THE NATIONAL OLD TRAILS ROAD
PART 4: From Named Trails to U.S. Numbered Highways
As for the National Old Trails Road
In January 1926, The New York Times carried an article by author Adolph C. Regli about travel in the western States. It began:
Motorists who long had had visions of a transcontinental tour have often cast aside the idea as being too risky. The West, with its reputation for hazardous desert and mountain highways, has suggested to the uninitiated the picture of a wild, treacherous expanse, hostile to everything but the cowpuncher on horseback.
This, however, is the day of the motor car, and the West is not waiting for the sunset. In another year some of the trails across the United States will have undergone changes and improvement sufficient to make the trip over them as different as was experienced in changing from an ox cart to a spring buggy. In six months last Summer the National Old Trails Highway was improved enough to make the motorist forget most of the difficult, tortuous roads he traveled on his way to the Pacific Coast.
After discussing other routes from New York, including the Lincoln Highway to Chicago and the Victory Highway, Regli commented on the National Old Trails Road:
The National Old Trails Highway is picked up at Dodge City and carries the tourist through the remainder of the Western States to California. This trail is not advisable through most of Kansas since there are other and better routes from Kansas City to Dodge City. It is well marked from Dodge City west and blazes the best trail through the Southwest to the Pacific. The National Old Trails Highway is advertised as an all-year route, with all mountain passes open during the Winter.
Central and Western Kansas flattens out into great wheat plains and ranches where horses and cattle graze. Despite the apparent barrenness of Southeastern Colorado, the highways are straight and have a gravel surface, which makes motor travel exceptionally fast. An hour’s time is gained in Eastern Colorado where the Rocky Mountain time zone begins. Lamar, Los Animas and La Junta are the chief cities on the trail, each a thriving centre.
At La Junta the motorist must decide if he will make a side trip to Pueblo and Colorado Springs, with its Pike’s Peak, or go southwestward to Trinidad. The road continues to be graveled to Pueblo and Colorado Springs with the exception of short stretches. The National Old Trails is reached by running directly south from Pueblo to Trinidad.
In traveling from Trinidad, Col., to Raton, N. M., the first mountain driving of the trip will be encountered. The grade to the south is easy and presents no difficulty to any car. Raton is situated at the base of the pass and is the last community of any size until Las Vegas is reached.
From Raton to Las Vegas, 114 miles, the route is over flat country in which huge cattle ranches and mesquite trees afford most of the scenery. For fifty miles out of Raton the road is graveled; at Colmar the gravel gives way to rough dirt, which becomes worse as Wagon Mount is approached. From Wagon Mound until gravel is again found seventeen miles out of Las Vegas, the drive is a continual bounce and jolt.
With the exception of the first fifteen miles south of Las Vegas, the highway to Santa Fe is good gravel. Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, which are connected by a fast gravel road, the La Bajada hill is encountered, but it is down grade when one is traveling from east to west. The only concrete pavement in the desert country is found at Albuquerque, eighteen miles running north and twelve miles south. Indian basket weavers and pottery molders take up posts along the Santa Fe-Albuquerque road and offer their wares to every passing motorist.
The entire highway between Albuquerque and Gallup, five or six hours’ run, is a good graveled road, with the exception of eighteen miles of stony, very rough dirt road from Grants to Bluewater. The tourist passes several quaint and interesting communities — Las Lunas, Laguna and Cubera — as well as numerous adobe villages where the Indians make their homes. The continental divide is crossed twenty-eight miles east of Gallup, but a small sign beside the road is practically the only evidence of it. Rare scenery is found east and west of Gallup where immense red cliffs, carved and molded by rushing water at some early date, present a noble picture of natural architecture.
Eleven miles of new gravel road west of Gallup were opened for travel last Summer. From there to Holbrook the road is dirt and will be only fair under ordinary conditions, but is exceedingly rough after rains, which are rare but are veritable cloudbursts when they come.
A side trip which the motorist should not deny himself can be made through the petrified forest on the rim from Gallup, N.M., to Holbrook, Ariz. By turning off at Adamana, the traveler can enter the forest from the north and pass through it to a good graveled road and thence to Holbrook. A glimpse of the Painted Desert is also had from the main highway between Navajo and Adamana.
From Holbrook to Winslow a good gravel road permits fast driving. A new road was completed last Summer from Winslow to the Cliff House Canyon, about thirty-five miles west of Winslow. From the end of the new stretch to Padre Canyon, fourteen miles, the worst road of the entire cross-country run confronts the motorist. Besides being painfully rough and crooked, the road is strewn with huge rocks and stones which play havoc with tires.
After this stretch of desert trail is passed, the remaining twenty-five miles into Flagstaff are dirt and stone, fair ordinarily but rough if traveled after rains.
From Flagstaff to the Arizona-California line at the Colorado River, fast time can be made because of long sections of well-graveled and dirt highway. Although the roads are good, too speedy driving should be avoided because of many dips and washes which take the place of bridges and culverts. To hit these while traveling fast will result in a severe jolt which may wreck a car. River beds, usually dry, are crossed and recrossed in Western Arizona.
Not more than sixty-five miles north of the main trail lies the grand Canyon [sic], which offers the finest side trip of the entire journey. A good gravel and dirt road goes northward from Maine, a few miles west of Flagstaff, and the return can be made directly to Williams over a fair highway.
The route through Williams, Seligman, Peach Springs, Hackberry and Kingman brings the traveler over good road to Oatman, a picturesque gold mining city. The motorist has another taste of mountain driving over a fairly easy grade just before Oatman is reached. A short run then brings one to the interstate bridge at Topock, from where a hilly ride carries the tourist into Needles, Cal.
