The National Old Trails Road Part 3
Promoting the Road During a War
Under the Victory Arch to Everywhere
In mid-1917, The Automobile Journal featured a travel issue containing descriptions of several named trails. First up was the National Old Trails. The article began:
National Old Trails
Under the Victory Arch to Everywhere
From all angles of interest the National Old Trails Road, an ocean to ocean highway, enjoys great popularity among tourists. The main route of this transcontinental highway has termini at Washington, Baltimore and Los Angeles. The section westward, as far as the Ohio river, is the oldest and most historic thoroughfare in the United States and should be of great delight to every American, as it passes through places identified by historic events in our country’s history which should serve to stimulate a strong patriotic sentiment. A tour along this highway takes the motorist through the heart of the country, from ocean to ocean, if he makes the complete itinerary, and leading by diversions, almost anywhere.
The article discussed the history of each segment, beginning with:
From Baltimore to Washington, a distance of about 39 miles, the route is over the road once known as the “Washington Road,” which was traveled by the stage coaches in the colonial days.
Leaving Washington via Wisconsin Avenue to the District line on the way to Frederick, travelers will come upon “one place of particular interest to every motorist.” The motorist will find a “section of road . . . to Rockville, which is maintained by the government as an experimental highway for determining the qualities of different kinds of surfacing. The different kinds of materials used in the various sections are designated by signs placed along the roadway.”
(BPR had initiated the Connecticut Avenue Experimental Road in 1911 between Chevy Chase Circle and Chevy Chase lake in Montgomery County. During 1911, 1912, and 1913, BPR had built numerous segments of pavement, including bituminous penetration macadam, surface-treated macadam, Portland cement concrete, and brick wearing surfaces on Portland cement pavements and asphaltic concrete and brick wearing surfaces on Portland cement concrete bases. As explained in a 1928 report, BPR maintained the road, which had been subjected to heavy traffic. Over the years, BPR kept careful records on maintenance costs and the behavior of each section. BPR published the results of this unique experiment in its research journal. [Division of Tests, “Report on Connecticut Avenue Experimental Road,” Public Roads, May 1928, pages 49-69])
After discussing the historic sites in Frederick, the article continued:
On the road from Frederick to Braddock Heights the mountains come into view for the first time and very soon the ascent of Catoctin mountain begins. In less than two miles the road rises about 460 feet between Braddock Village and Braddock Heights. From the latter elevation a beautiful view of all the surrounding country may be obtained, particularly South Mountain battlefields and the War Correspondents memorial arch.
(The 50-foot tall arch-shaped memorial was built by a Civil War correspondent, George “Gath” Townsend, and dedicated on October 16, 1896, to honor journalists killed during the war. The National Park Service now controls the memorial.)
From Middletown, “the road rises precipitately again.” Going toward Cumberland, the road “ascends a grade coming in view of Conococheague creek, which winds around in the valley with short turns. A view may also be obtained from here of the mountains in the distance, which appear so formidable that the tourist doubts whether it is possible to ascend them.”
The road runs along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal for about 10 miles to Hancock, “where it turns northward across the mountains.” From Hancock to Cumberland, about 40 miles, “is the
most picturesque part of the entire trip”:
While the road winds around like a path in a maze and goes up and down the most precipitous grades of any well traveled thoroughfare in the country, it is easily followed. Out of Hancock the route leads up and over Tonoloway ridge, and further on over Sideling hill, where there is an ascent of 760 feet in a mile and a half. Down the other side of this range there is a descent of 495 feet in one mile.
The roads through this section are curved and contain many short turns, consequently, the motorist should drive very carefully, as while no danger exists to the machine that is under control, fast or reckless driving would be very foolish.
The west slope of Green Ridge was “the next high elevation on the road.”
After driving through Gilpin and Flintstone, a few miles would bring the motorist to “the ascent of Martin mountain . . . during which a rise of 535 feet in little over a mile is made to the summit, 1720 feet above sea level. Down the west slope the road leads through the valley into Cumberland on the Potomac river, the centre of transportation of that section”:
From Cumberland to Wheeling the distance is about the same as that traveled on the previous day and the route leads through the section which became prominent historically during the French and Indian war. This section was entirely constructed at the expense of the government. As far as Uniontown, which is half way to Wheeling, the road continues through the mountainous country, attaining much higher altitudes, however, the elevation at the summit of Big Savage mountain being 2880 feet and at Meadow mountain 2792 feet . . . . The remainder of the road into Uniontown is through a heavily wooded section.
The next city beyond Uniontown is Brownsville then Washington, “which is the nearest point on the National road to Pittsburg [sic].”
Between Washington and Wheeling, the road “is mostly down hill and crosses the panhandle of West Virginia into the valley of the Ohio river”:
Here the Ohio river is crossed into Ohio. There is now an unbroken stretch of brick paving 16 feet wide through Zanesville to Columbus.
From Columbus to the Indiana state line, on the old National road, there is much brick paving, and from there on to St. Louis rough dirt roads, about the worst of the trip, are encountered.
The author encountered “excellent roads through the wonderful Kansas wheat fields” before crossing the State line between Coolidge, Kansas, and Holly, Colorado. “The route crosses the Arkansas river at La Junta and shortly crosses the New Mexico line to Raton, to which it goes down through the Raton pass.”
Entering New Mexico, the motorist “breaks into the real land of enchantment”:
The nondescript is present on every hand and the further into this maze of marvels the traveler goes the more the unexpected becomes the expected.
In Arizona, the motorist passed through the Petrified Forest, “one of the chief marvels of the world.” Several forests follow before the motorist reaches Flagstaff, where the motorist can take the road, 79 miles long, to Grand View Point at the Grand Canyon:
The greatest minds of the world, upon first viewing this wonderful country, were at loss for words [sic] in which to describe their impressions. The mountains and huge embattlements, seem to speak from a long gone past.
The road from the Grand Canyon returned the motorist to the National Old Trails Road at Williams. The article quickly concluded the trip:
Across the Mojave desert, once a great graveyard for travelers and their animals, a fine modern road, costing $10,000 to $15,000 a mile has been built. It is kept oiled most of the way and alkali dust is scarce on the run of 165 miles, which can be made at better than 20 miles an hour by almost any car. There are stations, too, where car supplies and food may be purchased. From Barstow, on the western side of the desert, it is a run of
78 miles to San Bernardino. El Camino Real, from San Diego to the north, connected the old Spanish missions, rare specimens of a distinctive architecture, with each other. Los Angeles is 68 miles from San Bernardino. [“National Old Trails,” The Automobile Journal, June 10, 1917, pages 1-6]
The same issue included several similar articles, including descriptions of the Dixie Highway, the Lincoln Highway, the Mohawk Trail, the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, and the Yellowstone Trail.
A Concrete Section
To comply with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, Indiana’s General Assembly passed the Dobyns-Duffy Road Act in 1917 creating the Indiana State Highway Commission. With the signature of Governor James P. Goodrich on March 7, 1917, the bill became a law. The legislation directed the Governor to appoint a four-member commission with the members serving staggered terms of 1 to 4 years initially, but eventually all commissioners would serve a 4-year term). The commission was to appoint a State highway engineer (“a competent civil engineer, experienced and skilled in highway and bridge construction and maintenance”), who was to supervise construction and maintenance of all highways, bridges, and culverts built with State-aid funds, as well as advise counties on request.
