Home to bicycle endurance races since 1888, the steep hill of West Orange's Eagle Rock Avenue proved the perfect spot to hold one of the very first auto races in America, the first of the new craze of Hill Climbs.
On November 5, 1901, the first Eagle Rock Hill Climb was held, an event to test different vehicles’ power and endurance to see if they could make it up the hill. The race started near the current corner where Main Street ends and Eagle Rock Avenue begins, with competitors getting a running start down the hill of Harrison Avenue before heading up the steep incline.
That first year most cars couldn’t even make it up the hill at all. The gasoline-powered category winner was Charles Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts (inventor of the first gas-powered buggy in 1892), who finished the course in 3 minutes and 45 seconds. But the fastest overall time was W.J. Steward of Newark, whose steam-powered Locomobile Steamer did the climb in just 2 minutes 43 seconds.
The climb then became an annual event, growing from 13 drivers in 1901 to 36 drivers—and three thousand spectators—in 1903.
That year Willie Vanderbilt, great-grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, broke the record by making the climb in 1 minute 34 seconds (he would take the competition idea home to Long Island, where he lacked hills but would instead start the Vanderbilt Cup Races, the first international road races held in the U.S., in October 1904). Thomas Edison’s eight-horsepower Columbia Electric won the electric car category.
In 1904, Vanderbilt was challenged by millionaire William Gold Brokaw (who is alleged to have later been the inspiration for the character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 The Great Gatsby), who had a sixty-horsepower Renault driven by French driver Maurice Bernin.
But Vanderbilt had upgraded his car from a 30-horsepower Mors to a ninety-horsepower Mercedes. On November 24, 1904, Bernin in Brokaw’s car broke Vanderbilt’s record, completing the course in 1 minute, 20 seconds — which beat Vanderbilt’s more powerful car by only 3/5 of a second.
Sadly, with more than 5,000 spectators turning out to watch, town officials deemed the event too dangerous — other than a couple of ceremonial anniversary reenactments, the Eagle Rock Hill Climb was discontinued.
For the cache: This tiny corner park (then part of Eagle Rock Ave.) actually occupies the first few feet of the race route, as cars would get a running start down Harrison Avenue to help them start up the steep hill of Eagle Rock. You're looking for a small black bison tube — no room for anything but a rolled up log, obviously, so BYOP!
Congrats to BigA800 for the FTF, and thanks for the compliments -- I'm just glad people are digging the history!