From Needles to Victorville, the motorist made his last run over desert highways in crossing the noted Mojave Desert. Heavy crushed rock and gravel will be found on most of the road, although twenty-five miles of fair asphalt has been laid in the neighborhood of Amboy. The 215-mile drive from Needles to Victorville, where California’s famous pavement begins, is not a pleasant one and the tourist is cheered when the black asphalt is sighted. After crossing the easy Cajon Pass, west of Victorville, there is a pleasant run through orange, lemon and olive orchards to San Bernardino, Ontario and Pomona to Las Angeles.
While the drive through the Southwest becomes tiresome at times, the remarkably clear atmosphere, the wide expanse of the horizon, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the Western air and geniality of the people give the traveler from the East a new conception of the immensity and grandeur of the United States.
The National Old Trails Road followed the Santa Fe Railroad, “so the traveler has the advantage of being close to aid by rail should it be necessary”:
Tourist camps, most of them privately operated, are found in every city and hamlet so that a person touring and camping out can find accommodations without trouble . . . .
The West is aware to the traffic it can attract by good roads and is making efforts to provide excellent highways. [Regli, Adolph C., “Far West Offers Good Auto Roads,” The New York Times, January 10, 1926, page A35]
As Regli’s article implied, Missouri and Kansas were a continuing problem for Judge Lowe and the National Old Trails Road Association. However, Assistant State Highway Engineer C. W. Brown of Missouri reported in February 1926:
By the summer of 1926 the National Old Trails Highway will be concrete paved from the Indiana-Ohio line to Topeka, Kansas, which is several hundred miles farther west than any other continuous pavement extends. For the past three years this historically famous road has been undergoing a transformation in Missouri and in a few more months the 256 miles between the post office in St. Louis and the post office in Kansas City will be entirely paved. And 239 of the 246 miles of state highway between these two cities will be Portland cement concrete. The other 7 miles is an old hard surface which has not yet outlived its usefulness.
After summarizing the historic routes of the road known as the St. Louis-Kansas City road or U.S. Route 40, Brown suggested:
Imagine the surprise and delight of Boone and his companions if, in some ghostly centennial of those early days, they should ferry across the Mississippi on a log raft and drive their six-ox teams and heavy, broad wheeled conestoga wagons out upon a concrete road which stretched over all the weary miles they last traveled with such great difficulty.
Yet it is only in the last three years that Boone would have found much change. It is true there were bridges before 1923 and that trees had been cleared and grubbed, fences built and a few miles of gravel surface laid, but there were still many days when six oxen would have found a conestoga wagon a heavy load to pull through hub deep mud and when no man might know at sun-up how far upon his way he would be by dark. For except 13 miles, near St. Louis, built by St. Louis County in 1922, the whole 239 milers of concrete has been laid or contracted for since the summer of 1923.
Following its double policy of improving the most important roads first and of concentrating on a single road, so that during a short period of construction traffic may entirely avoid that road, then use it for all time without detouring, the state highway department put nine contractors to work on Route 40 during 1924 and ’25. In those two years, construction was going forward over practically the entire length of the road and at the end of 1925, the pavement was complete except for a few short stretches where inclement fall weather so delayed construction that contractors could not finish, as they had expected, or where differences of opinion concerning the proper location of the highway have caused delay. But there is every reason to believe that by the fall of 1926 cars will be traveling across the state entirely on a paved surface — a notable achievement for three years of construction.
The all-weather surface is not the only improvement which has been made on Route 40, for, while the new road follows the old traveled way in many places there are many miles of relocation where, to straighten curves, save mileage, reduce grades or eliminate railroad crossings, the road was built over virgin soil. So well has this been done that the steepest grade on the present road rises only six feet in the hundred, while the long grades do not exceed 5 per cent. Except in cities, where relocation was impossible, no curve turns more than 10 feet in 100 feet.
The original distance across the State was 297 miles. “Straightening unnecessary curves, eliminating jogs and avoiding roundabout roads reduced this distance 41 miles, saving the state $1,557,000 which would have been spent for grading, bridging and concrete surface that additional distance.”
The road was “so straight that if a string were stretched between these cities and extended to Kansas City and St. Louis the road would not diverge from the string more than 2 miles at any point. And the route chosen is so direct that it is 23 miles shorter than the shortest railroad between the two terminal points.” Fifteen railroad crossings had been eliminated, leaving only two across the entire distance. The engineers were careful in avoiding city streets. “Boonville and St. Charles are the only cities through which the road passes directly and that was necessary because of the river crossings.” The two bridges were the only crossings on the roadway. The corporation that built the St. Charles bridge charged a toll for all vehicles or pedestrians, but the Boonville Bridge was toll-free. [Brown, C. W., “Pavement on National Old Trails Highway Strides Westward,” Concrete Highway Magazine, February 1926, page 40-42]
Although Brown referred to the road as the National Old Trails Road, he was probably referring to State Route 2, which diverged from the named trail as discussed earlier.
On February 12, 1926, E. W. James was in Kansas City for a convention of State highway engineers in the Baltimore Hotel. That same day, Judge Lowe sent a telegram to James:
I regret that continued illness keeps me from attending important session of your association.
At this time the question of correct marking of the Federal highways is one of especial interest to me and I have no doubt but you will solve the problem as you have so many others in perfect harmony with amended Federal aid act which has lead us to the greatest bureau of road construction that the world has ever known. As president of a road organization which has freely given much time and money to the rebuilding of the Old National Highway, I want to congratulate you and express our high appreciation to the highway board of the twelve states through which it runs for the fact among others that it now constitutes the longest continuous paved stretch of road in the world.
But for the patriotic and energetic perseverance of these organizations this unbroken record could not have been believed. Neither could it have been done except for the unanimous and heroic devotion you have given to this act, which in my opinion is by far the greatest single act of Congress on the subject of internal improvements ever promulgated at a given time. The act means that fifty percent of the cost of building and maintaining the system of roads provided for will go on.