In addition, the law assented to the provisions of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 and offered the good faith of the State to make matching funds available to meet Indiana’s apportionment of Federal-aid highway funds. The law created a State highway fund that included the proceeds of the inheritance tax paid into the State treasury ‐ approximately $400,000. Appropriations totaled $100,000 for 2017 and $500,000 for 1918.
Further, the commission was directed to designate a system of State roads not to exceed
2,000 miles by 1920. The first mileage of a State main-market highway system included the National Old Trails Road and the Lincoln Highway as east-west components. [“State Highway Department for Indiana,” Good Roads, April 7, 1917, page 220; “Hurrah! Indiana at Last to Have State Highways,” American Motorist, October 1917, page 42]
In May 1917, however, a Hamilton County taxpayer brought a suit challenging the constitutionality of the law and seeking to enjoin its enforcement and issuance of bonds to finance its work. As Good Roads explained:
The plaintiff resided some distance from one of the roads it was proposed to build under the law, and one of the grounds upon which the suit was based was that the law was confiscatory in that it took money from him without giving him a return equal to that given to taxpayers living on the road or nearer to it than he lived. Another reason set forth was that the law was unconstitutional because it appropriated money from the state treasury for purposes other than those specified in the constitution.
The Hamilton County Circuit Court granted the injunction. Chairman L. H. Wright of the commission immediately appealed but the agency was forced to cease operations.
The State Supreme Court issued its opinion upholding the commission on January 10, 1919:
This action, it is stated, not only legalized the State Highway Commission and its acts, but also means that the road work which the commission was created to carry on will be resumed in the near future . . . .
The Supreme Court decision affirms the authority of the state to create a commission to build roads and to provide the funds by whatever method of taxation the Legislature may adopt. The decision says, in part:
There can be no doubt that improvements of a public nature, such as the construction and improvement of highways, waterways, bridges and other works of a like nature may be of such general benefit as to warrant the construction at Government expense in the exercise of Governmental power. Where the Legislature authorizes an improvement of the character mentioned to be made by the state or by any of its Governmental subdivisions, it has power to determine the manner in which the fund shall be raised for the payment of the costs and expenses.
By then, the General Assembly had repealed the 1917 law and adopted a new act that became effective on March 10, 1919, and established a new Indiana State Highway Commission. ]”Indiana Supreme Court Upholds the State Highway Commission Law,” Good Roads, January 25, 1919, page 32]
In September 1917, road building had been left to the counties, with restoration of State action 2 years off.
On Saturday, September 15, 1917, citizens of Marion County, Indiana, gathered for ceremonies opening a section of the National Old Trails Road from the city limits of Irvington to 3 miles east:
Three miles of concrete have been completed on this road in Marion County and three more miles are under construction. In Wayne County, Indiana, there are being built approximately thirteen miles of highway west from Richmond on the same road and much agitation has been started in the western part of the State for this improvement. It has been designated by the Indiana State Highway Commission as the main east and west road to be given State aid. [“Improving National Old Trails Road with Concrete,” Concrete Highway Magazine, November 1917, page 14]
A couple of days before the ceremony, M. E. Noblet, Secretary of the Hoosier Motor Club, explained the importance of the project:
There are two things in particular that the Marion county public should take into consideration in connection with the road dedication, next Saturday. One is that it is cheaper and more satisfactory to build the main roads in Marion county with hard-surfaced material than continually to repair these roads as they now exist, or to rebuild them as they have been built in the past; second, it is cheaper in the long run to use the patrol system of maintenance on our county roads, than it is to maintain them under the present methods, and the patrol system would keep the roads in good condition for travel the year around instead of being in bad condition a greater part of the year, as is inevitable now.
By the patrol system is meant that men are employed to devote their entire time to keeping a certain mileage of roadway in good repair, and they have at their command materials and equipment for repair work. This would probably require more maintenance funds, but the roads would be kept in good condition and in some instances with less material, and would last many times longer than now, which would offset the increased cost in upkeep and give the public a good road to travel on the year around. Such a road would increase real estate values and save thousands of dollars to the traveling
Noblet pointed out that, “On some stretches of road, such as the National Old Trails road, the maintenance cost has been $1,500 a mile for several vears, which clearly shows that it is more economical and more desirable from any standpoint to build our main arteries of travel with hard-surfaced construction”:
The county commissioners have used some of their maintenance money with which to build three miles of the new concrete road extending east from the city limits to the county line, and from the figures given it is plainly evident that they have used good judgment in spending their maintenance money for something worth while.
The Marion County Commissioners had planned the ceremony, which would begin with an automobile parade at 2 p.m. It would leave from the west side of the State House in Senate Avenue and move along a series of streets (Washington, Meridian, to the right in the Circle, Market, Delaware, and Washington) east from the city limits to the county line at Irvington. The parade was led by Police Chief Quigley, a mounted police squad, and the National Motor Car and Vehicle Corporation Band. [“Plans Completed for Dedication of Road,” The Indianapolis News, September 13, 1917, page 7]
The day after the event, The Indianapolis Sunday Star began its front-page coverage:
The eyes of Indiana and the nation were upon Marion County yesterday afternoon, when three miles of the National Old Trails road, east from the city limits to the county line, were formally given to the people . . . .
The dedication was preceded by a parade from the west side of the Capitol at 2 o’clock. Streamers and banners announced one of the proudest achievements of the people of Marion County. The cars were draped in American flags and a band led the parade with martial airs. The road meant a closer relation between the county and the government, which is at present advocating good roads as one of the means of winning the war.
At the city limits the ceremonies took on a more traditional turn. Lieutenant Governor Edgar D. Bush scooped a little pile of dirt from the middle of the road with the silver shovel which has been wielded by two previous Governors in dedicating new roads.
Amid the cheers of the crowd the Lieutenant Governor took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. While he was removing the small pile of dirt motion picture machines clicked away . . . .
(Governor James P. Goodrich, who had taken office on January 8, 1917, probably would have participated in the ceremony, but he was ill, prompting a brief front page article with the headline: “Governor, Hovering Between Life and Death, Shows Improvement.” He would recover and complete his term on January 10, 1921.)
A large banner had been stretched across the road marked “Bad Roads.” This was quickly clipped away by Mrs. Caleb S. Denny [representing D.A.R.], who has been an enthusiastic worker for the new hard-surface construction since its suggestion. This marked the end of bad roads in Marion County and Miss Dorothy Pettis christened the new road by breaking a bottle of champagne upon its hardened surface.
A telegram from Charles Henry Davis of the National Highways Association was read:
At the dedication of the first permanent concrete section of the National Old Trails road in Marion County, I wish I could have been present personally to say that I hope soon to see the day when the National Old Trails road will be a hard-surface road 365 days in the year from ocean to ocean and thus become a part of the great system of national highways, only through which our people can get good roads everywhere for all nations.
Mayor Joseph E. Bell “lauded the county commissioners for finishing the road without outside co-operation. “The women, he said, were also greatly responsible for the completion of the road”:
“It took just such women as Mrs. Denny to awaken the sentiment which practical men later took up and worked out in concrete form,” the mayor declared.
Lieutenant Governor Bush, the next speaker, continued the thread of Mayor Bell’s speech by saying:
“No great achievement ever got very far without the aid of the women. That is just the more forcibly brought out here on this occasion.”
Mr. Bush said he was in hearty accord with the road project and that if the people wanted Marion County made into good roads they “should call upon the presiding officer of the legislature.”
“For next to defending the institutions of the United States nothing is more noble or patriotic than to provide satisfactory channels of commerce,” he said.
Judge Lowe was the featured speaker. A photograph in the Star showed him addressing the audience on a stage bedecked with patriotic banners. In addition to reviewing the history of the road, starting with the Cumberland/National Road section from Cumberland, Maryland, to Illinois, he said:
Indiana has struck fire here and the sparks have fallen into other states and fired the hearts of the population to good roads. We in Missouri have caught the spark and nursed it. It will burst into flame. The National Old Trails road will be run from coast to coast, one of the finest monuments that can be erected to the efforts of mankind. I have devoted the best part of my life to this road, and this day is a pleasant one for me.
The news report continued:
At the finish of his speech he was presented with the gavel made from the plank construction of the road. Turning it over in his hand, he said: “I can remember well the old plank construction of the road. Many is the time I have driven over it sixty-five years ago, and I always got off of it as soon as possible.”
The wood of the gavel was well preserved, although dug from the road bed during the recent construction. It was of Indiana oak.
At the end of the dedication Charles E. Cheney, county surveyor, directed a tour of the three miles of newly-finished road.
In the morning, Judge Lowe attended a good roads conference of officials of the counties the National Old Trails Road passed through. The conference took place in the office of the State Highway Commissioner in the State House, room 111. During the session, “the importance of the finishing of the road from coast to coast was pointed out.” [“Road Dedicated by Large Crowd,” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, September 16, 1917]
In the evening, the Marion County Commissioners held a banquet in the Claypool Hotel for those involved in the work:
Among those present were Judge J. M. Lowe, of Kansas City, president of the National Old Trails road and the recognized parent advocate of Interest in national highways.
Judge Lowe delighted the banqueters as much as he did the dedicators with his remarkable eloquence and pointed expressions concerning both historical and constructive work. The Judge declared that immediate action would result in the construction of the old trails road throughout its entire length within a period of two years.
In brief remarks, Superintendent of Highways S. E. Bradt of Illinois said the National Old Trails Road and the Lincoln Highway had been designated as the highways on which Federal-aid highway funds in the State would be spent. “Bradt declared that the people of Illinois recognized the fact that the National Old Trails road would be regarded of first national military Importance and for that reason was chosen to receive a large part of the Illinois federal aid money.” [“Banquet After Dedication,” The Indianapolis News, September 17, 1917, page 13]
Roads for the War
The United States was not well prepared for war. The country had been shipping food and other goods to Europe, but a massive increase in production would be needed to fight a war.
A week after the declaration of war, President Wilson created a Council of National Defense, consisting of the Departments of War, Agriculture, Commerce, the Interior, and Labor, and the Navy; the Advisory Council of Industrialists, and other citizens to supervise every aspect of the war effort. Judge Robert S. Lovett, chairman of the executive committee of the Union Pacific Railroad system, was appointed chairman of the council’s priorities committee.
America’s Highways 1776-1976 summarized the initial activity:
On May 17, 1917, Congress imposed Selective Service, and the United States set out to build an army of a million men. This national Army was to be trained in 16 huge cantonments, each as large as a good-sized city, complete with railroad tracks and terminals, sewers, waterworks, streets, roads, and housing for 22,000 men. First, however, it was necessary to train the officers who would train the men; and for this job the Army built 12 officer training camps at existing military posts. All of this construction went on at such a pace that the 12 officer training camps and 9 of the
16 cantonments were completed by June 14, 1917 ‐ just 30 days after the program was started.A drastic industrial expansion paralleled the military mobilization. Steel mills were expanded. The capacity of Portland cement mills was increased to meet the spiraling demand triggered by an immense construction program. Brand new shipyards were built in eastern ports to build steel and concrete ships to replace the dozens sunk each month by German U-boats; and at Sparrows Point, Maryland, Bethlehem Steel built a city to house its shipyards workers, complete with sewage, water, and streets.
As the country shifted to a war-time economy, those interested in national roads promoted roads as critical to winning the war in Europe. However, the expansion of war needs frustrated the highway community:
The large highway bond issues of 1915 and 1916, plus the sizable road expenditures under the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act, led many experienced and inexperienced contractors into the road business. With the outbreak of war, they immediately began to encounter difficulties in getting materials, especially steel, and in retaining labor on the job. Within a few months material costs advanced 20 to 30 percent and wages for common labor went up to $2.50 and even $3.00 per day. Railroad car shortages made deliveries of stone and asphalt uncertain. Large numbers of contractors were forced out of business, and others, having completed their contracts, refused to bid for new work.
The virtual collapse of the highway construction industry created a desperate situation for States and counties struggling to keep roads open in the face of ever-increasing numbers of heavy trucks and devastating losses of personnel to war industry and the Army. What made the job particularly heartbreaking was the sentiment openly expressed in some segments of the war effort hierarchy that roadbuilding was nonessential work that should be discontinued for the duration of the emergency.
The Council of National Defense’s Priority Order No. 2, effective November 1, 1917, prohibited the use of rail open top cars, other than flat cars, for shipping supplies, other than coal, for construction, maintenance, and repair of public and private highways, streets, and sidewalks, or for places of amusement, such as theaters. This order hit the road construction business hard. “This peremptory order, issued without public hearings or other advance warning, struck the States ‘like a bolt from the blue,’ at a particularly bad time”:
It caught them with many miles of new road graded but not surfaced with winter approaching. Despite the fact that trucking had already released thousands of [rail] cars for war purposes and the roads in the vicinity of cantonments and ports of embarkation were being pounded to pieces by truck traffic, the Priority Board refused to recede from its position, and road work and road materials production that was dependent on rail transportation ground to a stop.
As a direct result of the widespread protests over Priority Order No. 2, the National Council set up a Highways Transport Committee in Washington to represent the highway and highway transport interests, and appointed Roy D. Chapin, President of the Hudson Motor Company, as chairman.
The purpose of the new committee was to help the railroads and other forms of transportation in moving supplies during the war and to help highway authorities maintain the country’s roads for that purpose.
Chapin, a wealthy Michigan native who had long been active in the good roads movement, would be one of Washington’s dollar-a-year men. In 1901, at age 21, he had succeeded in a publicity stunt by driving a curved dash Oldsmobile, loaded with tools and spare parts, from Detroit to New York in time for the second annual New York Auto Show ‐ the first motor car to make the trip under its own power:
Eight days and 820 miles later he arrived in New York, exhausted and mud-spattered but triumphant. The roads were so atrocious, he reported, that in crossing New York State he had taken to the towpath of the Erie Canal. [Sears, Stephen W., American Heritage History of the Automobile in America, American Heritage Publishing Company, Distributed by Simon and Schuster, 1977, page 36]
Chapin succeeded despite experiencing a broken main spring while trying to get around a slow-moving horse-drawn wagon ‐ with success measured in over 1,000 orders for the Oldsmobile. Chapin was an original backer of the Lincoln Highway, helping to gain financial support from the auto industry for the road. Although he favored national roads, he helped gain support within the industry for the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. (He would serve as Secretary of Commerce ‐ August 1932-March 1933 ‐ during the final months of President Herbert Hoover’s single term in office. In 1972, Chapin was inducted posthumously into the Automobile Hall of Fame.)
Other members of the committee were Logan W. Page, director of the OPRRE; Henry G. Shirley, chief engineer of the Maryland State Road Commission; and George H. Pride, president of the Heavy Haulage Company of New York. Chapin biographer J. C. Long pointed out:
Neither Page nor Shirley could give extensive time to the work as each was dependent on his regular salaried job, while committee membership was in the dollar-a-year category.
Chapin and Pride were “the only full-time committee workers. As time went on, skilled staff men were engaged.” [Long, J. C., Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company, Wayne State University Press, 2004 (originally published 1945), pages 151-152. The story of Chapin’s ride to the New York State Auto Show is on pages 30-33]
On December 26, 1917, the Federal Government seized the mainline steam railroads and established a Federal Railroad Administration to operate them.
Judge Lowe Tries to Advance the Road
The National Old Trails Road Association was one of many organizations protesting the cutback on road work. On November 10, 1917, he wrote to Page to congratulate him and the Wilson Administration on the reorganization of the Council of Defense. “I am one of those who believes very strongly in the concentration of executive authority, especially during war times.” He looked for great results from the change.
Judge Lowe wanted to refresh Director Page’s memory. “You will recall that from the very beginning of the road agitation, I have clung tenaciously to the idea that the Government should build, supervise and control the National Old Trails road as a Military and National Highway.” He mentioned his testimony in support of his bill for that purpose:
I was met at once with the objection that it provided for a single line of road, and no one not directly concerned would favor it. Then, I have agitated for a general system of National Highways, and during the last session a bill was introduced in the Senate for an outer belt highway reaching entirely around the United States. This was referred to the War Committee, and the Department sent Colonel McIndoe to this office to consult our maps and data, and compare it with all the National roads that have been suggested. After looking the question over, he said to me that no other road contemplated was in a class with this one, and that he should so report. I have not seen a copy of his report, although he promised to send me one.
(In 1917, Colonel James F. McIndoe was stationed in Kansas City, Missouri in charge of the Engineer District. In June, he was transferred to El Paso, Texas. He served in Europe and would be promoted to Brigadier General. General McIndoe died of pneumonia on February 6, 1919, a few months after the armistice brought the war to an end.)
Judge Lowe reminded Page of the history of the National Old Trails Road, including President Jefferson’s role in initiating the Cumberland Road, and Senator Benton’s role in the Santa Fe Trail:
Now, we have the road built and in splendid condition from Washington and Baltimore to Wheeling; completed across Ohio (except about 15 miles under contract and tied up in the courts); partially built across Indiana, and the last legislature adopted what is known as the Maryland Statute, by which the State agrees to pay one-half the cost of construction if the counties through which the road runs will pay the other half, and every county where the road is not finished has taken steps to comply with this requirement, and there is no question of the early completion of the road across that State. The Illinois legislature adopted an Act agreeing to pay three-fourths the cost of construction if the counties would raise the other fourth, and every county in Illinois has called a bond election for November 20th, except Cumberland, and that county has called it for December 11th. There is no question but what these elections will carry. In Missouri several sections of the road districts through which the road runs have called bond elections, and there is no doubt of its building here. About one-third of the road across this State is already hardsurfaced [sic]. Several counties in Kansas through which the road runs are already in line and have provided the funds for its building. In Kansas, however, the State is prohibited by its Constitution from furnishing any aid, and the counties and road districts have to furnish all the money. California provided State bonds for building it, and have the road in splendid condition from Los Angeles 325 miles across the Mojave desert. This leaves only Arizona and New Mexico, and you will be greatly astonished to know that the two new States will not be behind some of the older ones in completing the road.
He concluded:
At this psychological moment, if you can write us a word of encouragement it will be most helpful in some of the counties and districts where elections are pending. Personally, my whole heart and soul is enlisted for winning this war, and, one of the great military instruments for such purpose will be the hard-surfacing of a road reaching from Washington or the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific. We believe that a very little effort at this particular time will accomplish this great result.
I need not say to you that entertaining these views you are at liberty to command me most freely in any way in which I can be of service.
Page replied on November 15. He greatly appreciated “your congratulations in connection with the formation of a Roads Committee under the Council of National Defense.” He was “much interested” in the facts about improvement of the “Old National Highway”:
Certainly there has been an immense amount of earnest effort put forth in this work and the results obtained are a vindication of those efforts.
I feel that in the present great crisis commendation of road building in general should be tempered by a consideration of the economic soundness of each individual project. In the absence of a detailed knowledge as to the various factors involved in the improvement of the Old Trails west of the Mississippi, it would appear to me best to avoid giving advice as to its immediate construction. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
On November 24, Judge Lowe again wrote to update Page on the recent elections:
We lost one county in Illinois by 185 votes, owing to lack of organization and information. We will immediately call another election, and there is no question as to the result. The proposition carried in all the other counties by a handsome majority.
The situation in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas is very promising. I have no doubt that we shall win, and hard-surface the road, perhaps in its entirely. Anyway, I am now making a final campaign, and unless we win and win in the very near future, I may feel constrained to act upon the suggestion of slowing down in road work until the war is over. I think this would be a fatal mistake, so far as the road movement is concerned, but it may be impossible to act otherwise.
He enclosed a letter he had received from William C. Markham, secretary of the Kansas Highway Commission, regarding progress in that State. Markham wrote:
We have received notification of this special committee that has been appointed in connection with the work of the National Defense Council and have directed our state highway engineer Mr. W. C. Gearhart, to attend the meeting of the American Association of Highway Officials at Richmond, Virginia, December 4th, 5th, and 6th, at which time it is expected definite suggestions will be made to this committee in reference to highway work.
Markham also addressed Judge Lowe’s inquiry about progress of the road in Kansas. The State had offered 15 percent of Federal-aid highway funds “to a series of state roads that have been established by the commission,” including the Old Santa Fe Trail across the State:
Up to the present time, Barton County has filed a petition and it has been accepted, for a brick road 20’ wide across the entire county. We understand that petitions are now being circulated in Rice and Pawnee counties over the Old Trails, and while the board of county commissioners of Morris have signified their willingness to accept a petition, it will be necessary for the people in that county to go over their work again as they have prepared a petition for 9’ road only. It will be necessary that the minimum width of a road to receive Federal Aid shall be 16’. We have also on file a written agreement with the board of county commissioners of Douglas county that the Old Santa Fe Trail in that county shall be hard surfaced during the five year period. A petition for a road across the north half of the county between Lawrence and Topeka has already been accepted by the commission.
