Highway History

The National Old Trails Road Part 3

Promoting the Road During a War

Named and Marked Roads

In April 1917, American Motorist carried Robert Bruce’s discussion of signing along the main named trails:

The signposting on many of them is remarkably complete and satisfactory, consisting usually of some characteristic letter or figure stenciled well up on the most conspicuous telegraph poles along the road.  It is just enough to assure the tourist that he is on that one main road; and he either goes through the intersection, makes a turn or takes the proper fork without a moment’s hesitation. 

The Lincoln Highway leads all of its rivals in the mileage covered by those markers, which are now practically continuous across the continent.  Next is probably that part of the Old Trails route signposted between St. Louis and Los Angeles by the Automobile Club of Southern California.,  So far as the writer’s observations go, the latter would seem to be the most useful and complete type of signposting yet done to any considerable extent in the United States, as it not only identifies the route in general, but gives the distances both to the next town and the most important terminal city ahead.

Signs were vital in Kansas:

Out in the open Kansas prairie, about 43 miles west of Kansas City, the main road from the East comes to a dead end; and the route of the through west-bound tourist across the central portion of that State is decided by a right or left turn at that point.  So far the road from Kansas City has been the main stem of the Santa Fe Trail; from now on there is a choice of two routes, the Old Trails through Osage City, Council Grove, Herington and McPherson, and the New Trail through Ottawa, Emporia, Florence, Newton and Hutchinson.  The promoters of these rival routes have erected large signs in positions best seen as one comes to the final diverging point.

Slightly to the right, as if to indicate the way it would influence the turn, but still clearly seen before the turn need to be made, is the sign of the Old Santa Fe Trail.  Upon it is painted a prairie schooner of the olden days, and an automobile, representing the change in methods of travel within the past 75 years.  It is plainly an appeal to the sentiment of the west-bound tourist; and in few words does the utmost to impress upon him the superiority of the route it marks, particularly from the historic standpoint.

Over to the left, about the same distance from the turn, is an equally prominent signboard indicating the way to the new Santa Fe Trail.  This one has no picture, but is strong on names of places, which the painter’s brush has brought out most effectively.  It also emphasizes the fact that the Santa Fe railroad goes that way.  The motorist who has no special reason for going one way or the other will probably hesitate somewhat at this junction.  Both have become heavily traveled routes through central Kansas to the farther west.  They illustrate the competitive feature of many roads leading by different ways to the same principal destinations in that part of the country.  Truly there is nothing left of the old frontier; even its romance and traditions are rapidly fading from the memory of living men.

Even the organizations promoting the great transcontinental routes are now adopting similar methods; and attempting to reach out even hundreds of miles to draw travel into their channels.  The rivalry between the central route, or the Lincoln Highway, and the southern or National Old Trails road, has come to be particularly spirited.  At Big Springs, Nebraska, the Automobile Club of Southern California has erected the sign shown here upon a wood frame ten feet high and twenty feet wide.  Both the reading and the outline map are meant to impress the tourist with the fact that he may leave the central route, go down through Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo to Trinidad, connecting there with the “all year route” to California via the Grand Canyon.  Yet Trinidad, the nearest point on the Old Trails route, is over 300 miles from the big signboard along the Lincoln Highway!

The signboard depicted a map of the States from Colorado to California, with the National Old Trails Road shown in black line through Pueblo to Trinidad, Raton, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, where the line split between the Gallup and Springerville alternatives from New Mexico to Arizona.  The two lines connected at Holbrook to Winslow, Flagstaff, and Williams, with the road to the Grand Canyon is depicted between Flagstaff and Williams.  The line from Williams continued through Kingman, Needles, Barstow, San Bernardino, and Riverside to Los Angeles. 

The wording on the sign:

Thoroughly Sign Posted
ALL YEAR ROUTE
---- TO ----
CALIFORNIA
AND THE
PACIFIC COAST
BY THE
NATIONAL OLD TRAILS ROAD

SIGN POSTS ERECTED AND MAINTAINED BY
Automobile Club of Southern California
National Old Trails Association

Bruce continued to comment on signs in relation to one of regular gripes:

A district whose roads are laid out largely or altogether along section lines, quickly tests the efficiency or any posting or marking system.  On some portions of the Old Trails route across Missouri, there is frequently an average of some break in the direct road every mile, mostly short offsets, where the turns are square, very likely with unprotected ditches in close proximity.  But when the signposting is effectively done, that and the principal travel, as shown by the wear on the road surface, soon enable one to take these corners with more speed and safety than might at first be considered possible.  However, they will always be awkward places to meet a car coming at speed from the opposite direction.

Another problem involved the common practice of asking about road conditions.  The tourist in western States may inquire about road conditions up ahead, but in many of those States, the counties were in charge of the road.  Local residents, therefore, talk in terms of their own county, but don’t know what is happening on the other side of the county line:

To the stranger, say from the eastern states, who knows nothing about where one country (sic] ends and another begins, such directions are absolutely unintelligible, unless the tourist first provides himself with a commercial map of the state, and lays out his route in a tentative way across the counties, which is not always easy to do.

It is interesting to observe that local parties with whom the tourist may talk in those sections consider that of course he is acquainted with the county lines; and really cannot understand why he should not be.  When this is all the assistance one traveling without accurate running directions or a good system of signboards can secure, it is a bit of passing help to come across a well-marked county line, as at the boundary of Lafayette and Saline counties, crossed in making a trip between Marshall and Lexington, Mo., which a board on a prominent post has the name of one on either side.  Where the county is still the unit of road activity, its limits should be marked much more generally than they are now.

Signing in the eastern States was not as advanced as in the western States, but they were making rapid progress:

The continuous improved roads on the National Pike between Baltimore, Washington, Hagerstown, Cumberland and the Ohio river at Wheeling, and also along the Pennsylvania division of the Lincoln Highway, between Philadelphia, Gettysburg and Pittsburgh, commonly known and referred to by their appropriate and widely accepted names, has given a needed impetus to the extension of that system in other states.  [Bruce, Robert, “Named and Marked Roads,” American Motorist, April 1917, pages 9-13, 58]

Declaration of War

By the end of February 1917, newspapers were reporting that Germany had secretly reached out to Mexico to aid in the war.  Upon victory, Mexico’s reward would be the return of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to within its new borders.  Germany also invited Japan to join in the war.  That threat, the continued attacks by German U-boats on shipping in the Atlantic, and other factors, changed President Wilson’s views. 

He had done everything he could to keep America out of the European war, and had won reelection on numerous themes, but especially on keeping the peace.  With the hope of maintaining peace, he addressed Congress on February 26 to request additional authority to arm merchant ships to protect them from submarine attacks.  The House of Representatives approved the bill overwhelmingly, but 11 Senators launched a filibuster to block approval by the 66 Senators who said they would have voted for it.  With the 64th Congress ending at noon on March 4, they had to delay the vote only a few days to kill the bill. 