The nine northeastern states they can afford to pay their fifty percent because they will gain more than any other section of our country by the building of these highways. They will not gain in the mileage but they will gain in the gravitation of still more wealth to these nine states. Forty percent or more of the cost will be borne by the great cities or centers of population within which lies most of the balance of the wealth of the nation, this being so they can afford to pay this fifty percent because in turn more wealth will gravitate to them by the building of these roads than can possibly come to the rural district that will gain the mileage and pay only 10 percent of the cost in the states where the automobile and gasoline taxes have been appropriated (not levied mark you) appropriated to the building and maintenance of roads.
Entire system of about one hundred and eighty thousand miles of roads can be built without costing the general tax payer a copper cent in taxes. I know this sounds absurd but is the absolute truth as demonstrated in every state where the provision of this act has been followed. [Edited with punctuation and paragraphing for readability]
Judge Lowe did not explain this observation but he apparently was referring to the idea of paying for road improvements by road-user taxes such as license fees.
James replied on February 21, 1926:
I thank you very much for your appreciative telegram of the 12th, which was delivered to me at the session of the State Highway Engineers Convention at the Baltimore Hotel.
I think there is no doubt of those truly and intelligently interested in the larger aspects of highway transportation that the proposals to introduce a uniform system of marking routes, which will be subject to general extension to all important lines of travel marks a very definite advance in road administration.
I regret I was unable to reply more promptly to your message, which was received only as I was on the point of leaving the city. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
George R. Stewart on U.S. 40
In George R. Stewart’s book on U.S. 40, he wrote about meeting with E. W. James to discuss the origin of the transcontinental highway:
On September 8, 1950, I sat in the Cosmos Club in Washington and talked with Mr. E. W. James. Still actively at work, he was just back from Central America, where as Chief of the Inter-American Regional Office of the Bureau of Public Roads, he had just been inspecting the latest extension of the Pan-American Highway:
“Just who,” I asked, “is actually responsible for the route that U.S. 40 follows?”
With a pleased twinkle in his eye, he gestured backward with his right hand, pointing the thumb at his own sturdy chest . . . .
Stewart summarized the history of the named trail era, starting with the Lincoln Highway. The Lincoln Highway Association’s activities “impressed the name Lincoln Highway so strongly on public consciousness that one still hears it in ordinary conversation, even though the Association itself has not functioned actively for over twenty years.” (As will be discussed later, the Lincoln Highway Association ceased operation in 1928.) From there, Stewart discussed the value of the named trails, until they became “too numerous . . . . Particularly irked were the officials of the various state highway departments and those of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads.”
The frustration of State and Federal highway officials had led to creation of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways, with James as secretary:
During its months of deliberation the Board had considered the question of the already marked “trails” and had decided to ignore them completely. This means, unfortunately perhaps, the end of even such a national institution as the Lincoln Highway. The Board recommended a new country-wide system to be set up on kind of a checkerboard-grid . . . .
The report of the Board was accepted, and in the next few years the system of numbered highways came to be universally accepted. A few of the old associations converted themselves, but their importance had vanished. They soon ceased to maintain road signs, and the bedizened telegraph-poles, in a few years, weathered back to gray.
Turning to U.S. 40, Stewart based his account on James’s recollection of events:
At the time of the Board’s deliberations the chief transcontinental route was, beyond all doubt, the Lincoln Highway. Since it lay toward the northern half of the country, it received the number 30, in the eastern part of the United States. Perhaps the Board felt, however, that the complete taking over of one of the older named highways in the new system would result in pressure that other highways also should be taken over as a whole. In any case U.S. 30 ceased to follow the line of the Lincoln Highway in northern Utah and veered northwestward, along the line of the old Oregon Trail.
A little to the south of the Lincoln Highway an important route of 1924 — also using the red-white-blue as its colors — led out of Washington, D.C., through Frederick, Maryland, and thus west to Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City and Los Angeles. It was known as the National Old Trails Association Highway, or merely, the National Old Trail. It served as the basis of U.S. 40 from Frederick to Kansas City. West of Kansas City, however, its swing-off toward the Southwest made it ineligible for inclusion as a unit in the new system of east-west highways. Directly westward, however, other routes continued, at least on paper. By means of these the new U.S. 40 passed through Denver. By the time Kremmling, Colorado, was reached, all these routes had turned off in one direction or another except the so-called Victory Highway with its yellow-blue marker. U.S. 40 followed this road on to the west, clear to San Francisco. Near Salt Lake City the route of the Victory Highway and of the new U.S. 40 coincided with that of the Lincoln Highway for some hundred miles.
At its eastern end the new route departed from the line of the National Old Trail at Frederick, where that road swung south toward Washington. Continuing more directly eastward in accordance with the new east-west plan, U.S. 40 followed the Old Frederick Turnpike to Baltimore. As Mr. James recalls, the original plan was to end the new highway there, at tidewater on Chesapeake Bay. It was, however, apparently in later meetings, extended eastward, first to connect with U.S. 13 in Delaware, and then clear to the ocean at Atlantic City. At the first official publication of the new routes, in April 1927, U.S. 40 was a full-fledged transcontinental.
As thus established, it was essentially a combination of extensive parts of the National Old Trail and the Victory Highway, incorporating shorter sections of other roads.
Stewart noted that despite the “immediate and overwhelming” success of the U.S. numbering plan, communities resented being left off the route, “and state highway departments were subject to such pressures. U.S. 40, for instance, split between 40 North and 40 South over a long stretch in Kansas and Colorado, and only in 1935 did the northern branch become U.S. 24. [Stewart, pages 10-16]
A Standard Reply
Throughout this process, BPR received many letters from Members of Congress, named trail associations, chambers of commerce, and others objecting to replacing the names of the highways with numbers. For example, Senator Earle B. Mayfield of Texas, wrote to Chief MacDonald on April 10, 1926, to join with citizens of his State who objected to “the elimination of the names of national highways and the substitution of numbers therefor.” He admitted that standardization is often desirable, “but I submit that it is going rather far when in the interest of standardization it is proposed to eliminate the names of highways that are known almost as household words in every section of our great country”:
Sentiment is, and will always, play its part in every great undertaking. I submit that it would not have been as easy to construct the Lincoln Highway, the Jefferson Highway, the Dixie Highway, the Santa Fe Trail, and other highways if these great highways had simply been designated by cold figures.