There is considerable talk in Johnson County of adopting some method of surfacing their water bound macadam roads that are now in bad condition. There are two roads one mile apart running south from Olathe. The commissioner has eliminated one of them and it will be necessary to use the road that runs directly south to Bonita.
A couple days later, on November 26, Judge Lowe wrote to Page, yet again, this time to update him on the status of the road in Missouri.
From the inclosure [sic] you will observe that we are still in the field and hard at work. If your committee does not call us down, we are going to build this road, war or no war, for we consider that we could not engage in anything by which we could do our patriotic part so well and to such extent in furthering the military interests of the Government than in carrying forward this great project.
Judge Lowe enclosed a newspaper article titled “Votes Bonds for Old Trails:
Fulton, Mo., Nov. 24 ‐ A bond issue of $25,000 toward a fund of $75,000 to be used in building sixteen miles permanent road on the Old Trails Highway east of Fulton to the Montgomery County line was carried almost unanimously in this district today. The vote was 125 to 4. It was also announced that $7,200 had been collected by private subscription to be used in paying for work. The commissioner of the Fulton special road district and Callaway County court subscribed $7,500 toward the fund November 7, and the state and federal governments will give $37,500 as their part of the work. Plans have been made to use convicts to do the Callaway county work and also to obtain equipment next summer from the state highway department.
Page replied on December 1 with a perfunctory thanks for the letters of November 24 and 26 “giving information in regard to the progress in the construction of the National Old Trails Road.” [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
On December 21, Judge Lowe wrote to update Page on the status of the road in Ohio. At the request of Governor James M. Cox, State Highway Commissioner Clinton Cowen responded on December 12 to Judge Lowe’s request for an update:
We are just now making every effort possible to clean up on this road in Ohio during the coming season. Everything from Columbus east is completed or under contract with the exception of 3½ miles in Guernsey county, and funds for this stretch have been provided for.
Yesterday we had a conference with the Commissioners of Madison and Clark Counties for the purpose of arranging to reconstruct the National Road through these two counties. I have no doubt but that we will arrive at a definite and satisfactory arrangement. We are determined to see this road completed through Ohio at the earliest possible date.
Judge Lowe also forwarded a letter he had received from “a citizen of Washington who is well informed on the road question, to another citizen in Boston, and was not intended for myself or any one else connected in any way with the National Old Trails Road Association.” With the writer and addressee not identified, the enclosed letter referred to an article in the December 1917 issue of Better Roads and Streets that indicated Governor Cox had received a request “from the Federal government asking that the Lincoln Highway be put in condition for the transportation of freight across country by motor trucks in an effort to relieve the congestion of the railroads.” The articles said that Governor Cox had assembled highway officials on November 16 to discuss the condition of the Lincoln Highway and “in his customary manner, went into the matter in a systematic way”:
Commencing with the East line of the Lincoln Highway in Columbia County, Ohio, he asked a representative of each county to state briefly if there was any dispute over the route of the Lincoln Highway in their particular county. After crossing the State in this manner he then began at Columbia County and inquired how many miles of the Lincoln Highway were improved, type of construction, etc. This report showed approximately eighty miles [of] unimproved roads. The State Highway Department will have in a few days the number of miles of brick, concrete, and other types for the Lincoln Highway across Ohio . . . .
Before the meeting closed each county had promised to do its share in seeing to it that the Lincoln Highway was completed across Ohio, and also promised to have complete information concerning the condition of the road in their respective counties within a few days. [Better Roads and Streets, December 1917, pages 563-564]
The letter from the citizen of Washington, not intended for Judge Lowe, asked, “Is it possible this is the Lincoln Highway that has been heralded so freely during the past few years?” He continued:
Eighty miles, or 30 per cent in Ohio, unimproved; and unimproved road in Ohio is pretty rotten from my own observation. And they now require the Governor of the State and the Federal Government to prod them into activity on those terrible eighty miles. Rather presumptuous on the part of the Federal Government, I should say, but stranger things than that will happen, no doubt. Anyhow, let us hope those “eighty miles” get speedy improvement. They surely do need it, as you know and I know.
This is a silent compliment to the National Old Trails Road and its organization, in that Gov. Cox has not had to call a meeting to ascertain its condition across Ohio.
Director Page replied on January 9 with a four-line double spaced letter to thank Judge Lowe “for the information which you enclose in regard to the efforts that are being made to complete the Old National Road across the State of Ohio. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
On November 23, 1917, Judge Lowe wrote to the Board of County Commissioners of each of the western States through which the National Old Trails Road passed, with blanks to fill with data from each county and State:
For fully seven years we have given every hour of our time, every work-day in the year, to the permanent building of the National Old Trails Road thru your county. This would be worth-while if it began and ended at your county lines, but when you consider that it is a part of a road across the State, it becomes of immensely greater value, and when you consider that this is a link in a national road reaching across the Continent, it becomes of inconceivable value. It has now been entirely hardsurfaced [sic], or the means have been provided for building it from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi. Shall we let it stop there? The excuse that the time is not now opportune for carrying forward this great work because of the husbanding of our resources and the curtailing of our expenses does not hold good when applied to the work in hand. The railroads cannot be relied upon to furnish the transportation necessary in carrying forward the immense army supplies, nor can the products of the farmers and manufacturers be made available without building some of the great trunk line highways in contemplation. No other road suggested will meet these requirements to the same degree as this road. It is central; runs thru the very heart of the greatest agricultural country on this Continent; reaches or readily connects with very many of the military cantonments, and, above all and everything else, it will be an all the year round road, ready at all times to facilitate the military and defensive interests of the country.
We must not weakly shut ourselves up to the conclusion that they will have to be built anyhow, and one of them is sure to come thru our neighborhood. Neither of these propositions is true. Slight divergence at many points along the line will be equally useful and as easily built.
I know of no movement in this time of stress which will do more to recoup the damages necessarily resulting from war than that of building permanent highways. This is true as a general proposition, but is emphasized when applied to a great National Trunk line road. I know of no project or improvement which will enhance values so surely and so rapidly as the building of hard-surface roads. I have said that the building of this road would go far toward recouping the damages resulting from war. Your county has
___ acres of land. If you confine the benefits to land alone, not taking into account any other values in your county, the building of this road will enhance the valuation thereon to an average of at least $5.00 per acre. The average cost of this improvement per acre in your county will not exceed much, if any, ___ per acre annually for twenty years, or, a total of ___ per acre. If I am mistaken, and it enhances valuations to an average of only $1.00 per acre, the improvements will pay for itself. Figure it any way you will, there is absolutely no risk, nor any possibility of a loss resulting from the levy of this tax.This is the greatest opportunity which has ever come to your county, and one which, if you do not avail yourself of now will, in all human probabilities, never come again. “Opportunity may knock more than once at every man’s door,” but it is a safe prediction that this opportunity will never knock again. [National Archives at College Park]
Director Page on Wartime Priorities
Logan Waller Page, OPRRE Director, had been one of the first graduates of the highway engineering program at Harvard. He joined the Federal roads office in 1900, first as a special agent for the northern division and then as head of the road material laboratory. By 1905, when Page became OPR Director, the laboratory was the primary scientific laboratory on road building materials. Throughout his tenure, he emphasized the scientific approach to road building, in contrast with the we-always-did-it-this-way attitude of many road officials.
On November 28, 1917, Page sent a letter to the State highway agencies regarding the present situation and recommending policies for 1918. He began by acknowledging that road construction “has been seriously hampered by reason of excessive costs, scarcity of labor, and inadequate transportation facilities.” The situation “would be serious even in normal times, but in this crisis when the public roads must, in addition to normal traffic, be depended upon to relieve the tremendous strain to which the railways are subjected, it becomes a matter of vital importance that some means be found at least to deal with next season’s work so as to assure better results than are possible under our present system.”
Based on his discussion “with men who are identified with road work in various capacities,” Page said he was taking the liberty of suggesting policies for 1918 to remedy some of the weaknesses the States were experiencing:
(1) The selective consideration of all of next year’s construction jobs in all of the States and the preparation of a program of road work throughout the Nation, in which program each construction job would be listed in the order of its economic importance to the particular territory in which it is located and to the Nation as a whole. This arrangement would permit of the elimination of such work as may be omitted with least injury to our economic welfare. (2) A coordination of this selective process with the railway and water transportation facilities, with a view to insuring an adequate number of cars and vessels of suitable types, with proper distribution to transport materials for the construction of the approved jobs. (3) A coordination with the material industries, with a view to insuring supplies of materials in adequate amount, distribution, and deliveries to permit the construction program to be carried out. (4) The adoption by each State of such measures with reference to construction contracts as would best meet the needs and requirements of the state.
He concluded:
May I not ask that you advise me as to your views on the subject, and that you favor me with any suggestions, either as to policy or working plan, and also as to what extent your department may be able to cooperate in a movement of this character.
In addition to State highway officials, Page sent copies of the letter to contractors and others involved in road making to give them a better understanding of the seriousness of the situation and the need for all the good roads that could be built. [“Adopting Definite Road Policy,” The Road-Maker, January 1918, page 64; “Reorganizing Nation’s Road Work,” American Motorist, January 1918, page 23]
AASHO’s 1917 Convention
As noted earlier, AASHO held its annual convention on December 11-13, 1917, in Richmond. Delegates from 40 States attended the convention. The January 1918 issue of American Motorist summarized the main issues:
Down in Richmond during the first week in December the American Association of State Highway Officials held the annual gathering and dealt with big subjects, among them car shortage, the present chaotic condition of road construction, the operation of the Federal Aid Road Act, the construction of military roads, and the maintenance of the many types of high-grade roads which have been constructed by the States in recent years.
In addition to conducting AASHO business, the first day of the annual meeting included discussions of the railcar shortage and military roads. Roy Chapin was the featured speaker on the first day. The Road-Maker’s January 1918 issue summarized his presentation:
In it he sketched the prospect work of the Transport Committee in its studies of the use of the highways in general and by the government. Mr. Chapin also brought a direct message from Judge Lovett of the Priority Board. The judge informed Mr. Chapin just before he started for Richmond that by April 1 the Judge believed that the Priority Board No. 2 would be done away with. He had looked for an early raising of the embargo, but the coal situation was still so critical that the order could not immediately be abrogated.
Chapin wanted AASHO officials to know that Judge Lovett considered road maintenance and repair of a higher priority than transportation of musical instruments and repair of theaters, for adjustments in priority expected to be made in the spring:
Mr. Chapin urged that the committee appointed to co-operate with the Highways Transport Committee [be] referred to the committee’s studies of methods of relieving railroad terminal congestion. He closed his remarks by stating that the importance of highways will be much better understood after the war has ended.
The second day was devoted to the Federal Aid Road Act. Director Page presented a speech on “One Year’s Experience in the Federal-Aid Road Law.” He began by noting that the Act was “a measure unique in the annals of American legislation.” It wasn’t simply about granting financial assistance for public roads; “it went much further and placed on trial a far-reaching policy of cooperation between the Federal Government and each of the forty-eight states.” The contemplated cooperation could work “only by broad and generous-minded dealing with each other.” They both would have to “overlook the small troubles and difficulties which arise, and to consider whether the plan is working out in a fundamental sense.” Only in that way “can a true perspective of the practical results be obtained.
The 1916 Act could not be measured in terms of miles of improved roads. That result, he said, was secondary. “The most important” result was “in the form of an immense amount of constructive state legislation, establishing and strengthening state highway departments, providing skilled supervision, systematizing road work in the states, establishing maintenance funds and in many other ways insuring the efficient and economical handling of the nation’s road problems.”
Many people, he said, expected that as soon as President Wilson signed the Act, “money would begin flowing into the states and the building of federal aid roads begun.” Numerous administrative steps were necessary before the work could get underway. The Postmaster General had to determine the mileage of rural delivery and star routes, one of the apportionment factors. The Secretary of Agriculture had to formulate regulations, a task that was accomplished in cooperation with State highway officials on September 1, 1916.
The agency also had to undertake an exhaustive examination of State legislation to determine if each State had a highway agency “within the meaning of the federal act.” OPRRE found that
11 States were without a highway agency, as required by the Act, and five others had agencies that “might be considered in the doubtful class.” The Act also required assent by each State legislature to the requirements for cooperation:
Few of the states were in position when the federal act was passed to begin immediate co-operation. The legislatures of most of them met last winter, and it was not until their adjournment in the spring of 1917 that the way had been cleared sufficiently to enable individual projects to be taken up.
Meanwhile, OPRRE reorganized “to take care of the new work” and established procedures for review of plans, approval of project agreements, determinations that completed projects met requirements, and for reimbursement of State expenditures up to 50 percent. Forms had to be developed for project development.
As State highway officials well knew, “I may say that almost as soon as the measure became effective widely varying interpretations of the term ‘rural post road’ were current.” Some thought it referred only to roads on which mail was actually carried, while others thought it meant roads over which it was physically possible to carry the mail or roads on which mail might soon be carried. “As you well know, we went to the Attorney General of the United States with our troubles and we asked him to advise us as to the eligibility of certain classes of roads which had been submitted:
These classes were: (1) where the mails were actually carried over the road; (2) where the mails were not carried, but where there existed a reasonable prospect that they would be carried within a reasonable time after the completion of the road; (3) where the proposed road was an entirely new location, but there existed a reasonable prospect that mail would be carried within a reasonable time after the completion of the road;
(4) where the part or part of a project on which no mails were carried constituted an unsubstantial portion of the whole and it would be uneconomical to build the parts on which the mails were carried without building the other parts even though no prospect existed that these unsubstantial parts were ever to be used for carrying the mails. The Attorney General decided that all roads in those four classes were eligible as post roads.
Even then, the terms “reasonable prospect” and “unsubstantial part of the whole” had to be defined. Finally, with the help of the Agriculture Department’s solicitor, detailed instructions were provided to the State highway agencies:
In other words, gentlemen, we have tried in every way possible to find ways and means for making the post road provision of the federal act as reasonable as possible within the law. You can hardly blame us if we have had to do this in some measure step by step.