On March 4, 1917, a Sunday, President Wilson was inaugurated for a second term in a private ceremony.  But he issued a statement denouncing Congress for not being able “to act either to safeguard the country or to vindicate the elementary rights of its citizens.”  In a time of crisis, the country was blocked from acting.  “A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”   It was “the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action.”  He called for revising the Senate rules to allow cloture of a filibuster by a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate. 

He held limited inaugural festivities on March 5. 

On April 2, 1917, President Wilson and the First Lady drove through the rain along Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill to address Congress.  "It is a fearful thing,” he said, “to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.  But the right is more precious than peace.” 

Asking Congress for a declaration of war, he said:

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.  God helping her, she can do no other.

The European or Great War, now known as World War I, would affect every aspect of life in the United States, including the Federal-aid highway program that President Wilson had launched by signing the Federal Aid Road Act on July 11, 1916.

On September 1, 1916, construction had begun on California Federal Aid Road Project No. 3, which would be the first project completed under the Federal Aid Road Act.  The road extended 2.55-miles from Albany at the Alameda County line to Richmond in Contra Costa County.  BPR’s unofficial historian Albert C. Rose wrote:

Construction began officially on September 1, 1916, and the certificate of completion was issued by the District Engineer of the Bureau of Public Roads of the United States Department of Agriculture, on January 30, 1918.  The total cost of the project, including the money allotted by the State, was $53,938.85.  [Rose, Albert C., Historic American Roads:  From Frontier Trails to Superhighways, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1976, page 91]

(Congress, in the Department of Agriculture appropriation act for 1919 elevated OPRRE to bureau status as the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) effective July 1, 1918.)

The program, however, faltered, partly because of defects in its conception but especially because of America's entry into World War I.  The Federal Government shifted its many programs from whatever had been their peacetime goals to winning the war.  From engineers to construction workers, many of those who were to implement the Federal-aid highway program went instead to the war in Europe or to support it. 

At BPR, 79 of 189 men and one woman had entered the military by war's end.  Four “gave their lives for their country.”  The FY 1919 annual report listed the four men and how they died, adding:

The bureau is honored that these men were among those who went out from its service, loyal and unafraid, when the call came to the greater service.  [“War Activities ‐ Number and Percentage of Employees in Military Service,” Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, October 15, 1919, Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture for the Year Ended June 30, 1919, page 391]

Across the country, personnel shortages were compounded by shortages of road building material.  Further, a shortage of railroad cars, already overburdened by wartime demands, made shipment of the available materials to construction projects difficult.  With transportation paralysis near, the Federal Government took over the mainline steam railroads on December 26, 1917, for the duration of the war. 

Meanwhile, rail shortages gave the fledgling trucking industry an opportunity to expand service to include interstate shipments.  The roads that the States did not have the resources to improve deteriorated under the weight of the new loads they were carrying.  Even the higher type pavements, cement concrete and brick on concrete, failed.  [America’s Highways 1776-1976, pages 90-97]

Auto racing was another casualty of the war.  In December 1917, AAA’s contest board, which set the rules for motor competitions, decided to cease issuing sanctions for motor contests while the war was underway.  President Wilson appreciated the action, as he stated in a communication to his cousin, John A. Wilson, chairman of AAA’s Military Preparedness Committee:

I am very glad indeed to learn that it is the purpose of the American Automobile Association to stop automobile racing until after the close of the war.  It is so destructive of materials and involves so great a consumption of gasoline that I think every man who cares for the proper fulfillment of our duties during the war and the necessary conservation of resources which the performance of those duties involves must applaud the action of the association in this matter.

Faithfully yours,
Woodrow Wilson

[“Ban On Auto Racing,” The Baltimore Sun, December 9, 1917]

D.A.R. Congress, 1917

Despite the shift to war time, the annual convention of the D.A.R. took place in Washington on April 17-22.  Mrs. McCleary reported on the work of the National Old Trails Road Committee.  After reporting on adding vice-chairmen to the committee, she reported:

Requests for information as to the exact route of our highway becoming more and more frequent, convinced us of the need of having maps for distribution among our State Chairman and members.  Accordingly we had five hundred maps printed under the supervision of Mrs. John Van Brunt, who has always had charge of the map making of this committee . . . . This has been done with the hope that with a clearer knowledge of the historic roads to be perpetuated, we may receive greater support throughout entire society.

In the early years, “the National Old Trails Road was sign posted by stenciling on the telephone poles.”  That “was the best means that could be afforded at the time,” but was “not durable.”  The committee, therefore, established a subcommittee to design a permanent marker.”  The subcommittee included Miss Elizabeth Gentry, former chairman of the committee as well as one of the originators of the National Old Trails Road:

The design we present today is the result of their work.  It is of cast iron, one by two feet in dimension, painted red, white and blue, with the insignia of the Daughters at the top.  The sign to be bolted to a T. cross section, seven feet long, to be buried two feet deep in a concrete foundation and painted white.  The iron is one-fourth inch thick with border and letters raised one-eighth inch, which is sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of small boys with rocks.  The cost is about ten dollars per sign.  We hope they will meet the approval of the Daughters.  These signs are intended to be placed only on National Old Trails Roads.  Where it does not exactly follow the original trail, other markers may be placed on the exact route.

She explained the importance of the old trails:

As a people we have been slow to realize how closely these paths hewed out by the pioneers through the trackless forests of the continent were interwoven with our history, and it remained for the Daughters of the American Revolution to arouse appreciation of these early routes of trade and war and strategic points they connected.  They were the keys to the interior of the continent over which the pioneer, the missionary and the trader journeyed westward, and they are being located and marked with tablets and monuments in every section of our country.

This work brings to light much that is of great interest in the life along the road in the pioneer days, in the later days of the stage coach and tavern life and of the mail and express systems and many interesting facts of early history that seem to have been overlooked.

Although time would not permit individual State chairman to provide their reports,
Mrs. McCleary summarized some of them.

For example, Miss Anna Hollenbeck, chairman of the Ohio chapter, reported that her chapter had “completed plans for reclaiming the milestones along the Old National Pike or Cumberland Road from Bridgeport on the east to Belfast on the western boundary of the State, a distance of our three hundred miles.  Many of these old milestones are almost covered with earth and some are back in the fields some distance from the main road, due to farms encroaching on the original highway.  This road is a part of our ocean-to-ocean highway, and is the most historic road used today in America.”