The Senator was particularly partial to the Meridian Highway (Pembina, North Dakota, to Fort Worth, Texas), “not because it was named after the little town of Meridian, Bosque County, Texas, that is my home, but simply because the name of my home happens to be connected with the Meridian Highway.” Under the Joint Board’s recommendations, the highway “is not only destroyed, but it would be divided into three sections, each section being given a different number”:
Each of the national highways above referred to has a distinct personality that, in my opinion, should not be destroyed. Enthusiastic citizens of the nation believe in good roads, and in improved highways, and made unstinted sacrifices towards establishing the Lincoln Highway, the Jefferson Highway, the Dixie Highway, and the Santa Fe Trail, and others, and I think it would be a serious mistake for the Government not only to allay and cool that enthusiasm, but in all probability to destroy it by eliminating the name of these highways and designating them by numerals. I do not suppose there would be any objection to adding a numeral to the highways above referred to, but most certainly the elimination of the names of our highways, in my humble opinion, should be not considered. May I not ask that you give this matter your most serious and thoughtful consideration before adopting the recommendations of the Joint Board of Interstate Highways.
Chief MacDonald replied on April 13, 1926, using language that he used in similar replies to many letters received during this period. He began by explaining that the Secretary of Agriculture had appointed the Joint Board at the request of AASHO to consider the uniform marking of important interstate highways:
It was the opinion of the Board at that time that the naming of highways was a matter entirely within the jurisdiction of the States, and if the individual States desired to perpetuate the names there would be no interference on the part of the Joint Board, nor would any action taken by the Joint Board prohibit the continuance of these names.
The same day your letter was written I received a letter from the secretary of one of the best known transcontinental trail associations in which he says:
“We are being bombarded from all directions with requests that we send letters and telegrams, etc., to Congressmen and Senators protesting against the removal of trail markers from U.S. highways.
“Our attitude has always been that the question of whether markers of highway and trail associations shall be allowed to stand rests with the individual States. Our impression has been that the Bureau of Public Roads would not attempt to take any definite stand and that the matter was one that could not properly come before the national law makers.”
This is an exact statement of the facts. Not only was the matter of perpetuation of the names of highways left to the individual States, but it was informally agreed by the members of the Board that should the States desire to carry the names of the highways on the same standards carrying the numbers adopted for the interstate highways as recommended by the Board, that the Board would make no objection. This in fact is the practice in some States now, i.e. to carry the State number and on the same standard a neat sign giving the name of the highway.
Whatever representations have been made to you are either by misinformed persons who honestly think that some injustice will be done to the old established named trails or through a wilful attempt for purely selfish purposes to misrepresent the situation to the Senators and Congressmen.
We found that there were in existence more than 250 so called trail organizations. Of these a very few had earned the right to a continuing existence. These few had kept faith with the public. They had succeeded in obtaining recognition for certain highways and worked with a definite purpose to put up markers, secure the interest of the people along the way in the improvement of their particular routes, and had built up pride in the communities in the improvement and care of the routes.
You have adequately described the situation in your reference to the Lincoln Highway, Jefferson Highway and others, and you also refer to the pride in the name which the towns along these routes have. The members of the Joint Board are all very familiar with these facts. There has been no act of the Board to interfere with the continuance of these names, and any representation to the contrary is false. On the other hand, the Association of State Highway Officials [sic] is determined if possible to wipe out the promoter of trails whose numbers and activities in collecting funds from the public have been increasing rapidly.
You know how urgent is the demand for improved roads, and how great the desire to hasten their actual accomplishment. It is this fact that has encouraged promoters to go into the field with the representation that by contributing to some new trail association Federal or State funds or both would become available and the improvements desired hastened. Needless to say, these promoters have not been in the position to control the application of one dollar of public funds. I do not criticize the civic organizations and individuals who have supported such individuals because they have been driven by the very laudable motive of doing anything possible to secure the improvement needed.
The plan to use numbers for uniform marking of important interstate roads is not an activity of the Federal Government, but a cooperative activity between the States, and all work is proceeding under the supervision of the Executive Committee of the American Association of State Highway Officials, an organization made up of the directing officials of the State highway department.
I have gone into the matter rather fully because there have been a number of letters received here from members of Congress and others who apparently have had representations made to them similar to those made to you. This statement should be helpful in doing away with such misinformation or misrepresentation. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
Chief MacDonald did not say so, but the named trail era might linger on but its demise was in sight.
He would use similar, if not identical language in response to many letters from Members of Congress and others.
The Life of Judge Lowe
The Kansas City Star published a tribute to Judge Lowe on April 11, 1926:
In The Star recently appeared an account of continued progress in the building of the National Old Trails road. This transcontinental highway, considerable portions of which now are hard surfaced, has been for nearly fifteen years the chief object of care and the one ambition of a Kansas City man, Judge J. M. Lowe. It was Judge Lowe who organized the Old Trails Association, the first of its kind in the country. That organization Judge Lowe has fathered, working zealously, unselfishly and, most significant of all, without personal remuneration.
The history of American road building will record Judge Lowe as one of the outstanding pioneers in what now has become a leading development of the country. Years ago, when federal aid hardly was talked of, when the dirt roads were universal, and when state systems were unknown, Judge Lowe vigorously was maintaining up and down the land that a national highway system must come, that state systems must be laid out and that the motor vehicle must be looked to as the chief source of revenue for road construction. He protested against political interference and graft in road work; he denounced piecemeal road building, “measly little patches of road that lead nowhere,” and demanded vision and business methods in construction.
