Men with car in alley

Given that very few residents had cars in the early years of the steel mill neighborhoods, people tended to live close to the mills and other workplaces so they could walk to work or take the streetcars. They also tended to socialize within their neighborhoods. In an oral history from 1991, Bert Jordan described his introduction to cars, “I learned to drive on a 1914 Model T Ford that my dad bought around 1918 I guess. I was six or seven years old when he got it. And by the time I was eight, I was able to drive it. I couldn’t reach the pedals, but they had the gas and spark levers on the steering column, so all you had to do was steer it. If you had to stop then you had to holler, “Somebody put the brake on.” But they only went about 10 miles per hour anyway, so it didn’t make much difference.”