The D.A.R. bill also came up:

In a meeting of this committee held here a year ago, we decided to present the bill for our National Old Trails Road at the next session of the U.S. Congress.  This decision was embodied in our report to you and was accepted.  Accordingly when Congress convened last December, we wrote our chairman of legislation, Mrs. C. L. Davis, requesting her to have our bill introduced in Congress.  White waiting to hear from her, we procured the addresses of all the State presidents of the S.A.R., presidents of State Historical Societies, pioneer associations and other kindred organizations whose influence we intended to invoke in behalf of our bill.  But when the chairman of legislation replied to our request, she wrote that the bill for the purchase of Monticello was already introduced and they were making every effort to secure ifs favorable consideration; that she considered it unwise to have another D.A.R. bill introduced at this time which might react unfavorably toward the passage of the bill for the purchase of Monticello, and that the President General fully concurred in her opinion.

But a few days later we received a letter from Hon. W. P. Borland, member of Congress from Kansas City, who had always introduced this bill for the committee and who with his knowledge of legislation felt that it should be kept before Congress stating that he had already introduced the bill and had spoken before the House in its behalf.  We have placed a copy of this splendid speech of Mr. Borland’s in the seat of each delegate today and hope you will take them home with you and read them.  This speech describes each trail and pioneer road that goes to make up our ocean-to-ocean highway and gives a brief history of them much better than your chairman could do in the brief time that can be given to a report in our busy Congress.  Having had so many requests for just the information contained in Congressman Borland’s speech and feeling it could be used to great advantage in our work we made inquiry as to its cost and found the first thousand copies would cost $16.50, and each additional thousand $4.88.

On January 4, 1917, Representative Borland had delivered a lengthy floor speech on the history of the National Old Trails Road.  The speech summarized the history of each segment of the National Old Trails Road, as well as the Boston Post Road, the Oregon Trail, and the California cutoff.  However, it began and ended with praise for the D.A.R.  It began:

Mr. Chairman, there is one patriotic body which is devoting itself to the perpetuation of the great landmarks of American history ‐ the Daughters of the American Revolution.  The scope of their work is not confined to the stirring scenes and incidents of the War for American Independence, but embraces the victories, both of war and peace, by which the infant Nation gathered the fruit of its successful revolution in the conquest of the continent.

Among these achievements of the past, which have resulted in extending American civilization and American ideals from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate, there has been no more potent force than those historic trails or primitive highways by which the American pioneer advanced to the conquest of the wilderness.  [Applause.]  The interest of the Daughters of the Revolution has centered in the preservation of these historic highways, linked not by accident but by the hand of fate into a continuous route of travel from the infant settlements on the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi and into the great West.  

He added of the historic roads and trails:

Their history is so deeply embedded in our national life that we can take no view of our progre3ss as a Nation which leaves them out of account.  [Applause.]

He said that he had introduced a bill in the past several sessions “which authorizes the Federal Government, after the trail has been constructed through a certain State, to reimburse the State for one-half the cost of building it and making a military highway,” noting the current bill was H.R. 4755.  He presented a map of the National Old Trails Road showing the roads referenced in the speech.  The map was reproduced in the Congressional Record.

Representative Borland concluded:

The Revolution, which made us a Nation, gave us also the opportunity for the conquest of a continent and set before us the manifest destiny which should extend the feeble and struggling fringe of settlements upon the bleak Atlantic coast across 3,000 miles of virgin territory to the wondrous South Sea and bring it all under one flag, with one civilization, one language, one literature, and one law.  [Applause.]

It is to the credit of the Daughters of the American Revolution that, true to the great historic inspiration of their body, they are devoting themselves to the preservation and perpetuation of these historic trails and that they have a right to expect to enlist the enthusiastic support of the Nation in this great purpose.  [Applause.]  [Agriculture Appropriation Bill, Congressional Record ‐ House, January 4, 1917, pages 848-853; the map is on page 852]

Representative Borland had introduced the bill in the current session.  The “Daughters of the American Revolution Old Trails Act, to provide a National ocean-to-ocean highway over the pioneer trails of the Nation,” now known as H.R. 3234.  Mrs. McCleary said the bill had been referred to the Committee on Agriculture:

In an interview with Mr. Borland since coming to this city, he said the most effective aid we could give this bill would be by writing to our representatives in Congress.  I urge each Daughter in this congress to do this in behalf of our National Old Trails Road.  The building of this road is one of the greatest efforts ever undertaken by this Society.  Each of us in gratitude to our forbears, and as a duty to our country, owes our best efforts to see that the Federal and State governments build an ocean-to-ocean highway of these trails of the pioneers whose struggles gave us the greatest heritage in the world’s history.

These roads have not come by accident, but they are the unwritten history of the growth and development of our great nation.

The present is a peculiarly fitting time for a patriotic society to actively engage in an effort for a highway across the continent.  As we stand, we fear, on the very threshold of war, and our lack of preparedness sobers every thoughtful American citizen, are we not doing less than our duty if we fail to urge the building of this road as a military as well as a memorial highway.  Good highways are one of a nation’s best assets in war as well as in peace.  If the time should come when war must be, our trained soldiers could be transported in defense of the country secured to us by the pioneers, on a road builded [sic] on the trails they blazed with such difficulty and builded through the efforts of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Such a road will be an object lesson in patriotism, not alone to us but to the generations who will follow and will help to inspire that love of country our ancestors possessed, and which is necessary for the perpetuity of our nation.

From a practical standpoint it is a valuable commercial asset.  It is the natural highway across the continent.  Traversable a greater portion of the year than any other road.  This is an age of road building.  The demand for an ocean-to-ocean highway is insistent and persistent.  Build this road and it opens up a great territory and will give increased value to vast areas of land.  Rural delivery of mail will reach thousands of homes, children will attend school over it.  Farmers will market their produce, motorists will traverse it and will be amazed at the magnitude, the wealth and the beauty of our country.  Any means that affords increased advantage for our citizens, that will make the boys and girls of today more intelligent, patriotic citizens of tomorrow is a wise investment for a Republic. And so we urge the Daughters of the American Revolution to interest themselves in the National Old Trails Road as they never have before.  It is too great a work to be accomplished by the committee without the support of the entire Society.

Grant this committee a sufficient appropriation to carry on the work.  Make it the paramount feature of an administration and, with the support of the National Board and nearly one hundred thousand patriotic women, we can surely prevail upon our
U.S. Congress to build this highway from the historic roads and trails over which the pioneers journeyed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, planting American homes beside these trails and carrying the light of American civilization across the continent which they saved to our country.  Build this road and generations yet unborn will rise up and call you blessed and honor the Society to which you belonged.  [Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 17-22, 1917, pages 1057-1061]

Judge Lowe’s Retirement

On June 1, 1917, Judge Lowe began a statement to the association’s executive committee by recalling its origin:

This Association was organized April 17, 1912.  The present officials were elected and have continually served since.  The ambitious project was declared to be the permanent construction of a Trans-Continental Highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific ‐ from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, California.  At the time of its organization not one mile of the road was built and maintained in such manner as to be recognized as a good road, and there was not a dollar in the treasury for promotion purposes.

