August 18, 1906 - 108 years-ago today was the first high-speed police chase recorded in St. Louis. Patrolman James Cooney was injured while chasing a speeding motorist through Forest Park at 35 miles per hour in the Police Departments new car. In what sounds like a scene from the Keystone Cops, he was thrown from the vehicle after hitting a tree and hit by a second police car. In the early days of motoring, cars were merely called machines, & what we call speeders, were then known as scorchers. Hard for us to think of 35 MPH as scorching, but in 1906 St Louis, the speed limit was 6 MPH. In 1910, the speed limit was raised to 8 MPH in the downtown area & 15 MPH in the outskirts. In 1904, there were 939 auto licenses issued in the city, & 298 violation summons were issued by the Citys Scorching Squad. Prior to this time, scorchers were pursued on horseback by the Mounted Patrol, & they often escaped justice. The 1904 Dorris police car (Shown here) was known as the skidoodle wagon, and its primary use was to catch scorchers. This auto was one of the first cars purchased by the Saint Louis Police Department & cost $1,800.00, seated five and could reach the speed of fifty miles per hour. The front seat passenger is Captain John Pikel, Commander of the Mounted Police. Directly behind him is Officer James Cooney, who was the Mounted Officer assigned to catch scorchers. He had previously stated, Already captured twenty or more individuals of speedy automobiles exceeding the limit prescribed by law to their sorrow. They are just humanely dragged before the bar of justice of our fair municipality, your honor, the judge, to explain their fondness for dizzy whirls through the driveways of our pretty city. Officer Cooney drove the auto with a justified vengeance since he once had to catch scorchers on horseback. So it came as no surprise that he wrecked, & was then thrown from the machine in the Forest Park chase.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 05:01:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015