Newport, Rhode Island, touts a trumpeted history of sporting firsts, from the first U.S. Open championship for golf (1895) and the first U.S. outdoor polo match (around 1876) to New York Yacht Club’s first out-of-town annual regatta (1844). Fewer among us know the summer stomping grounds of America’s industrialists also birthed the first American car circuit race. In 1900 William Kissam Vanderbilt II drove his 23-horsepower Daimler Phoenix to Aquidneck Park to race his friends in a precursor to the Vanderbilt Cup.
The Reef, Brick Alley Pub, Audrain Concours, The Vanderbilt, and Bowen's Wharf are included in this article.
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