Since then, the association had received from all sources an average $5,516.41 a year, “and have to show as results more than $10,000,000 expended in the permanent construction of the road.”  Every State through which the road passed had included it in its State highway system, a development that “assures its building even if no other incentive existed.”  He summarized the progress:

It is practically completed from Baltimore and Washington thru the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, and in Illinois its building is assured by a recent Act of the Legislature, providing that the State shall build it.  In Missouri the legislature permitted us to suggest the adoption of the Maryland statute requiring the State to pay one-half the cost and the county thru which it runs the other half.  In Kansas the Constitution prevents the State from contributing to any internal improvement, but the people with every indication of success are actively urging county and district bond measures; California has built nearly one-half the road, and the balance is provided for in State bonds already issued.  Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado will finish their part within the year 1918.

He praised the sign posting work of the Automobile Club of Southern California, which had completed its work from Los Angeles to Kansas City.  The association had then “signposted the road to St. Louis, and has also contracted to finish the sign posting in the same uniform manner across Illinois and Indiana.”  The work would be done by August 1, 1917.  “In addition, we have expended thousands of dollars in maps, road logs, road literature, etc.”

Judge Lowe’s statement turned personal:

To myself I reckon the past years of my activities with this organization as the happiest, because the most useful, of my life ‐ accentuated by my association with so many patriotic people devoted alike to the great National purpose of serving the common welfare of the country, with no element of self in it.  This is compensation enough.  It affords profound satisfaction to congratulate you on the assured fruition of all our hopes.

He recalled the 19th century leaders who had overseen the National Road to Vandalia, Illinois:

If the spirits of the mighty dead are permitted to watch over mundane affairs, how the hearts of Gallatin, Jefferson, Giles, Clay, Benton and others must thrill with pleasure over the successful accomplishment of their great undertaking.  What an inspiration it is to recall the memorable Christmas Day of 1824, when Benton, the great compeer of Webster, Clay and Calhoun, sat down at Monticello to learn of Mr. Jefferson who had approved the Act establishing the National (Cumberland) Road, whether there was any precedent for extending that road on from the Missouri line to Santa Fe, the capitol [sic] of a Foreign State, and to be assured that such authority existed.  On returning to Washington, backed by such high authority, he pushed the bill thru and thus established the Santa Fe Trail, as the western link in the only National and Inter-National Highway on this hemisphere.  These with many other hallowed memories, spur us on with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

(Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a sponsor of legislation to advance the Santa Fe Trail.  On March 3, 1825, President James Monroe signed “An Act to authorize the President of the United States to cause a road to be marked out from the western frontier of Missouri, to the confines of New Mexico” in the Republic of Mexico.  The Act authorized the President to appoint commissioners to mark the road provided that they first “obtain the consent of the intervening tribes of Indians, by treaty, to the marking of the said road, and to the unmolested use thereof to the citizens of the United States, and the Mexican Republic.”  The President also was authorized to cause the marking of the road, subject to “such regulations as may be agreed upon for that purpose between the executive of the United States, and the Mexican government.”  For these purposes, the Act appropriated $10,000 for surveying and marking the road and $20,000 “to defray the expenses of treating with the Indians, for their consent to the establishment and use thereof.”  The commissioners completed the survey from Missouri to Taos, New Mexico, between July 1825 and the summer of 1827.  By then, however, traders had already found their own path, ending in Santa Fe instead of Taos.)

The “most righteous war” the United States was in “will but add impetus to the great internal development of the country”:

The permanent enhancement of values by reason thereof will go far toward offsetting the ravages and necessary wastes of war.  And when it is over, and the Divine right of all the people everywhere to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in a Government of their own selection is fully realized, established and guaranteed, then the people can sit down in absolute security under their own vine and fig tree, and rest content in “a house built by the side of the road.”

He praised the D.A.R., personally and in the name of the association, “for their untiring zeal and inspirational influence by monumenting and thus preserving the many historic features of the National Old Trails Road.”

The 72-year old Judge Lowe concluded with an unexpected announcement:

And now I regretfully must say that the impairment of my health admonishes me that I must retire from the position your partiality has so long bestowed, just as the "promised land" is so obviously and clearly in sight.  I do so more cheerfully, however, because I know that nothing done or not done can prevent nor long delay the comple­tion of this great memorial highway.  To every member of this asso­ciation I tender my thanks coupled with words of highest appreciation.  The interests of the association could not be left in better hands than in those to whom it is now committed, and I urge for them your united and loyal support.

J. M. Lowe, President
NATIONAL OLD TRAILS ROAD ASSOCIATION
322 Railway Exchange
Kansas City, MO. June 1, 1917

Judge Lowe included a brief financial statement covering the years since the association’s inception:

*Covers the period from September 30, 1916 to June 1, 1917.

[National Archives at College Park, Maryland; “Judge J. M. Lowe Retires,” Better Roads and Streets, July 1917, pages 309, 328]

With the annual convention ready to assemble in Pueblo, Colorado, the Automobile Club of Southern California issued a press release dated August 3 from Los Angeles:

Transcontinental touring was never so popular as it is to-day.  There is a rapidly-growing tendency to get away from the old-time fad of crossing from ocean to ocean by Pullman, this being the day of the “motor way.”  A short time ago the Automobile Club of Southern California, to prove this fact, stationed a counter at the bridge at Topock, Ariz., over which all motorists making the trip in either direction over the National Old Trails highway are compelled to pass.  According to this counter there are at this time twenty-five transcontinental motor parties starting from western for eastern point every day, while during the same period of time more than forty parties of eastern motorists are starting for California.

This being true, it would seem natural to believe that there are hundreds of residents of the east who have decided upon or are contemplating a trip to western points over this particular trail during the coming weeks and months.  To these motorists the club has a message, this being in the form of a list of the prices that are being charged for gasoline at the various points along the route, as follows

[“Price of Gas on National Old Trails,” Motor Age, August 9, 1917, page 27]       

Convention, 1917

On June 14, 1917, The Herrington Times reported the news about Judge Lowe’s
retirement:

Dr. W. H. Mott was in Kansas City Saturday evening [June 9] attending a meeting of the executive committee of the National Old Trail Association [sic] of which he is a member. Other members of the committee present were:  F. N. Hopkins of Lexington, Missouri, Frank A. Davis and Judge J. M. Lowe of Kansas City.

Judge Lowe who has been president of the Association since its inception five years ago, resigned at this meeting because of impaired health.  The office devolves on R. A. Long who has been acting general vice-president.

The annual meeting of the Old Trail Association will be held about the middle of August, probably at Pueblo . . . .

Of Judge Lowe’s resignation, the Kansas City Star of Sunday says:

Judge Lowe has fathered the National Old Trails Road since its inception, five years ago. In both the East and the West he is a national figure and is given credit for building one-third of the road that is already hard surfaced, giving his time free to the big movement for an ocean-to-ocean highway.