Despite the early troubles, only “a very small percentage of the projects submitted” had been disqualified. As of November 30, 1917, 228 projects had been submitted, 168 had been approved thus far, and only 6 have been disapproved. “You can see, therefore, that the trouble is not so serious as a casual consideration might make it appear.”
Some officials contended that OPRRE should “take it for granted that the respective state highway departments are complying with the laws of their States” and hold them, therefore “only to a compliance with the provisions of the federal act.” The Act, however, called for certain conditions to be met, such as what constitutes a State highway department and that it must have direct supervision of the work. The Secretary of Agriculture had given “most careful study” of how to simplify oversight, “and I am glad to say that henceforth we shall be able to simplify the steps by which these requirements may be met.”
OPPRE had experienced difficulties in obtaining plans, specifications, and estimates promptly upon approval of a project agreement. “We have had inquiries from time to time from interested parties urging the government to allow the work to proceed without further delay, when as a matter of fact we were as anxious as the inquirer to have the work start, but we could not authorize the commencement of construction until plans, specifications and estimates had been submitted to and approved by the secretary as required by the act.” He considered the requirements “reasonable . . . and if they are reasonable, certainly there should be no difficulty on the part of the states in supplying the information which we seek.” If the requirements are burdensome, “I trust they will be freely and frankly brought to our attention.” He added:
I may say that of 168 projects approved only 88 sets of plans and specifications have been submitted. Of this latter number 72 have been passed by our engineers and recommended for approval, so that only 16 sets of plans and specifications submitted are now pending.
He concluded by expressing his “deep appreciation of the cordial spirit of co-operation which you have individually and collectively shown toward the representatives of the Department of Agriculture who are charged with the administration of the Federal Aid Road act.” State officials had been “patient in the face of delays, which however unavoidable, were exasperating” as they endeavored to meet all requirements. “I assure you that we shall reciprocate in every way possible and I predict that before long our difficulties will all be smoothed out and we shall be reaping the full benefit of this great co-operative measure.”
He did not mention the challenges imposed by wartime conditions, but did note that some subjects he might have addressed would be covered by other speakers.
Other OPRRE officials made presentations on the operation of Federal-aid (P. St. J Wilson, chief engineer, and J. E. Pennybacker, Jr., chief of management). In the afternoon, Thomas H. MacDonald, Iowa’s chief highway engineer, addressed the topic, “Should an Effort Be Made to Amend the Federal Aid Road Law?” As discussed in part 2, MacDonald played a key role in a special AASHO committee to develop a draft of what became, to a large extent, the 1916 Act. According to American Motorist, he “ably analyzed” the topic and “called attention to the important principles contained in the federal act and to the remarkably few limitations in the application of those principles.” He “urged that no steps be taken to amend the act.” The Road-Maker added that “those who spoke to this question agreed with Mr. MacDonald.”
AASHO adopted numerous resolutions. Resolution No. 3 stated that every industry and occupation must be directed to winning the war, but “the prosecution of highway work is essential, both as a war measure and as an economic measure, and that the adoption by the nation, by the states, or by other municipalities of a policy of a half-hearted prosecution of highway work would be an irreparable blunder.” Experience thus far demonstrated that “it seems inevitable that the present means of transportation will become utterly inadequate and must be supplemented by motor transportation over the main arteries and every step must be taken to put these arteries in condition to take and to withstand this traffic. The resolution urged the States to take care in the selection of improvements “so that there shall be first improved those roads of the greatest economic value in the present crisis.”
Resolution No. 4 recommended that all highway officials employ “an intensive program of maintenance.” Once built, roads “must be saved.” The resolution urged AASHO’s executive committee to “use every effort to insure that the national authorities give especial consideration to the movement of all materials to be used in maintenance.”
Resolution No. 6 recommended that all highway departments engage in education and publicity campaigns, “so that all the people may be fully informed of the necessity, particularly at this time, of continuing a sane program of road construction and intensified maintenance, and of the important place these matters have in the program of prosecuting the war.
Resolution No. 9 cited the importance of State and other municipal bonds to road improvement. The executive committee should “take such action towards enlarging the salability of such bonds as they may find advisable and necessary.”
Resolution No. 10 recommended “most earnestly uniform legislation regulating motor traffic over public highways in the United States to the end that these highways may be constructed and maintained without unnecessary expense to the public.”
[“Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Association of State Highway Officials,” Better Roads and Streets, January 1918, pages 12-16, 42; “State Highway Commissioners In Convention,” The Road-Maker, January 1918, pages 34-35; “Highway Officials Hold Meeting,” American Motorist, January 1918, page 26; Page, Logan Waller, “One Year’s Experience in the Federal-Aid Road Law,” The Road-Maker, January 1918, pages 28-31]
The Road ‐ 1918
The January 1918 issue of American Motorist also carried an article by AAA’s touring expert, Robert Bruce, titled “Many Travelable Highways in 1918.” He began:
The war, with its almost universal consequences, is naturally having its effect upon the road development situation throughout the United States; but less relative effect than as if it had come a few years ago. Rapid strides in building and maintenance, in nearly all sections, have already given the country something akin to a national highway system, in fact, if not in name. Already the public roads are being put to uses entirely unforeseen twenty years ago; if they had been allowed to remain up to this time in the state they were in 1900, the situation of the country today would be indescribably critical. The tests to which they are now being put, alongside the railways and principal water routes, are making a more sure and permanent place for them in the economics of life and transportation than their most far-seeing advocates may have ever before realized.
Nor, broadly speaking, are the really important and useful projects being halted. Never before have logical or necessary enterprises been carried through with as much high spirit and great speed, and with so little hesitation on account of expense, as today. But they must prove their strategic value and economic utility while the general tightening up process has side-tracked, probably for a long time to come, the nonessential and incidental.
He examined roads around the country that were suitable for touring. On the National Old Trails Road, Bruce reported that work between Zanesville and Columbus, Ohio, “ought to make a high-class thoroughfare next year from Baltimore or Washington to the Ohio Capital.” The rest of the road west of Columbus across Indiana was “already in good shape, and after long delays some progress is being made across Illinois, the most backward link of that length in that great natural route across the continent.”
Work had been started on a new alignment across the Mineola Hills in central Missouri, “at present the worst single short piece on the route in the Central West, with the expectation that relief from former conditions there may be had by the late spring or early summer of 1918.
Across Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, the route “presented some difficulties at times,” but had “already been robbed of any such dangers as may have existed in the early days of long-distance motoring.” This stretch of the road provided access to many side trips of “great scenic and historic interest . . . while accommodations, not always high-class but greatly improved, are to be found almost anywhere a tourist is likely to want to go.”
Bruce switched from the National Old Trails Road to follow the new Ridge Road via the new “wonderful road over Tejon Pass,” which he called “a notable achievement in modern engineering practice.”
Bruce also commented on the Lincoln Highway:
The Lincoln highway, in excellent shape across Pennsylvania, from half to three quarters of the distance from Detroit, Toledo and Cleveland to the seaboard, will probably soon be a United States military road in fact if not in name.
He added that the National Old Trails Road east of the Ohio River “is equally good and travelable, though it is less convenient of access from the manufacturing center of the Great Lakes, and has no direct, completely improved connection down from Pittsburgh into its main line east of Uniontown.”
