A different road for Ken Burns

By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff, 10/6/2003

Filmmaker Ken Burns is known for tackling serious themes in his work. But tonight, the director who brought PBS "The Civil War" will present perhaps his most lighthearted project yet: "Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip."

The film, to air on WGBH-TV (Channel 2) at 9, chronicles the fascinating adventures of Horatio Nelson Jackson, a retired physician from Vermont who was the first American to drive across the country, in 1903. Actor Tom Hanks provides the voice of Jackson.

After making a $50 bet that he could make the trip in three months, Jackson journeyed from San Francisco to New York City in a two-cylinder "horseless carriage" in 63 days. His experiences were arduous yet humorous at times.

During this era, only about 8,000 Americans owned cars, which they rarely drove more than 12 miles at a stretch.

Jackson's car, which was capable of going up to 30 miles per hour, had no windshield, roof, or doors. Jackson, who went on the trip with bicycle repairman Sewall Crocker, wore goggles to protect his eyes from the dust. There were virtually no gas stations along the route, nor were there many paved roads or street maps. Jackson followed railroad tracks for some of his journey but turned away to dirt roads and open land to avoid the deserts of Nevada. He was often given bad directions by pedestrians, making his trip more difficult.

With only one spare tire, which he was forced to use just 15 miles into his 5,600-mile journey, Jackson frequently had to wait for days in small towns for new supplies to be delivered by train or stagecoach. When he ran out of gas, he walked to the nearest town to get more.

"I was stupefied that Horatio pulled it off," said Burns, who produced the film with his longtime collaborator, writer and filmmaker Dayton Duncan.

Burns said his production team spent 10 years mapping Jackson's trip. They contacted local historical societies and newspapers in towns Jackson had passed through. They searched for living descendants, using obituaries, death certificates, and funeral records. Eventually, after hundreds of phone calls, they found two of Jackson's granddaughters who had saved the original letters and telegrams Jackson had sent to his wife during the trip.

Those letters humanized the man by revealing a lot of previously unknown details, such as the fact that Jackson sometimes went 36 hours without eating, he was once charged a whopping $5 for five gallons of gas, and he adopted a bulldog along the way for companionship. One letter, dated June 1, 1903, said: "Well Old Girl . . . We are causing a great sensation along the road -- it is the first machine that has ever gone over these mountains. Yesterday the farmers drove in for miles to see my machine . . . I have been offered all prices to take them for a ride."

Burns said he strapped a cameraman to the hood of a Chevy Suburban to create footage for the film. "We would only go 5 or 10 miles an hour, the same as Horatio," he said. "We shot in digital video, which permitted us to decay it and give the feeling of 1903."

The director said he retraced the entire trip, but his team traveled 8,000 miles -- 2,400 more than Jackson -- because they kept getting lost. "I remember being in southwestern Wyoming on some range, and all you could see was wagon tracks and sage brush. There were no telephone poles, no barbed wire. There was nothing besides us and our car to prove that we weren't back with Lewis and Clark. It was fabulous."

Suzanne Ryan can be reached at sryan@globe.com.