At the time of the organization of the road not one mile of road was built and maintained in such manner as to be recognized as a good road.  There was not a dollar in the treasury for promotion purposes.  In the five years Mr. Lowe has headed the work the Atlantic to Pacific Highway has been completed practically from Baltimore and Washington through Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana.  In Illinois its construction is assured.  Every state through which the road runs has adopted it as part of its state highway system, which assures its construction, in absence of any other incentive.

Sign posts of enameled steel have been placed along the road from Los Angeles to
St. Louis.  The association has contracted for completion of the work in the same uniform manner across Illinois and Indiana by August 1.  In addition, thousands of dollars have been expended in maps, road logs and road literature.  [“Judge J. M. Lowe Resigns,” The Herrington Times, June 14, 1917, page 7]

With Judge Lowe’s retirement, one of the first orders of business for the association’s convention on August 16-17 in Pueblo would be to elect a successor to what Motor Age called “the godfather, nurse and sponsor of the National Old Trails Association.”  Although the association had received only an average of $5,516.41 a year for its operations, the organization’s work had resulted in “more than $10,000,000 expended in the permanent construction of the road.”  [“N.O.T. Boosters to Meet,” Motor Age, June 28, 1917, page 10]

Touring Topics described him:

Since the organization of the National Old Trails Road Association in 1912, Judge J. M. Lowe of Kansas City has served as president of the organization.  He is known as president of the organization.  He is known from the Atlantic to the Pacific for his unceasing work and his untiring efforts to bring about the building of the Old Trails Road from Coast to Coast.  Much has been done under his guidance and the successful completion of this historic road is now in sight.  [“Auto Club Officials Attend Old Trails Convention,” Touring Topics, August 1917, page 8]

In addressing the convention, he began:

When this association was organized it had scarcely a fairly good, permanent, one-mile stretch of road anywhere between the two oceans.  It is to-day one of the most thoroughly well-built roads extending from Baltimore, in Maryland, entirely across the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio (except about fifteen miles, which is tied up in court), and part of the way across Indiana.  Indeed, the road all the way across Indiana is built of gravel, principally, and is better than the average road, but it is far from being ideal, and the highway board of that state has agreed to appropriate state money and pay for one-half the cost of construction if the counties through which it runs will provide the other half, and they have accepted this proposition, and the road will be speedily finished across that state.

The state highway board of Illinois has offered to pay two-thirds of the cost of completing the road across that state, and the counties through which it runs have agreed to pay the other third.  So this will make it a completely hard-surfaced road from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.

The state highway board of Missouri pledges state and federal aid to pay one-half the cost of construction across this state, one-third of which has already been constructed.  The counties through which the road runs will meet in coöperative convention at Columbia on the 6th of October to say whether or not they will accept this proposition, and there is no question as to what the result will be.  This will bring the project up to the front door of Kansas.

Judge Lowe’s prediction proved correct.  The November 1917 issue of The Road-Maker reported:

A meeting held in Columbia, Mo., on October 6 attended by over 300 delegates from counties traversed by the National Old Trails road from St. Louis to Kansas City, has resulted in a general movement all along the lines to hard-surface this important cross-state highway.  Six of the counties through this road passes are located north of the Missouri river.

The state highway department is gratified to note this activity north of the river, since this section of the state has been somewhat slow to take advantage of the state and federal aid to which all counties are entitled as soon as they qualify by providing one-half the cost of constructing the state roads.  [“Activity North of Missouri River,” The Road-Maker, November 1917, page 51]

As for Kansas, Judge Lowe recalled the history of the Santa Fe Trail across the State, citing the role of Senator Thomas Hart Benton and his meeting with former President Jefferson.  Judge Lowe said he had visited the National Archives in Washington and found the survey that Senator Benton had displayed in support of his bill to extend the Cumberland Road to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Judge Lowe had a photostatic copy of the survey in the association’s headquarters:

Thus it came about that the National Old Trails Road, approved by Mr. Jefferson in 1806, was extended after being approved by Mr. Jefferson again, became an established national and international highway, extending from ocean to ocean.

He concluded:

There is no other road, either in or out of America, around which so much political, educational, commercial and military interest lingers as around this old road.  Its full completion is now well assured.  Already it is burdened with a greater amount of traffic than any road in the United States; already it is better advertised and better known than any other road in America.  It is only here, in the great central West, where the people, it seems, have failed to appreciate the great good fortune which has come to them in the establishment of this road, where its construction seems to be slow of development.  Both east of the great valley of the Mississippi, and west of it, the road is much more nearly completed, and is in better condition to-day than it is through this district.  This is a shame, almost approaching a disgrace.  But the lethargy hitherto existing in this regard is shaken off, and there is no question but what in the very near future it will be the great military and commercial highway about which Jefferson and Benton and their compeers dreamed; about which Clay devoted so large a part of his life, and over which the sturdy pioneers of a splendid people came to the mighty West and laid down their lives in its development and consecration.  [“The National Old Trails Road,” Kansas Highways, October 1917, page 9]

Although Judge Lowe had announced his retirement, the National Old Trails Road Association elected him president during the annual convention in Pueblo, and he would continue to serve energetically.  Frank A. Davis, who had been with the association from the start, was elected Secretary-Treasurer.)

During the convention, Colorado delegates established a building committee consisting of one member from Bent, Huerfano, Las Animas, Otero, Prowers, and Pueblo Counties.  They were “instructed to bring about with all possible speed the hard-surfacing of Colorado’s 250 miles of the Santa Fe trail across those six counties and to co-operate with like committees from other states toward making this year-round road a paved highway from coast to coast.”

The section of the road in Kansas had been concern for the association, but the importance of improving the State’s segment of the National Old Trails Road was illustrated:

Paving in Kansas received extra urging because several delegates got marooned in that state in heavy rains and missed the convention.  Altogether, sixty delegates were reported unable to reach Pueblo in time on account of muddy roads at different points along the route, and this situation was employed overtime as an argument for paved roads for military emergencies and all other highway purposes.

Several committees reported on their work, including:

Favorable committee reports were made upon requests from the San Luis valley and Colorado Springs that the Spanish trail westward from Walsenburg through La Veta Pass, Alamosa, etc., be added to the National Old Trails system and that the Colorado Springs-Pueblo road be declared a branch of the Santa Fe trail.  Final action by the convention was postponed, to depend upon interest shown by the local people interested in the further improvement of these roads.  [“Hard Roads Are Urged,” Motor Age, August 23, 1917, page 15]

Memorial for Jesse Taylor

During the Pueblo convention, the National Old Trails Association recognized the death of Jesse Taylor of Ohio, “one of its truest and staunchest charter members” of the organization.  Taylor, who had attended the association’s founding convention, was the founder and editor of Better Roads/Better Roads and Streets, which the first convention adopted as its official organ.   Taylor, born in Green County, Ohio, devoted much of his later life to the good roads cause.  He died on December 7, 1916, age 53, in Jamestown, Ohio, where the magazine was published. 