Much of what the judge has worked for has been accomplished. Much yet remains to be done. But the lesson of honesty, broadmindedness and unselfishness which the man has taught has not been and will not be unavailing. In spite of his eighty years, the judge has continued to work and to hope. It has been his ambition some day to ride all the way across America on pavement. He will!
BPR Chief MacDonald saw the tribute and wrote to Judge Lowe on April 16:
I have received a copy of the Kansas City Star for April 11th, and have read with pleasure the tribute to you and your work in the editorial column. It is good to have one’s efforts appreciated, and I congratulate you for having won such a splendid tribute.
With sincere good wishes, I am
Very truly yours,
/s/
Chief of Bureau
Judge Lowe did not receive Chief MacDonald’s warm letter.
On April 16, 1926, Judge Lowe passed away in Kansas City. He was 82 years old. Nationally, his death was barely noted. For example, The New York Times mentioned his death in “Obituary Notes”:
Judge J. M. LOWE, 82, President of the National Old Trails Road Association and a pioneer highway builder, died in Kansas City, Mo., yesterday. [“Obituary Notes,” The New York Times, April 17, 1926, page 17]
Touring Topics, the magazine of the Automobile Club of Southern California, had documented the club’s long association with Judge Lowe and the National Old Trails Road Association. Following his death, the magazine published a tribute to him and his work:
RENOWNED ROAD BUILDER PASSES
Judge J. M. Lowe, “father of the National Old Trails Road,” passed to his reward on Friday, April 16, in Kansas City, Missouri, after an illness of many months.
Judge Lowe was a man of transcendent vision; of indominable zeal and faith. His mind, decades ago, envisioned the flow and ebb of motor travel from coast to coast. His practical mind, grappling with the requirements of this flood of future travel, foresaw the need and the practicality of a surfaced highway connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific; and to Judge Lowe is due the credit for the creation and existence of the National Old Trails Road, that tremendous artery that unwinds its length for three thousand miles, traversing eleven States [sic] and with its terminals in Baltimore, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California.
Judge Lowe advocated the construction of motor roads with ardor and/or when the automobile was in its infancy. His shibboleth was “Good Roads.” He neither wearied nor faltered in the fight when hailed as visionary or crank or worse. He was the first man to propound the theory of utilizing all automobile license fees and taxes for the construction and maintenance of motor highways.
April 17, 1912, the National Old Trails Road Association was formed to labor for the completion of a continuous improved highway from Baltimore to Los Angeles, utilizing the historic Santa Fe Trail as its principal Western link and with other links to be provided for at later dates. Judge Lowe was the first and only president of this association. For fourteen long years, to the very day of his death, Judge Lowe was its motivating, directing and executive head, divesting himself of all other business cares to give his whole time to this monumental undertaking and serving without monetary compensation of any kind. No greater example of whole-hearted devotion to a cause exists in the annals of the present generation of Americans and it is more than gratifying to know that this wonderful old fighter lived to see the fruition of his hopes and efforts.
Few men in all the world’s history have left a more colossal life memorial than is this three thousand-mile road of teeming travel, the longest continuous mileage of improved road in all the world. Few men have left a greater heritage to their fellow men than has Judge Lowe. [“Renowned Road Builder Passes,” Touring Topics, May 1926, page 27]
Local newspapers covered Judge Lowe’s death more extensively. The Kansas City Star published an obituary on the day of his death:
Judge J. M. Lowe, president of the National Old Trails Road Association, died at his home at the St. Regis hotel early today. Judge Lowe, a pioneer in highway building known throughout the United States, had been a resident of Kansas City more than forty years. He was 82 years old, and had been in ill health more than a year.
Judge Lowe was one of the first advocates in the country of connected highway systems, state and national. For more than seventeen years he had devoted his time, efforts and personal funds to highway promotion, chiefly to the building of the National Old Trails road across the continent.
For years the ambition of Judge Lowe was to ride all the way across the United States on pavement. Had he lived a few years longer, his hope would have been realized, for the Old Trails road now is paved all the way from its eastern terminus at Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, and a considerable part of the way from this point to its western terminus at Los Angeles.
The obituary discussed his long life before joining the highway crusade. Joseph Macauley Lowe had been born in Pendleton County, Kentucky, in 1844 and “was a typical gentleman of the old school of the South.” His grandfather had migrated from Virginia to Kentucky. Many members of his Anglo-German family had “been prominent in English and early American life”:
Leaving the Kentucky plantation at the age of 16, Judge Lowe enlisted in the Confederate army and served several months until the close of the Civil War. Following that he taught school at Greenfield, Ind., and shortly began the study of law. He served as clerk in the Indiana state senate and was admitted to the bar in that state. In 1868 Judge Lowe moved to Plattsburg, Mo., where he practiced law fifteen years. For four successive terms he served as prosecuting attorney of Clinton County. It was at Plattsburg that Judge Lowe married Mary Elizabeth McWilliams, daughter of a physician there. The McWilliams family also was of southern ancestry and originally had lived in Kentucky.
After moving to Kansas City more than 40 years earlier, he “devoted most of his time to personal affairs, although for several years he gave attention to the practice of law”:
A Democrat of the old persuasion, he also gave some attention to political affairs from time to time, although he did not become affiliated with factional or boss politics in the city. About fourteen years ago he was one of the leaders in an independent political movement in Kansas City. Judge Lowe occupied various appointive offices, and also served as judge of the county court of Jackson County.
Judge Lowe was a man of polished manners, he was widely read, an interesting conversationalist, and an orator of considerable force. For many years he was in demand as a speaker at political and business functions and, especially in later years, at highway conventions throughout the United States.
About seventeen years ago, when growth of the motor car industry made it evident that hard roads must be had, Judge Lowe turned his attention to highway promotion and building. From that day virtually until the hour of his death, the all-absorbing theme with him was highways, connected highways, “that lead somewhere, not measly patches of road.”
“I took up this work actively seventeen years ago,” Judge Lowe said recently. “And I have devoted every hour of my time since then to construction of the road (the National Old Trails). I have enjoyed to the limit every hour of that time. The pleasure has been full compensation for what I have done, and when the task is finished I shall feel amply rewarded for the dreary, heartbreaking periods through which we have passed.”
Judge Lowe always served the association without pay. “And, in addition, he contributed of his own means to support the road organization and its work. Judge Lowe declared he was not selfish in giving his all to one road, because he wanted that highway to serve as an example to road building throughout the country.”
The Star recalled his plan, 13 years earlier, for a highway system for Missouri that would cost 50 million dollars. “Mention of such a sum for state roads at that time was astounding. But Judge Lowe calmly asserted the expenditure was necessary, and showed how it could be made without burdening the taxpayer.” He proposed to finance the work by devoting revenue from motor vehicle licenses to the cause — “the first person in the United States” to do so.
Judge Lowe had proposed Federal legislation to create a national highway network before enactment of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. He considered the Federal-aid concept a compromise. “What he advocated was a national system of roads built entirely by the government; state systems built wholly by the states, and county systems, built by the counties alone”:
Pork barrel methods, political domination of road work and waste of funds on disconnected roads built largely as political favors, Judge Lowe denounced for years. He came to be feared by politicians both in the state and in congress, who had begun to see the big public demand for highways, the possibility of big sums being invested in the enterprise for selfish purposes. It was Judge Lowe’s influence, as much, perhaps, as that of any other man in the country, that helped to get road building out of politics and on a sound business basis.
The article concluded:
Judge Lowe, a member of the Baptist church, was an ardent believer in the fundamental, long accepted principles of orthodox religion. When the fundamentalist-modernist controversy broke in the country he took an active part in defending traditional religious belief and wrote fully in defense of his position. He wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on highway work, together with a volume giving an extensive history of the National Old Trails road, which originally had been laid out and in part built by the government more than one hundred years ago.
Judge Lowe a few years ago was a member of the board of management of the Missouri Confederate home at Higginsville, having been appointed by Governor Arthur M. Hyde. Recently he was made honorary vice-president of the National Optimist Club. He held membership in numerous organizations.
Judge Lowe was survived by his widow Mary; a daughter, Mrs. Hughes Bryant of Kansas City; and a son, J. Roger Lowe, of Lees Summit. Judge and Mrs. Lowe had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary about a month before his death.
On April 17, 1926, the Star contained an editorial recalling the life of Judge J. M. Lowe, “Citizen and Man”:
A community finds its chief enrichment in the examples of its upstanding citizens. Such a citizen was Judge J. M. Lowe, who died yesterday. The example left by Judge Lowe is an example of courage, of militant honesty, unselfishness, vision, faith. Here was a man whose life is a lesson for those who waver and are uncertain, for those who fear to stand out against wrong, pettiness, fraud, narrowness. Judge Lowe was a man firm in his beliefs, religious and political; he was uncompromising for the right and confident that, ultimately, the right would prevail.
A loyal member of one party throughout his long life of more than four score years, Judge Lowe was never a slave to party or to party leaders. Time after time he denounced leaders whom he believed false to party principles, insincere, incompetent or dishonest. And he followed that course openly and unafraid at the risk of being termed disloyal and a deserter of party organization. Judge Lowe’s service as election commissioner in Kansas City for six years was typical. In that office he fought dishonesty in politics and at elections, regardless of party. He was against political boss rule; he was a foe of inefficiency and lax methods of administration in public office. He contended for better election laws that would help to make honest voting easy and dishonest voting hard. In political life he made enemies, of course, as later he encountered foes in another form of public activity.
The contest that Judge Lowe waged for honest, businesslike methods in road building was but a continuation of previous public service. In this field he exercised rare vision, unselfishness and devotion. He was far ahead of most men in seeing the needs of the road building situation. He realized years ago that the motor vehicle would mean something of a revolution in methods of travel and communication; that state and county lines would mean little on the highway map of the future. Hence, his persistent, vigorous stand for connected highway systems, each system, national, state, and county, to be built through exercise of distinct and definite responsibility. He saw that the hundreds of millions of dollars the country would be investing in roads must be kept out of the hands of politicians if fraud, waste and incompetence were not to do their expensive work and the public end the loser. So, without pay and without hope of reward of any kind save that which comes through a consciousness of service honestly rendered, Judge Lowe gave the entire latter period of his life to the cause of good rods.
Optimistic, fearless, firm in faith, ever a fighter, this man has ended his work. The community, the country, is the gainer from his life.
Judge Lowe’s widow, Mary McWilliams Lowe, died on May 2, 1939, at Menorah Hospital after a brief illness. She was 83 years old. Between her daughter and son, she had six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren as discussed in an obituary published in The Kansas City Times on May 3, 1939:
Although Mrs. Lowe’s chief interests centered about her home and family, she shared her husband’s dream of a network of hard-surface highways linking the principal cities of the United States. Throughout Judge Lowe’s long campaign that succeeded in securing the passage of the federal aid act during the first Wilson Administration, Mrs. Lowe devoted herself to the cause, too.
Although Mrs. Lowe’s active work in the highway movement ended with her husband’s death April 16, 1926, she continued her interest in motoring, making several trips across the continent . . . . Nothing gave Mrs. Lowe greater satisfaction, in her later years, than the knowledge that Judge Lowe’s once criticized dream reached a brilliant fulfulfilment . . . .
Believing in the Victorian tradition that a woman’s place was in the home, Mrs. Lowe belonged to no clubs and limited her activities to her family and her husband’s highway interests.
Mrs. Lowe had been born on January 23, 1856, at Plattsburg. “Related to President Cleveland and the Revolutionary war hero, Col. Benjamin Cleveland of Virginia, Mrs. Lowe’s ancestors included six officers in the Revolutionary arm and six officers in the Confederate army. Her parents were “members of old southern families that came to Missouri about the time of the Mexican war.”
Her interest in politics and international affairs was maintained throughout her life. A southern Democrat, Mrs. Lowe voted for only two Presidents, Woodrow Wilson and President Roosevelt.
On August 4, 1926, Frank A. Davis, manager of the National Old Trails Road Association, wrote to Chief MacDonald in response to a telegram to the association’s convention wishing the association continued progress.:
I thank you for your interest in the National Old Trails and your wish for our continued progress as indicated by your wire to our Convention. We expect to continue along the same lines as established by our late President Judge Lowe, and hope to cooperate very closely with your department.
By then, the association’s letterhead had been revised. Davis was the Secretary-Manager. Julius W. Becker of Springerville was General Vice-President. The new President was a local official, temporarily out of office, named Harry S. Truman.
D.A.R. Meets in Washington - 1926
During D.A.R.’s continental congress from April 19 to 24, 1926, Mrs. Moss, national chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee, gave the committee’s annual report. She summarized the committee’s evolution from a plan to secure Federal legislation and post signs along the National Old Trails Road to placing a large monument in each of the 12 States it passed through “to mark some historical spot thereon or commemorate some historical act of the Revolutionary period”:
To this end your National Chairman has been bending every effort the past two years, asking for a 10 cent per capita contribution from all the State societies and urging that we consummate a pledge made in the past intended as a memorial to the “mighty throng of our pioneer men and women who kept the faith and builded true,” that we of today might journey through a land of plenty and of every convenience, never to know the hardships they endured, never to realize the sufferings they bore.
The National Old Trails Road, she said, “has been built, and, with the exception of a very few miles, it is a hard-surfaced road from ocean-to-ocean; and whereas the pioneer of the earlier day traveled months to reach the western coast, it is now a matter of a few days’ pleasant travel.” Every State had an “energetic program” of building good roads, and whether a motorist is going east, west, north, or south, “really remarkable systems of concrete highway give access to all parts of the United States.” In securing a highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the committee’s primary goal had been achieved, “but we as an organization have still to erect our memorial markers.”
She experienced “a decided thrill of joy and pride” in the hard work of the D.A.R. that allowed her “to announce today that the fund of $12,000 necessary to erect the twelve markers, at approximately $1,000 each . . . has been contributed in full, and this fund is now available, and the work of erecting the markers may proceed as soon as a suitable design shall be chosen.” After discussing State contributions to the fund, she concluded:
Many letters have been written by your National Chairman during the three years and copies of different bills and many maps distributed; the vice-chairmen in charge of the several sections have rendered loyal service, and it is through their untiring and persistent efforts that we have reached the goal, and the National Chairman wishes to close her last report with a word of grateful appreciation for their able assistance.
Mrs. Moss did not discuss the design of the proposed monument.
President General Mrs. Anthony Wayne Cook told the audience, “This is not only a gratifying report, but a very wonderful one.” [Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1926, pages 255-259]
On April 24, the resolutions committee adopted a resolution:
RETAIN NAMES ON NATIONAL HIGHWAYS
Whereas, There has been inaugurated a movement to use numbers instead of names for the National Highways; and
Whereas, Such action would do away with the significance of the National Old Trails Road, the Lincoln Highway, Old Santa Fe Trail, Meridian Highway, Dixie Highway, King’s Trail, Glacier to Gulf, and Old Spanish Trail, and would substitute for historic nomenclature cold numbers which have neither patriotic nor romantic appeal; and
Be It Resolved, That the Thirty-fifth Continental Congress Daughters of the American Revolution, go on record as favoring the retention of significant names for the National highways and proper marking of said names upon the designated roads; and be it further
Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be sent to the Board of Interstate Highways with the request that they take favorable action upon this question.
The resolution was signed by Mrs. Charles B. Jones, State Regent of Texas, and Mrs. Moss.
That same day, the Recording Secretary General of the D.A.R., Mrs. Alice Frye Briggs, transmitted a copy of the resolution to BPR Chief MacDonald.
MacDonald’s May 19 reply was similar to the letters he sent to Senator Mayfield and many others in response to inquiries on the plan for numbering the country’s main highways. He began, “it is apparent from the resolution that your society is not informed as to the facts,” which he proceeded to provide. During the Joint Board’s first meeting, the members decided “that the naming of highways was a matter entirely within the jurisdiction of the States, and if the individual States desired to perpetuate the names there would be no interference on the part of the Joint Board, nor would any action taken by the Joint Board prohibit the continuance of these names.”
He referenced the letter he had received from “one of the best known transcontinental trail associations,” stating that the decision on naming highways rested entirely with the States, and that BPR would not interfere. The was “an exact statement of the facts.” He assured D.A.R. that neither the Joint Board, which was defunct, nor BPR would interfere if States decided to retain the names as well as displaying the numbers. “There has been no act of the Board to interfere with the continuance of these names, and any representation to the contrary is false.” After discussing the promoters of the named trails, he clarified that the plan to use numbers was “not an activity of the Federal Government,” but a cooperative State initiative. He concluded, as in other similar letters, that, “I have gone into this matter rather fully with the hope that this statement will be helpful in doing away with misinformation and misrepresentation.” [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
Harry S. Truman
When the National Old Trails Road Association assembled at the Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City, Missouri, for its annual convention on July 24, 1926, the association faced its greatest crisis. The plan for the U.S. numbered highway system, though not yet approved, had fractured the road by splitting it among several numbers. Some parts of the route, particularly in Missouri, had been left off the main number. U.S. 40, as well as State Route 2. And the National Old Trails Road’s greatest champion, Judge Lowe, had passed away.
The 150 delegates to the convention voted to maintain the organization even though the Federal-aid highway program, in cooperation with State highway departments, was accomplishing highway improvements without the need for booster associations. To continue its work, the association would need a new leader for the next stage in the association’s work.
