Seattleite sets world record by circling the earth using public transportation in 1903.

  • By Greg Lange
  • Posted 1/17/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 732
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During 1903, J. Willis Sayre (1877-1963) of Seattle sets a world record by circling the earth using public transportation exclusively. He leaves and returns to Seattle in 54 days 9 hours and 42 minutes.

Sayre was a publicist, drama critic for various local newspapers, a promoter of the Seattle Symphony, and a promoter of theaters and movie houses. He wrote several books including This City of Ours, a history of Seattle that was for many years a standard text in Seattle public schools.


Sources:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 9, 1988, sec. E, p. 1; J. Willis Sayre, This City of Ours (Seattle: J. Willis Sayre, 1936); Social Security Death Index (http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm).


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