Roads of Yesterday

Summertime in most areas of the United States heralds road construction season. But what was it like for automobile drivers 100 years ago? This video prepared by the Ford Motor Company shows how the Model T was built and what it was like to drive in those early days of the automobile age. Most roads were not paved and snow plowing was nonexistent. Mount Prospect entered the automobile age in full force when William Busse bought his first Buick automobile and eventually became a Buick dealer. Here is a c1920 photograph from the Mount Prospect Historical Society showing William and his son, Fred, with the family’s first automobile. Most of Mount Prospect’s roads were unpaved until the mid-1920s.