According to the records kept in the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the towing industry was started in 1916. As retold by the experts at Chicago Towing, here’s the story of how towing started.

In 1916, a driver lost control of their Ford Model T, nicknamed Tin Lizzie, losing it in Chickamauga Creek which flows through Chattanooga. A man named Ernest Holmes Sr., who belonged to the local automobile club and had a brother named Curtis who owned a gas station, heard about the accident and traveled to get the car from the water, which took 19 men 8 hours to finish. Holmes decided that there has to be a way that’s easier to do that, and started a plan to build a wrecker with his two friends Elmer Gross and L.C. Decker.

The Initial Tow Truck Prototype

The first time Holmes tried this prototype, it failed, and the rescue workers had to resort to their tried method of manpower. Then he realized that the wrecker that he had made, bolting it to the chassis of a 1913 Cadillac, required outriggers for stabilization when it was recovering vehicles.

This setback encouraged Holmes’ detractors, including his parents. According to a member of the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum who worked for the Ernest Holmes Company during the 1960s and 1970s, Holme’s family asked him not to begin working in the automobile service industry, since his neighbor, the above mentioned L.C. Decker, had lost an eye while working in the industry.

Not discouraged, Holmes vastly improved his design and had gotten a fantastic patent by 1919 and was selling custom printed auto wreckers, which were specially mounted up on the backs of used cars. Holmes’ first successful model was called the Holmes 485, a version of which is still on display at the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum, along with a 1913 Locomobile, which sold initially on production for $6,000.