Touring the West with Leaping Lena, 1925

Driving across the country in the early twentieth century was high adventure. In 1925 Willie Chester Clark and his family piled into a modified Chevrolet touring car, affectionately named Leaping Lena, and took off for the West. Clark’s account of the journey will acquaint readers with cross-country travel at a time when Americans were just inventing the road trip.

Editor David Dary discovered a copy of Clark’s account among his grandfather’s personal papers. Dary introduces the tale of how...