Long-Distance Riders

by John Stumpner

While some bikers are content to take a ride near their homes, some bikers don’t consider it a ride until they’ve stopped a couple times for gas. Bikers have been riding cross country as long as motorcycles have been around. Long distance riders are not limited to big male bikers either. Men and women of all sizes and ethnic backgrounds have been riding cross country on their motorcycles. And, as you will see, age is also no barrier when it comes to long-distance riding.

Louis and Temple Abernathy were the sons of a famous cowboy and US Marshal Jack Abernathy. Before he became a marshal, Jack hunted wolves for a living. His nickname was “Catch-’em-alive Jack” in that he made his money by capturing wolves alive for sale to zoos, circuses and traveling shows. During one of his trips out west, future president Theodore Roosevelt invited Jack to go on a hunt with him where they became good friends. It was later, when Roosevelt became president that he appointed Jack to be US Marshal for the Oklahoma territory. At 28, he was the youngest ever to be appointed a US Marshal.

Louis and Temple Abernathy became celebrities in their own right in the early part of the 1900’s for their long-distance trips, In 1909, when Louis was 9 and Temple was 5, they took a horseback ride from their home in Frederick, Oklahoma to Santa Fe, New Mexico and back. The next year, 1910, they rode from Oklahoma to New York City to meet Theodore Roosevelt when he returned from his African safari. Not wanting to wear out the horses, they shipped them back to Oklahoma by rail, bought a small car and drove back to Oklahoma (remember, Louis was 10 and Temple was 6). It was a good thing they gave the horses a rest, because the next year they tried riding, on a bet, from New York to San Francisco in 60 days or less. Although they didn’t make it, it took them 62 days, they did beat the previous cross-country record of 182 days.

Their last big adventure came in 1913, when they bought an Indian motorcycle and rode from Oklahoma to New York. While this might not seem like much after all that horseback riding, remember that this was in the early days of motor transportation when the roads were questionable if they existed at all. They also had to handle all their own repairs, including any flat tires. And Louis being 14 and Temple 10, they were on a trip that most men at the time would not attempt.

As Louis and Temple were sons of a famous US Marshal and friends of a former president, the news media at the time covered their adventures quite extensively. Louis and Temple even had a movie made about them, Abernathy Kids to the Rescue. Like most bikers though, they apparently did these fantastic things because they wanted to, not for fame or fortune. Louis went to law school and became a lawyer in Texas, while Temple went to work in the oil and gas industry, both living out their lives in relative obscurity. This is what many people don’t understand about bikers, we ride because we want to, nothing else, that’s all.

 John