During the 1912 convention, he had been introduced as secretary of the Ohio Good Roads Federation and as “the livest wire in Ohio on the subject of good roads.”  During the discussion of the Old versus New Santa Fe Trail, Taylor had explained his familiarity with the route:

I am happy to say that the Santa Fe Trail is not new to me, for twenty-six years ago this month when running from tuberculosis, upon the advice of a physician, I chased myself from where I now live to the southwestern corner of the state of Kansas, and there I was the companion day and night of the cowboy, the coyote, the prairie dog and the owl for two years and a half, until I returned to Ohio and there found a wife who is with me today . . . .  After my experience in Southwestern Kansas for two years and a half, living fifty-two miles from a railroad, I spent four years in Garden City, Kansas, and at the beginning of the second administration of President Cleveland, by the invitation of Grover, I returned to the place whence I came, and there I have been ever since.  [Proceedings of First National Old Trails Road Convention, April 17, 1912, page 23]

The association’s resolution stated that, “Ohio has lost one of her most valuable citizens, and the cause of good roads everywhere, a pioneer advocate of good roads everywhere, a pioneer advocate of ability and genuine worth, known and loved throughout the length and breadth of United States.”

Judge Lowe recalled his friend:

I met him first the day this association was organized.  From that time to the day of his death he was my friend ‐ and I was his.  In all the crises of this association I leaned upon him most heavily, and found him ever staunch and steadfast, true as the needle to the pole; wise, cheerful and helpful in every time of need.  Few ‐ indeed I recall none ‐ whose clarion voice and trenchant pen did more for this great cause than he.  He was an unselfish friend, both personally and of the National Old Trails Road.  He did not live beside it, nor did it run through his town or country, but when he saw the notice of a convention called to organize this association, five hundred miles beyond the limits of his own state, he attended at his own expense, and there became a charter member.  True, noble, steadfast friend and patriotic citizen, hail and farewell! 

If immortal spirits are permitted to take cognizance of mundane affairs then Jesse Taylor, in his home in the skies, looks down today upon this convention and bids us God-speed. 

We shall miss, as all those who strive for the common good shall miss, the inspiring and masterful influence he so constantly exercised.  When the angry clouds of opposition seemed ready to burst and destroy all our hopes for governmental aid ‐ when the real friends and time-tried champions of good roads were maligned and blackguarded on the floor of the House of Representatives at Washington by the spokesman for that pestilential brood of pork barrel, pot-house politicians, who always hover around the national treasury, then Jesse Taylor stood, as he always stood, for clean, honest and efficient application of the national and state finances as now written in the national statutes, and especially as interpreted by the great Secretary of Agriculture in President Wilson’s cabinet.  The pork barrel instinct is probably the most deep-seated in the congressional psychology; even America’s greatest international crisis, at a time when the very life of the nation is at stake, has not succeeded in stifling it. 

If Jesse Taylor could speak to us today he would urge us to go forward in this great work, and never to trail the banner of the National Old Trails Road Association in the dirt and mire of disreputable politics, nor yet to smirch its clean folds in the slime of polluted commercialism.  He would urge us, as I do now, never to pull down that banner, nor abandon our high purpose, until the National Old Trails Road is completely rebuilt, rehabilitated and rededicated from ocean to ocean to our pioneer ancestry who conceived and dedicated it to the holy purpose of “cementing the states and thus preserving the union.” 

And let us, too, dedicate it to remotest posterity, as the strongest cable which can bind the Atlantic to the Pacific, and thus preserve the solidarity of the republic.  In the last visit
I made him, when he knew his sun was fast sinking to its final setting, he joyously recalled our many campaigns together, and spoke most hopefully of the future which awaited him “just over the hill.”

On the death of such a man even the great agnostic was forced to exclaim “Hope sees a star and listening love hears the rustle of a wing.”  Peace to his ashes, and peace to the great soul which throbbed and thrilled with the fine purposes of live to the very end.”  [National Archives at College Park, Maryland; “Resolution Commemorative of Mr. Jesse Taylor, Vice-President, National Old Trails Road Association, Better Roads and Streets, October 1917, page 453]

Judge Lowe contributed a memorial to Better Roads and Streets, where some of his convention memorial originated.  In the magazine, he said:

Ohio will never know, nor the people of the Nation understand, what a mighty force he was for material and substantial betterments.  The women and children alone, and especially those who lived, as he expressed it “on the back end of a mud road,” could well afford to build him a monument of everlasting granite, and dedicate it with the prayers and tears of a grateful people.

The writer of this leaned most heavily upon him, and now realizes not only his own great personal loss, but that the country has sustained a national calamity as well.  At such an hour human strength fails utterly, and we appeal instinctively to a Higher Power.  Immortality needs no extraneous evidence to convince those who knew Jesse Taylor.  Such a spirit as his proves its own right to live forever.  The world is impoverished and heaven enriched by the translation of this noble soul, splendid citizen, and steadfast friend of humanity.  [Lowe, Judge J. M., “Jesse Taylor,” Better Roads and Streets, January 1917, page 27]

On the same page, Joseph Hyde Pratt, secretary of the North Carolina State Highway Commission, recalled:

Jesse Taylor was not a road engineer, or a road contractor, but the annals of the road movement in the United States have no mention of any one whose influence in the cause of good roads was greater or whose sympathy for this cause was more profound than his. As President, Secretary, and Director of the Ohio Good Roads Federation, he worked for a system of good roads in his State, Ohio, and the splendid results that are now being obtained in that State are due largely to the persistent and untiring endeavor of this man.  The people of other States realized his remarkable ability, and he was constantly being called on to assist the road work in other States.  In a short time he became a National figure in the road movement, and was connected with many of the National road associations.

He was Director of the American Association for Highway Improvement and Director General of the National Highways Association.  As Director General of the latter association, Mr. Taylor visited a large proportion of the States of this country, making good roads addresses, and assisting in the organization of associations, which should carry on the good roads cause in their respective States.  I believe it is due largely to his influence that the cause of good roads has received such a tremendous impetus in many of the Middle West and Western States.

In order to have a still wider field for this good roads work, he organized and built up the road magazine known as “Better Roads and Street,” and he not only made it a success, but has made it equal to the best good roads magazine that is published to-day.

