Mackinac Island in the summer of 1898 was a bustling and popular tourist town. Businesses along Main Street included hotels, gift shops, drug stores, candy kitchens, a grocery store, meat market, and photography gallery. Wooden sidewalks fronted the stores, allowing island visitors to promenade through the village and avoid the mud and dust of the dirt street. The road was filled with horses pulling drays and wagons that delivered groceries, supplies and merchandise. A line of fancy horse-drawn carriages hovered at the head of the boat docks, waiting to sweep visitors away on scenic tours of the island’s historic sites. Mackinac Island’s first automobile arrived at the town dock that summer and was driven up to Main Street and into this lively scene. 

Early automobiles were noisy, undependable, and occasionally unsafe. It was just such a vehicle that arrived on Mackinac Island in the summer of 1898. The encounter between horse and car was, predictably, chaotic. Horses can be fickle animals. Noises that are familiar, such as cannon blasts from the fort or blaring boat whistles, rarely bother horses. But loud, persistent, and unexpected noises, like a chugging, clattering automobile, will scare them to death, and that is just what happened in the summer of 1898. 

A committee of local businessmen, “engaged in the Carriage business” and led by 29-year-old Thomas P. Chambers (great uncle of Dr. Bill Chambers), filed a formal petition with the Common Council on July 6, arguing that the “running of any vehicle known as a horseless carriage on the streets or roads in this Village…is dangerous both to the lives and property of your petitioners and their patrons and to all others who use the streets and roads of this Village.” The council responded to the petition on the same day and banned “horseless carriages” in the village. 

Two years later, 20-year-old Earle C. Anthony, son of summer cottagers who owned Windermere Cottage (before it became a hotel), brought his new Locomobile to Mackinac Island.  Although automobiles were banned in the village, there was no such prohibition in Mackinac Island State Park in 1900. Encompassing approximately fifty percent of Mackinac Island, the state park offered miles of scenic roads where Earle was free to drive as much as he wanted. However, the danger of scaring horses remained, and Earle’s joy riding caused multiple runaways. Carriages were destroyed, and several horses were injured. The Mackinac Island State Park Commission, in response to “a vigorous protest” and as a “matter of safety of visitors upon the park,” voted unanimously to prohibit automobiles in the Mackinac Island State Park at their January 25, 1901, meeting. 

There were several attempts to overturn Mackinac Island’s auto ban in the 20^th century, all of which, fortunately, were unsuccessful. Today, Mackinac Island still boasts an unspoiled, pre-automotive environment. The streets are narrow and quaint.  There are no stop signs, traffic lights, or gas stations.  The sound of cars does not disrupt the clip-clop of horse hooves, nor does automotive exhaust befoul the fresh, balsam-scented air of Mackinac’s forests. There are no garbage trucks, motorized taxis, tour buses, or brown UPS trucks.  These functions, and many more, are handled by horse and carriage, just as they were back when “horseless carriages” were first banned on Mackinac Island in 1898.

To learn more about Mackinac’s automobile ban, read Where Horse is King, Mackinac Island’s Automobile Ban, by Phil Porter, available at Mackinac State Historic Parks online bookstore.

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