On August 22, 1902, the Cadillac Motor Company was founded — and on the same day Theodore Roosevelt became the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile, riding through the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, in a Columbia Victoria electric car. Though TR’s public statement was supportive of the new technology, privately he referred automobiles “a trial” and “as distinct additions to the discomfort of living.”
His predecessor in office, William McKinley, had himself ridden in an automobile, but did not do so in public.
Also in 1902, the federal government bought a Stanley Steamer for presidential outings, the first automobile in general service by what the Founding Fathers referred to as the “general government.”
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While Roosevelt was the first to travel by automobile in a public procession, McKinley’s first ride (in 1899), in a Stanley Steamer, was not on a private track and his second and last ride (on 6 September 1901) was in an electric ambulance on the grounds of the Pan American Exposition.