It was through the cause of good roads that I became personally acquainted with
Mr. Taylor and had the pleasure of knowing him intimately for several years.  His enthusiasm and confidence in the ultimate success of the good roads cause was an incentive to me to take hold as never before the road work in the South, and I always found Mr. Taylor reading and willing to assist us in every way he possibly could.  Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, Texas, and other Southern States owe a debt of gratitude to this man for the interest that he took in their road work and the endeavors he made to assist them.  [Pratt, Joseph Hyde, “Hon. Jesse Taylor ‐ An Appreciation,” Better Roads and Streets, January 1917, page 27]

On that same page, the magazine explained that since its founding, Better Roads and Streets had maintained a neutral policy.  “Not controlled by any material or machinery interests, it has always been the policy of the publishers to be fair in their dealing with the several types of road and street construction”:

Since the death of the founder, Mr. Jesse Taylor, through which BETTER ROADS AND STREETS has suffered a great loss, many inquiries are being received as to the future policy of the publication.  To all those who are interested in BETTER ROADS AND STREETS, and its future stand in the road and street movement, we wish to say that the publication is being continued under the same management and no change whatever is being made in its proven neutral policy. [“Our Policy,” Better Roads and Streets, January 1917, page 27]

A memoriam in Rock Products and Building Materials recalled Jesse Taylor:

Personally Mr. Taylor was a charming companion.  Sociable and kindly and generous, he was also an enthusiast and optimist.  A man of means at one time, he cared nothing for money further than knowing that good roads could be built with money.  If he possessed all the wealth of the world, he would have used it in paving highways.

The funeral was held at his home Dec. 9.  [“Gave His Life to Good Roads,” Rock Products and Building Materials, January 7, 1917, page 27]

The Marginal Military Highway

The proliferation of named trails continued in 1917, with the King of Trails Association forming with headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, following 2 years of debate.  The King of Trails ran from Winnipeg, Canada, to Galveston, Texas.  The association’s general manager was Frank A. Davis, secretary of the National Old Trails Road Association.  The purpose of the general office was “to perfect the large national organization and instill in the several communities the belief that this highway serves a unity of purpose,” as explained in The Road-Maker.  [“Echoes from the Associations,” The Road-Maker, June 1917, pages 34, 36]

The Road-Maker summarized the association’s “largest and most enthusiastic convention” in Kansas City on July 12.  Six hundred delegates attended from the communities along the 2,000-mile long road.  The convention settled several routing disputes.  Delegates were to return home and “enter upon a campaign in their respective counties to secure extensive improvements along the route”:

The returning delegates are very enthusiastic over the work of the convention, and will enter upon a campaign in their respective counties to secure extensive improvements along the route.  An effort will be made to have part of the federal and state aid funds expended along this trial.  [“King of Trails Convention,” The Road-Maker, August 1917, page 49]

Reporting on the convention, American Motorist explained that the new road “promises to be a strong contender for international highway honors”:

The route adopted by the constitution of the organization extends from Winnipeg, Canada, to the City of Mexico via Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas Oklahoma and Texas.

The general alignment of the road has been handled to locate it along natural lines of travel with the sole purpose of linking together centers of population along the shortest and best route.  It connects 89 cities of more than 1,000 population each and has on its route nine military posts.  [“New International Road,” American Motorist, August 1917, page 40]

Around the same time, advocates organized the New Santa Fe Trail Improvement Association at Emporia, Kansas.  The object was “to promote the building of 365-day roads from Edgerton to Kinsley, passing through Emporia, Newton and Hutchinson.”  The association would raise funds to hire a business manager who would devote his “entire time to the interests of this 200 miles of highway”:

While the old Santa Fe trail has a pretty good start, the officers and directors of the New Santa Fe Trail association expect to push the proposition as hard as possible and to win in the big race for the completion of the road.

The association designated O. M. Wilhite of Emporia as president.  [“Echoes from the Associations,” The Road-Maker, June 1917, pages 36, 38]

An organization to promote the Pike’s Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway had been completed at a meeting on March 18, 1914, at a meeting in St. Joseph, Missouri.  The goal was a highway from New York City to San Francisco, termini already chosen by the Lincoln Highway Association.  The new association chose a route to the south of the Lincoln Highway via Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Cumberland, Maryland to Indianapolis, Indiana; Springfield, Illinois; Hannibal, Missouri; St. Joseph and Belleville, Kansas; Colorado Springs and Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; Reno, Nevada; and Sacramento and Oakland, to San Francisco. 

As was the case with many of the named trails, this new proposed transcontinental road followed the existing main roads in many locations.  East of Illinois, a co-operative arrangement has been made with the National Old Trails Association to Washington and New York. West of Salt Lake City the route is not finally determined but temporarily the line of the national Lincoln Highway is to be used.  [Better Roads and Streets, May 1914, page 66, 68]

Nearly 3 years later, Motor Age stated:

It is unfortunate that any transcontinental highway should, even in places, overlap other transcontinental trails, for the one which was first to get a name, usually gets the support. That is the case with the Pike’s Peak east of Indianapolis, where it is the same as the National Old Trails for several hundred miles.  Naturally the Pike’s Peak organization cannot hope to get much support from the people along that part of the road; people look upon it too much as double taxation, which never meets with favor.  This puts a bigger burden on the section to the west in Indiana in supporting the organization.  [Gibbs, William K., “Pike’s Peak Highway Workers Promise Greater Activity,” Motor Age, February 22, 1917, pages 22-24]

The highway would eventually be shifted along an alignment to the north from Philadelphia.

Each of the named trails had advocates for its development, but one of the focuses of the Good Roads Movement during this period was legislation calling for a Military Marginal Highway.  The bill grew out of a committee of representatives of national organizations, including:

• John A. Wilson, a vice president of AAA, chairman of its Military Preparedness Committee, a cousin of President Wilson, and a frequent visitor to the White House;
• George P. Coleman, commissioner of the Virginia State Highway Commission and president of AASHO;
• Samuel Hill, president of the Pacific Highway Association;
• John Craft, commissioner of the Alabama Highway Department.

The committee asked the following to draft a preliminary bill:

• George C. Diehl, chairman of AAA’s Good Roads Committee;
• Henry G. Shirley, chief engineer of the Maryland State Road Commission and executive chairman of AASHO;
• Osborne I. Yellott, a Baltimore attorney who chaired AAA’s legislative board.

With a preliminary version in hand, the committee consulted with Senator George E. Chamberlain of Oregon, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs.  He made some slight changes before agreeing to introduce the measure.  He talked with Senator Bankhead, chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, who also supported the idea.

On June 18, 1917, Senator Chamberlain introduced the Military Marginal Highway bill, S. 2470. The bill directed the Chief of Engineers of the Department of War to prepare a “comprehensive plan of improved highways throughout the United States, designed primarily with a view to facilitating the movement of military troops, equipment, munitions, and supplies, in time of peace and in time of war, but at the same time, so far as reasonably compatible with said primary purposes, with a further view to accommodating the Postal Service, facilitating interstate and foreign commerce, aiding agriculture and manufacturing pursuits, and promoting the general welfare of the people of the United States”:

To these ends the Secretary of War shall confer with the authorities having in charge the construction of roads in the several States, and in such conferences shall disclose, so far as reasonably practicable, the outlines of his plans for roads designed for military purposes, to the end that unnecessary duplication of roads may be avoided, and that roads constructed for other than military purposes may be in strategic locations wherever reasonably possible.

