WASHINGTON, April 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

FIRST LICENSE PLATES

Profile America — Sunday, April 26th. Many automobile license plates proclaim glories of the issuing states; others spell out something dear to the drivers but indecipherable to anyone else. Those plates and the more basic ones are requirements to drive on public roads. New York was the first state to require license plates on motor vehicles this month in 1901. At the time, there were just fewer than 15,000 sputtering automobiles in the entire country, traveling over muddy, rudimentary roads without a license for the driver or the automobile. Now, there are over 250 million cars, trucks, and buses in the nation, and all sporting license plates. Decorative frames for license plates are a niche product in America's 37,000 auto parts and accessories stores, which generate $48 billion in annual sales. You can find more facts about America's people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 4220
Vehicles in early 20th Century: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 716 
Motor vehicles today: http://www.statista.com/statistics/183505/number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-1990/ 
Auto parts and accessories stores plus revenue: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2012_US_00A1&prodType=table

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau