Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour begins Sept. 27

During the Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour, 100-year-old cars will be used for their intended purpose: driving.

The annual three-day tour runs from Sept. 27 to 29, departing from Mt. Pleasant, making stops along the way and celebrating gems of history around Henry County.

'It's tourism, automotive, friendship and a lot of sharing,” said Jeff Krug, tour organizer, founder and president of the board of directors. 'We want to create an educational platform and remembrance of automotive history and encourage anybody that has one of these era automobiles not to just look at it in the garage. Get it out and tour with it.”

Between 15 and 20 automobiles make their way across the county each year during the tour. One couple, Ken and Lavonne Ganz, have come to the event every year with their 1908 Buick since the tour's conception. Most vehicles, however, were manufactured between 1908 and 1915. The newest vehicle allowed on the tour is 1927.

On Thursday, Sept. 27, the vehicles will leave from Mt. Pleasant and travel through Mediapolis, Oakville, Toolesboro, Wapello, Morning Sun, Yarmouth and arrive back at Mt. Pleasant. The tour will stop in Oakville for lunch and to tour historical Indian burial grounds.

That evening at 7 p.m., everyone is invited to Main Street Cinemas in Mt. Pleasant for a free showing of 'The First Auto,” a period-correct movie.

Friday, Sept. 28, the tour will again start from Mt. Pleasant, traveling through New London, Lowell, Danville and back to Mt. Pleasant. Tour participants will congregate at Saunders Park that evening for a BBQ, and anyone is welcome to drive through and view the vehicles.

When driving through New London Friday, the tour will detour to Geode State Park to commemorate the oldest road publicly-funded west of the Mississippi that was uncovered when Lake Geode was drained last fall.

Finally, the tour will conclude on Saturday, Sept. 29, driving from Mt. Pleasant through New London to Brighton and ending in Mt. Pleasant.

The vehicles will drive at a pace of around 20 to 22 miles per hour to allow people on the sidelines time to enjoy the tour and people driving time to enjoy the scenery.

'People on the sidelines really enjoy seeing history go by and are amazed that automobiles at 100-years-old or just over still run as good as they do, and I think they marvel at what was built back in those days,” Krug said.

The tour was born out of a desire by the Henry County Tourism Board to expand tourism opportunities. The Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour was created, and the event is fashioned after the Emancipation Run, an English event that dates back to the late 1800s.

The Emancipation Run is a celebration of the passage of the 'Locomotives on the Highway Act,” which raised the speed limit for light locomotives from four miles-per-hour to 14 miles-per-hour in 1896 and abolished the requirement to have the vehicle be preceded by a man on foot with a red flag.

Krug ensured that the tour works with city, county and highway patrols to make the tour as safe as possible.

'We make sure everybody finishes and no one is left behind,” Krug added. 'If there is a mechanical failure, they're not left to the side of the road to fend for themselves. We take care of them.”

While the registration deadline for the tour has passed, Krug said they will continue to take registrants anyway. For more information, visit their Facebook page at Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour.