In 1933 the question of who owned the first automobile in Seward County and Liberal arose. In reply the Liberal News published the following article on February 17, 1933. 
Al Blake and his 1903 Rambler
Recently the question was raised in the News as to who owned the first automobile in Liberal. Reading the item, Mrs. P.F. Hanlin brought in a picture of the first auto, with the owner, Al Blake, sitting proudly at the wheel.
'Gasoline buggy' describes the machine better than the word automobile,' for it looks like a one seated buggy to which the horses have not yet been hitched. It had no windshield, and no top until Mr. Blake put one on it himself. The gasoline feed was controlled by the driver's left thumb, and the driver's seat was on the right side and the gear shift on the outside of the car on the right.
The five gallon gas tank was behind the driver's seat and as there were no filling stations in those days, the only way of filling it was to carry a five gallon can out to the car and pour it in.
There were no doors, no lights and no speedometer. The only way to tell the speed at which the car was traveling was to take a watch and time it between section lines. It would travel up to 25 miles an hour and in those days a good many people were afraid to go that fast.
The engine had one cylinder and a chain drive and the mechanism was such that Mr. Blake says he had little engine trouble. Instead of a steering wheel it was guided by a lever.
Always known for his big heartedness and generosity, Mr. Blake would take everyone who desired a ride. There was only one seat in the machine when he bought it, but he arranged a seat for two people on the back, so that he could take more people riding. People would line up on the corners waiting for their turn at their first automobile ride a and many of the old timers had their first spin in an automobile in Mr. Blake's machine.
He placed the order for it at the auto show Chicago in January 1903, paying $750.00, plus freight. It was of 'Rambler' make, manufactured in Kenosha, Wisconsin by the company which made Rambler bicycle and the Nash of today is the final outgrowth.
The car arrived in Liberal in May, 1903, and Mr. Blake says it was a big curiosity in this section of the country. In those days people came to Liberal for 100-150 miles to trade and they would all flock to the Blake Hardware, located on Lincoln street to see the automobile, but some of them were afraid to take a ride in it.
Mr. Blake kept the car in the back end of the store so he could get out in the alley with it and take off to the northwest across pastures. He couldn't drive it on the main streets in the day time for it scared the horses so badly.
Sometimes he would trail a spring wagon to the back of it and take a whole load of folks out to the lake northeast of Liberal, which was the favorite recreation spot in this part of the country then. Mrs. Blake laughs as she recalls how Mrs. W.S. Wolley was heard to remark to someone that she didn't know why they wanted to ride in the car, because they couldn't go around where anyone else was on account of scaring horses.
Mr. Blake recalls an amusing incident. He was driving out across the prairie northwest when he saw Burt Keating and Adam Ridenour coming in a wagon. Mr. Ridenour was representative to the legislature and was all dressed up as he was enroute to attend the session. Mr. Blake pulled his car away out to the side to avoid frightening the horses, but Mr. Keating, thinking he would have some fun, turned his horses toward the machine and probably would have gotten by alright, had not a line broken. Then the team ran away and turned the wagon over. Mr. Ridenour had a basket of eggs in the wagon and he emerged from the smash-up much worse in appearance. He said he wouldn’t have minded it so much if he hadn’t been all dressed up.
There were no roads in the country in those days, just cow trails, so the going wasn’t so smooth. When asked if he thought the automobile would come into general use when he bought his, Mr. Blake says people used to laugh at him when he told them they would all be having automobiles in a short time.
He kept the Rambler for about three years, when he sold it to a Mr Shumaker who was in the real estate business in Meade, Kansas and drove it all over the country. Later he sold it to Hal Reid of Liberal who put a steering wheel on it and modernized it in other ways.
Mr, Blake had his second auto before anyone else in this section of the country bought one. The second car was a five passenger Lambert which he purchased about three years later.