Presidential Firsts of Theodore Roosevelt

TR was the first President

• to fly in an airplane
• to be submerged in a submarine
• to own a car
• to have a telephone in his home
• to travel outside the borders of the US while still in office. TR took the battleship USS Louisiana to Panama in 1906.
• to entertain an African-American in the White House, inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner
• to win the first AMERICAN as well as first President to win a Nobel Prize in ANY of the six categories - he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

TR founded:

• the first 51 federal bird sanctuaries
• the first 18 national monuments (including the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, Muir Woods and Devils Tower)

First African-American as a dinner guest in the White House:

In 1901, right after he was sworn in as President after the death of President William McKinley, he invited Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute to the White House for a meeting. The meeting ran late, and TR invited Mr. Washington to dinner. This was the first time that an African-American was entertained at the White House as a guest.

First Presidential Airplane Ride:

At an airshow at Aviation Field in St. Louis, Missouri on October 11, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt was offered a seat as a passenger in a plane for a demonstration flight. The pilot's name was Arch Hoxsey, who had just completed a record flight from Springfield, Illinois. The plane reached an altitude of about 50 feet, circled the field twice and stayed airborne for about four minutes. TR said he wished they could have stayed in the air for an hour. Arch Hoxsey was killed in a plane crash on December 31, 1910. This flight made TR the first President to fly in a plane. There is a picture of him strapping himself in that does look as though he was the pilot, but he was not.