By Stan Bergmeyer, Coma News Daily intern and town historian
Although never credited by automobile historians, George Washington invented the station wagon while visiting Coma in 1762.
The invention allowed the father of our country to embark on a lifetime of road trips through all 13 colonies.
“Inventing the station wagon was really the only way Washington could allow every hamlet, burg and hovel to honestly claim ‘George slept here,'” said Jax Owen, a local auto dealer and car history aficionado. “It was also the only way he could bring the whole family. He had a large family.”
Washington also invented all leather interiors, including seats, floors and windows.
“The challenge of seeing through leather windows was well worth the fat pleasure of chilling in their mink oil-treated leatheryness,” Owen said.
Early charcoal sketches of Washington crossing the Delaware River atop a floating station wagon, were replaced by a boat in later oil paint depictions to avoid distracting from the historic military victory.
The Coma Futurists Society recently displayed one of the original charcoal depictions of the Washington Wagoneer as part of its “Future Inventions of the Past” exhibit.
“It’s unfortunate but the oil painters managed to whitewash a lot of amazing stuff out of the past,” said Micah Horncraft, curator of the Futurists Society. “For instance, did you know Alexander Hamilton invented the Ham radio?”