NOT THAT LONG AGO: On this day in 1893, Charles and Frank Duryea road-tested the first American-made, gasoline-powered automobile on a stretch of road located in Springfield, Massachusetts.

(Others sometimes credit John William Lambert’s 1891 3-wheel Buckeye Gasoline Buggy with being America’s first, but because he never sold one–and because it was a %#* tricycle–Lambert tends not to get the same attention.)

Alas, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company never really made it big.  In part this may have been because the brothers had a falling out with each other. And in part it was because Ford had a better idea.