In 1903 the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers sponsored an 800-mile endurance run from Weehawken, NJ to Pittsburgh, PA. Thirty-four competing automobiles departed on October 7, 1903 and traveled up the Hudson Valley and then through the Catskill Mountains. Reaching Delhi on the second day in a driving rain, they continued on through Franklin and then to Binghamton and beyond.
The Catskill Conquest Pilot Rally is the first of a planned series of events to commemorate the 1903 Historic Auto Endurance Run. The rally will run along the State Route 28 Corridor from Kingston to Delhi, including the Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway in Ulster and Delaware Counties. Then along the Treadwell Road to Franklin and crossing the Susquehanna River to Unadilla in Otsego County. In later years the project will expand to cover more of the original 800 mile route through 14 New York Counties and into New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It could lead to the designation of an “Automobile Heritage Trail”.
The 2017 event will be a pilot program with a rally situated along the State Route 28 Corridor from Kingston to Delhi, including the Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway in Ulster and Delaware Counties. Then along the Treadwell Road to Franklin and crossing the Susquehanna River to Unadilla in Otsego County. In later years the project will expand to cover more of the original 800 mile route through 14 New York Counties and into New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It could lead to the designation of an “Automobile Heritage Trail”.
The purpose is to acknowledge the automobile pioneers and road builders and their story. It is also to bring tourism along the historic route through the Catskill Park and beyond through landscape which the New York State Engineer said in his road building report of 1901 would be “one of the most beautiful drives in the State.”
Participation is open to all classes of enthusiast automobiles with special awards for earliest cars and later examples of the original participating makes: Packard, Pierce Arrow, Franklin, Locomobile, etc.
The Maurice D. Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center is pleased to be a designated stop along the route of the Catskill Conquest Pilot Rally, the first of a planned series of events to commemorate the 1903 Historic Auto Endurance Run. To register your own vehicle for the rally or for more information on enjoying the event as a spectator, visit www.1903autorun.com.