Ken Burns' current film project, Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, follows Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson on the first cross-country drive from San Francisco to New York City in 1903. Jackson, a 31-year-old doctor from Burlington, Vermont, placed a $50 bet with a group of men in San Francisco that he would be the first to drive the “horseless carriage” across the country. But Jackson's bid to be the first was trumped by Tom Fetch and his Model "F" Packard, who beat Jackson's time by two days.

Unbeknownst to Jackson, Marius Krarup and Tom Fetch left San Francisco on June 20, 1903, making their own attempt of completing the trip to New York, driving a brand-new 12-horsepower Packard. Their trip was planned and paid for by the Packard Motor Car Company as a publicity stunt. Thus, the automotive challenge was set.

Where Jackson's route in his Winton Touring Car bypassed Nevada, Krarup and Fetch headed across the rugged country of the state. The expansive Nevada desert became the proving grounds for the Model F Packard “Old Pacific” in a feud between two great automobile industry pioneers — Alexander Winton and James Packard.

The drivers of the Packard believed their car superior to the Winton, and undaunted by the harsh terrain they faced they became the first to cross the Nevada desert by car. Among the many of the trials of the trip, Nevada provided the first and most grueling tests. The Packard automobile was little more than a horseless carriage with just two-bucket seats mounted atop a wooden body. It lacked a roof for shade, a windshield or even doors.

In conjunction with Horatio's Drive, Channel 5 is producing and broadcasting a series of six short programming breaks that highlight the triumphs and challenges encountered by "Old Pac" while crossing the Nevada desert. Each part of the series highlights a specific trial or obstacle that the vehicle and drivers faced along their Nevada route. There was the descent of Kingsbury grade, the quagmry of the desert sand, numerous creek crossings and the reactions from the locals at the first car seen in rural Nevada.

To learn more about "Old Pac," read Jim Chase's article on the car and its adventure.

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip airs on Channel 5 Monday, October 6 at 9:00pm with a special reprise broadcast on Sunday, October 12 at 1:00pm. For more information on the film, visit the companion site on pbs.org.

Watch immediately following the 7:30pm broadcast of BBC World News Monday, October 6 through Friday, October 10, and immediately before the 8:00pm airing of Antiques Roadshow on Saturday, October 11.