Bruce’s article was accompanied by a two-page “General Map of Projected Highways, Compiled by the A.A.A. Touring Bureau, Washington, D.C.” The key listed the following routes, in order:
Lincoln Highway
National Old Trails Road
Dixie Highway
Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway
Yellowstone Trail
Atlantic Highway
Pacific Highway
Meridian Road
Midland Trail
Bankhead Highway
Arrowhead Trail
Jefferson Highway
Jackson Highway
National Park Hwy
National Park to Park Highway
King of Trails Highway
Old Spanish Trail.
[Bruce, Robert, “Many Travelable Highways in 1918,” American Motorist, January 1918,
pages 9-15, 48]
While the war affected the National Old Trails Road and, more generally, road building around the country, the Automobile Club of Southern California continued to cover highway activities through its magazine, Touring Topics.
In January 1918, the magazine included an article on tourist travel along the National Old Trails Road, beginning:
Under normal conditions in the United States it could be safely predicted that this year Southern California would receive an influx of automobile tourists over the National Old Trails road that should lay all previous years’ records far in the shade.
But conditions are far from normal. No man knows what effect the war may have upon transcontinental automobiling. It may be very large and, in that event, a steady flow of eastern cars will drift over the long miles of the N.O.T. highway onto the boulevards of Southern California. Why not assume that such will be the case and furnish to these prospective visitors a brief description of the route and the country which they will traverse.
The article began its description in Chicago, which “marks the eastern limits of the road mapping activities of the Automobile Club of Southern California.” From Chicago, a motorist bound for southern California would travel via Joliet, Bloomington and Springfield to a junction with the National Old Trails Road in East St. Louis, where the motorist crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri. “Across Missouri extend fairly well maintained dirt roads, interspersed with paved stretches.”
Crossing into Kansas, the motorist would find that the State “is making remarkable progress in hard surfacing the Santa Fe Trails, new and old. Much brick and macadam highway already has been laid and in a comparatively short time the entire mileage of this route through Kansas will be a paved road.” The article added, “The route presents fairly good going, even in the severest rainy weather.”
The route entered Colorado “in the midst of a great sugar beet country, near Holly.” The route moves northward to La Junta, “the juncture point of the New and Old Santa Fe Trails.” The mountain roads of Colorado are “among the finest” in the country:
For instance, Pueblo county, which does not possess one foot of paved roads, ranks foremost in highway improvement among all the middle and western states. Native materials have been so brought together that roads of perfect riding quality and great durability have been produced. This is also the case with the great mileage of mountain highways in other Colorado counties, much of which has been built with prison labor.
The National Old Trails Road continued to Trinidad at the eastern approach to Raton Pass at an elevation of 5,200 feet:
By many motorists Raton pass is approached with fear and trembling and is supposed to form an almost insurmountable highway barrier. This is in nowise the case, however. The road at all points is amply wide and with the exception of a few places affords generous space for passing. The grade in few places exceeds fifteen per cent and for the most part the highway lies along a series of well defined and broad ridges.
About eleven miles west of Trinidad there is a pronounced pitch for something less than a mile, then a short distance of fair gradients and a winding roadway of one and one-half miles to the summit with its 8790-feet elevation.
Beyond the summit the descent toward Raton is inspiring and affords a wonderful view of great, sweeping mesas and prairies typical of New Mexico.
The road continues for 116 miles to Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Slightly more than seventy miles of New Mexico State Highway of good, well graded road of native material and varying from six thousand to seventy-five hundred feet in elevation, brings the traveler to Santa Fe, and traverses a rugged, mountainous country dense in the growth of shrub trees, pinon, juniper and majestic pine.
The motorist passed through country that “may well be likened to an immense park produced by the genius of a landscape artist and colored to blend in all true harmony.” The “approach to Glorieta summit is gradual and made with but little effort and the descent through Apache Canyon is not particularly precipitous, but a more pronounced grade.”
Leaving Santa Fe, “the route leads to Albuquerque, distance about sixty-five miles, in which distance the roadway descends by approximately three thousand feet.” Between the two cities, the motorist encounters “the famous La Bajada hill, a sheer cliff of malapi rock that forms the western and northern wall of an immense mesa which extends for miles in a northerly and southerly direction”:
The roadway zigzags to the foot of the grade, but with several acute turns. The surface is excellent for the entire roadway is composed of volcanic rock which provides secure footing for automobile tires.
Leaving Albuquerque, the motorist reaches Las Lunas, “which is a junction point of two alternative routes of the National Old Trails, one known as the Gallup route and the other as the Springerville route”:
Of these two roadways the Springerville, or southern roadway, is the more practicable route for the stranger because of its general good road conditions at all seasons of the year. On the Gallup or northern route much good road exists and much effort has been exerted in improving the highway but there still remain treacherous rivers and arroyos to be forded and for this reason eastern motorists usually follow the Springerville road notwithstanding its sixty-seven miles disadvantage in distance.
Between Las Lunas and Belen, motorists will encounter “a good roadway,” before veering southeast and crossing the mesa diagonally and rising gradually “to the distant mountains that form the eastern rim of the valley of the Rio Grande”:
In this far stretching straight-away the road leads to the abrupt ascent and descent of Johnson grade and thence to Socorro, a typical New Mexican village that slumbers undisturbed with the Rio Grande at its door-yard and the mountains reaching down from towering heights behind it.
The road leaving Socorro “follows a gradual slope to the foot of the mountain thence through Blue Canyon over a well constructed grade and then downward over a broad plain to Magdalena.”
The road reaches Springerville, about 17 miles from the Arizona-New Mexico line, and crosses the White Plains before “engaging the summit of the trans-continental divide at an elevation of 8500 feet.” The ascent is gradual, bringing “the traveler to the summit of the divide without impressing upon him the fact that great altitude is attained.”
The road from Springerville to Holbrook is “an interesting and easy drive.” The motorist continues on through Winslow and Flagstaff, where many “motorists westward bound make the trip to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, one of the wonders of the world.” Even if the traveler has visited the Grand Canyon by rail, “the full measure of its grandeur cannot be appreciated except by motoring to it through miles of towering pines and across shallow meadows and over entrancing mountains.”
Returning from the Grand Canyon, the motorist can reach the main road at Williams, “from which point westward, a gradual but continuous descent characterizes the country to the Colorado river, which forms the boundary between Arizona and California.”
Between Williams and Ash Fork, “many are the motoring parties that here forsake hotel life for a camp fire in the pine scented woods.” Continuing west, a “good road spans the waste of the desert,” with the highway closely following the Santa Fe Railroad, with its Harvey Houses, “and this keeps one in the line of civilization through this tedious portion of the journey.”
The article ends:
As the summit of Cajon Pass is reached the traveler comes upon the fine paved roads that characterize Southern California and as the western descent begins the tourist has his first glimpse of orange groves and palms and vineyards and flowering shrubs that are typical of this whole favored region.
Thus has the trans-continental tourist reached Southern California in which great region he has thousands of miles of paved highways at his disposal and thousands of points of interest to visit and a wealth of semi-tropical scenery to view. [“Following the Tourist Trail to California,” Touring Topics, January 1918, pages 7-10]
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