old ford dealer behind the alamo in San Antonio
