THE DRAGGING THE GUT   FESTIVAL

Where and when exactly was Dragging the Gut or cruising born? In towns across the nation and the world it has been known by many names: Dragging the Gut, Cruising the Gut, Scooping the Loop, Checking out the Marquee, Riding the Strip, Cruising the Main, as well as others names, but it's all the same - young people driving up and down the Main Street not going anywhere just driving up and down for the sake of it while seeing and being seen by others doing the same thing. So when did this youthful activity begin, and who started it?

 

Would you be surprised to learn that Cruising was born right here in McMinnville, Oregon in 1903?! A lot of people by now know that McMinnville is home to Howard Hughes' flying boat the "Spruce Goose," but until now few have realized that the it is also home to the first documented car to ever go "cruising" on a street anywhere in the world! Kitty Hawk may have the Wright Brothers, but we have Ralph Wortman who set the world cruising, leading the way six months before the Wright brothers' first flight.

    

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Those who cruise at the Dragging the Gut Festival drive the same street, follow the same path that the original cruisers did 114 years ago.

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In 1903 Ralph Wortman brought the very first car to the county, his 1901 Stanley Stanhope Model 1 Locomobile. Everyone else was still living in McMinnville's Old West, driving horse and buggies downtown on a dirt street. But it was a new century, and Ralph would lead the way. After he bought it he left the car in Portland because the unpaved muddy road to town was impassable during the winter. But the kid finally got it here that spring, and within about a month Wortman and his car were starting to stir controversy. Anyone that knew Ralph couldn't have been surprised.

Ralph had already set the town on edge when he'd loudly wiz by Sunday church services on his modern first in town motor bike. Ralph's grandpa may have founded the first local bank, but he himself was a city kid that found his way to town, bringing with him his modern Footloose ways.

It was a shock to people that someone would pay so much for a horseless carriage. Ralph's purchase of the 1901 gas steamer car was mocked. One day the guys at the barber shop ask him if was it true that it cost so much? Why he could have gotten multiple horse driven carriages with that kind of money. Sure it was true Ralph told them of the high cost. But, see this was the way of the future - someday, he predicted to them, there'd be a car in every town in the county!

But back to that June day that would go down in history.

Wortman recalls in his 1966 book "A Horseless Carriage Comes to town" that in June of 1903, he driving that first car, and a guy from out of town in his car, drove up and down Main Street for no good reason -  in other words they Dragged the Gut! But those two young rebels without a horse stirred up more than just the dirt on that unpaved street.
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Some might have thought that the City Council's actions in 1988 to stop kids Dragging the Gut was the first time the loved tradition alarmed the "Powers that Be," this would be off by just 85 years!
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At the next 1903 McMinnville City Council meeting following the world's historic first documented cruising incident, a member of the City Council complained that the cruisers scared his horse! As a result, at that meeting the City Council passed the first law concerning automobiles in the State of Oregon. Wortman had started something that would become known in a thousand towns and would continue to be the bane of city police chiefs everywhere. Dragging the Gut had started and it wasn't going to be easy to stop!

Those who come and cruise at our festival drive the same street, follow the same path that the first cruisers did 114 years ago. The Dragging the Gut Festival then not only celebrates this generation's old days of cruising - it does so on the very same street where it all started.

Wortman's original Gut Dragging, trouble making, gas-steamer car now sits rebuilt on permanent display in the Key Bank window watching over our Main Street in Downtown McMinnville (pictured on left.)
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So each year we honor Ralph Wortman, the world's first cruiser, by giving out the Ralph Wortman Trophy to the coolest car at the Dragging the Gut Festival's Car Show.