The Secretary of War would determine the schedule for building segments of the proposed highway, “but the order of such completion shall be substantially as follows”:

First, A plan or plans for a continuous main national highway, to be constructed and maintained at the national expense along or near the Atlantic seaboard; thence along or near the southernmost boundaries of the United States and thence along or near the Pacific coast to a point at or near the Canadian line, with a further view to such marginal highway being extended ultimately along the Canadian boundary of the United States.

Second, A supplement plan or plans for important main radial roads in the several States intersecting said marginal highways at points and of locations and routes best calculated to serve military requirements; said main highways being such as have heretofore been constructed by the States, or as may hereafter be constructed by them either independently or with Federal aid if the Congress of the United States shall so determine upon the recommendation of the Secretary of War.

Third, A plan or plans for any other classes of highways which, in the judgment of the Secretary of War, are reasonably necessary.

After completing the plan or any portion of it, the Secretary of War shall report to Congress, explaining “recommended methods and means suitable for the construction and maintenance of said highways, and present estimates of the cost of such construction and maintenance.”

The bill authorized $250,000 “for the purposes of defraying expenses pertaining to the preparation of the plans and reports,” with the funds coming from the general Treasury “not otherwise appropriated.”

[“Military Highway Measure Introduced in U.S. Senate,” Touring Topics, July 1917, page 11; “Military Highway Bill Now Before the Senate,” San Jose Mercury News, June 24, 1917,
page 19]

The Automobile Journal discussed the proposal shortly after Senator Chamberlain introduced the bill.  At the top of the first page of the article was a map showing the general line of the proposed road, with sketches of military vehicles and marching soldiers along the entire line.  The article began:

Within the protecting loop of a Marginal Military Highway, such as is now proposed to Congress, with the sanction of the American Automobile Association and other large and influential bodies, is located one of the largest, without a doubt the busiest and richest nation on earth.  Of all the road proposals, which are legion, the marginal road appeals to the sober sense of the American people.  It has interests to defend which stagger the mind to enfold.

For within the loop of the proposed marginal highway that may some day be built around Uncle Sam’s door yard, there are 100,000,000 people, owners of, custodians of and users of billions of dollars in money and property.  A million dollars is a staggering amount of money; a billion dollars is a thousand million dollars, but the era is at hand when one must get accustomed to thinking in billions.

After discussing the unique strengths of each region of country the 12,000-mile highway would pass through, the article continued:

Put a military highway around all this.  That is the proposition of the bill introduced by Senator Chamberlain.  Nature gives us abundance to surround and protect.  Most wonderful of all countries on earth is the United States.  Back of man’s manufactures, back of human activity, the thing that makes the United States the marvel of the world, the banker of the universe, the hope of the Allies, the victor in the great war, the one country of all countries worth living in, is the abundance that nature has poured into our laps . . . .

A survey of the present situation is immediately convincing that the automobile is a necessary part of the present plan to increase production to the highest possible degree.  Through many years the automobile has been advancing to take its place as a necessary mode of transportation and an effective means of arriving at quick results in the food production program . . . .  The public is pertinacious in its opinion that the automobile is an essential element in the transportation system of modern life.  Events of the past two years and every passing day confirms this idea.  The railroads have failed more than once in the movement of necessaries, and now, with war on the government’s hands, the burden on them is even greater.  There is little use stopping to consider the things that have brought about this condition.  It is a staring fact which confronts the nation, and letting the railroads work their way as best they may, they place their dependence on the motor cars ‐ light and heavy ‐ to move what must be moved anywhere and any place.  Motor touring is increasing as the season advances through the simple fact that the means of locomotion within the control of the traveler is capable of reliance.  The automobile takes the owner where he wants to go, when he wants to go and with all that variety of detour which whim or fancy may dictate at any time or place.  Good roads is all the motorist asks.

The Military Marginal Highway would give “greater impetus” to road building around the country than would be likely “under normal requirements and conditions.”  After describing the contents of the bill, including the radials that would intersect it, the article continued:

On the marginal highway, however, the officials will keep in mind the fact that for military usages the roads will have to be of specially heavy and solid construction to stand the strain and abuse occasioned by the passage of long trains of heavily laden motor trucks and tractors pulling enormous field pieces, weighing up to 100 tons or more.

With the motor car and tractor rapidly succeeding the horse and mule as a means of transportation and locomotion in the army, the question of good roads assumes a position of premier importance and it is believed that it will take but little persuasion to make Congress take this view of the matter when it comes to a vote.

When our great army is trained and mobilized in France it will be a wonderfully effective unit, as the roads throughout that country are of the most perfect type, particularly in the various theatres of war.  So an excellent road system will be needed to hold up its efficiency when the national army is mobilized here.

The United States with this marginal highway constructed, and a comprehensive system of intersecting roads leading into it at many points, when taken in conjunction with the several million automobiles at the government’s disposal and the fleet of 100,000 aeroplanes that is proposed, would be the most powerful nation in all the world from a defensive viewpoint.  It would place the country for all time ‐ if maintained ‐ in an invulnerable position in so far as any other nation is at present prepared.  The construction of this road by army engineers while the national army is in course of formation would be a good outlet for the constructive activities of thousands of men drilling for war.  [“The Big Path for Freedom’s Defenders,” The Automobile Journal, June 25, 1917, pages 12-16]

As Dr. H. M. Rowe, president of AAA, discussed the importance of national highways in the October 1917 issue of The Road Maker:

The importance of highways that will permit of the free and expeditious movement of people and commodities through every part of the country is now fully admitted.  There should be some half-dozen great trunk lines across the states east and west and a similar number north and south.

For some time I have felt that the Federal Government should build a great national highway encircling the entire country, and the recent war requirements has brought that idea prominently before the people.  Such a highway should begin on our northern boundary, extending the entire length of the Atlantic Coast; then along the southern border to the Pacific Ocean; then along the Pacific Coast to the Canadian Border, and ‐ if need be ‐ continued along that border until it connects with the starting point.

This should be a great military highway, flanked for its entire length by a series of fortifications which with an adequate naval equipment would make this country practically impregnable to invasion.

The economic value of such a national highway in times of peace would justify and pay for its cost many times over.  The peculiar location of the United States makes it possible to have a unique national highway.  To nationalize it, the road at its principal points might be named after our great men.

Rowe also envisioned interior roads “running off this this great boundary highway”:

Such a road should be built, controlled, and maintained by the Federal Government.  This has been a dream of line which I hope will come true.  [“The Need for National Highways,” The Road-Maker, October 1917, page 56]

The advocates for national roads would promote the border highway and other proposed military roads throughout the war, but without success in Congress. 

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