Does anybody know when a drivers license was first required to drive? Surely they were not required off the bat for those newfangled “automobile” thingamabobs. When was it that someone noticed that there were too many 10 year olds cruising around?
-Ashley
There’s a hodgepodge of sources on this, none really definitive, but you can get a good idea of the time frame.
According to (then Governor) Bill Clinton, West Virginia issued the first driver’s license. In a speech at East Los Angeles College in May, 1992, the Governer said:
Unfortunately, Clinton doesn’t say when that happened, and the West Virginia DOT site doesn’t corroborate it.
Ohio, Texas, and Idaho all issued their first driver’s licenses in 1935. The first driver’s license in Michigan went to Governor Albert E. Sleeper on July 1, 1919. Oregon issued its first anually renewable driver’s license in 1911. Automotive Facts says that the first license issued in Denver, Colorado was in 1906, and cites Mrs. John Howell Phillips of Chicago as the first licensed woman driver (just when isn’t clear).
But according to the Phoenix New Times:
That’s still not the final word. Eagles Byte NYNY historical project reports that in May, 1900:
One source records Carl Benz as the first person in the world to receive a driver’s license in Germany in 1888.
Additional sources:
History of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles
Ummm … ummm …
Clinton didn’t say West Virginia was the first state to issue a driver’s license, he said it was the first to adopt “the driver’s license law”: the law he was talking about, the law that requires drivers under 18 to attend high school. They passed that law in 1988.
Completely off the track, Lib.
I seem to remember that New York was the first. Checking…
And Lib, you should know better than to mention ol’ Bill. 
Peace,
mangeorge