For president, the association chose Judge Harry S. Truman of Independence in Jackson County, Missouri. In Truman, the association had chosen a man who had a lifelong love of motor vehicles and roads. As a young man, he longed for an automobile when he was courting his future wife, Bess, who lived in Independence. “Just imagine how often I'd burn the pike from here to Independence," he wrote to her from his family’s farm on Blue Ridge Boulevard in Grandview (now part of Kansas City, just off U.S. 71 in the southern part of the urban area).
In 1914, his mother agreed to pay for an auto — but Truman didn't want a Model T that would brand him as a farmer. As biographer David McCullough observed, Truman wanted all the power his car could give:
Nothing could have pleased him more or made such an immediate difference in his life. He had never had anything of his own of such value or that drew such attention. He was to love automobiles all his life, but this was the automobile of his life.
It was a big, black, five passenger 1922-model Stafford, hand-built in Kansas City by a man named Terry Stafford . . . . On a good road, Harry soon demonstrated, it could do 60 miles an hour. It was a rich man’s car. New, it sold for $2,350. Harry paid $650 . . . . From all practical viewpoints such an automobile was a huge extravagance — but to Harry $650 for an automobile was a “bargain” . . . . With a little work on the engine, Harry found, he could go up Dodson Hill — considered the great test locally — so fast he had to shut off the power before reaching the crest.
Soon, he was visiting Bess regularly and taking her for a "spin" in his "machine." This love of driving never left him. [McCullough, David, Truman, Simon and Schuster, 1992, pages 92-93. For more on the life of Harry S. Truman, see “The Man Who Loved Roads” on this Website]
During the European War, he had served in France, where he discovered his ability to lead men and to earn not only their respect but their loyalty. But that wasn’t all he learned. As he wrote to his future wife on May 19, 1918, from France:
The French know how to build roads and also how to keep them up. They are just like a billiard table and every twenty meters there are trees on each side. [Ferrell, Robert H., editor, Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959, W. W. Norton and Company, 1983, page 262]
Later that year, on November 10, he revealed his homesickness to Bess:
This has been a beautiful Sunday — the sun shining and as warm as summer. It sure made me wish for Lizzie and five gallons of gas with her nose pointed down Blue Ridge Boulevard and me stepping on the throttle to get there quickly. I wonder how long it will be before we do any riding down that road. [Dear Bess, page 280]
After the war, Truman and a friend, Eddie Jacobson, opened a clothing store in 1919. Truman and Jacobson Haberdashery was at 12th and Baltimore (104 West 12th) in Kansas City on the ground floor of the Baltimore Hotel and across the street from the Hotel Muehlebach. The store was an initial success, but the recession of the early 1920s resulted in its closure in 1921 and debt for both men.
In 1922, Truman ran for election as a Jackson County Judge, an administrative post. The “court” included two judges (eastern and western) and a presiding judge; Truman ran for the eastern judge covering the outlying part of the county. As McCullough explained:
The judges had control of the county purse strings. They hired and controlled the road overseers, as well as road gangs, county clerks, and other employees numbering in the hundreds. They could also determine who was awarded county contracts, and for the county road system, such as it was, there seemed a never-ending need for maintenance and repairs. [McCullough, page 159]
He campaigned for better roads and sound management. His campaign came after enactment of Missouri’s Centennial Road Act on August 4, 1921. At one campaign stop, he told the crowd:
The time has arrived for some definite policy to be pursued in regard to our highways and our finances. They are so closely connected with our tax problem that if they are properly cared for, the tax problem will care for itself. [McCullough, page 163]
He won the election and took office as Judge Truman. McCullough summarized how:
Harry Truman, as he later boasted, made himself "completely familiar with every road and bridge . . . ." Years of mismanagement and crooked contracts had produced roads so poorly constructed that they caved in like pie crusts. Bridges were inadequate or in sad repair . . . ." The improvements made now were impossible to ignore. Even the Kansas City Star had praise for what was happening under the crisp, efficient new county administration. “When a road project or a bridge application is brought before the county court, here is what happens," wrote one Republican. "Judge McElroy turns to Judge Truman and asks him what about it. Nine times out of ten Judge Truman already has been on the ground and knows all about the proposition. He explains it to the court. Judge McElroy then says, `All right, if you say so I move the work be done,' and it is ordered." [McCullough, page 167]
Judge Lowe’s frequent reference to mismanagement of road management stemmed at least in part from his observation of roads close to home.
The job paid $3,465 a year, much needed funds for the failed businessman trying to support a family while paying off his debts.
Despite an excellent record, Truman lost his reelection bid in 1924 — by 877 votes, the only election he ever lost — against Republican candidates aligned with the Ku Klux Klan, which was in the ascendancy at the time and having an impact on races in several States. Another factor in the loss was the success of President Coolidge, who secured nearly half the votes in Missouri.
Aged 40, out of work, broke, and in debt, he planned to run again in 2 years, but in the meantime, he needed to make a living to support his family:
From an office in the Board of Trade Building, he began selling memberships in the Kansas City Automobile Club, working on commission, which, after expenses, came to approximately five dollars for every new member he recruited. In a year he had sold more than a thousand memberships and cleared $5,000, which, with a family to support and debts to pay, he greatly needed. Roads, highways, the new age of the automobile had become his specialty. [McCullough, page 171]
The National Old Trails Road Association elected Judge Harry S. Truman on July 23, 1926, as its second president. In addition, the association voted to take steps to encourage officials of the States west of Kansas City to provide a hard surface to their portions of the National Old Trails Road. According to a local news account, “Virtually all of the trail east of Kansas City is hard surfaced, it was said.”
Like Judge Lowe, Truman would lead the association without a salary. According to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum:
The earliest tax form I found was for 1927. In all of the forms that I checked from 1927 through 1933 (the year before Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate, which substantially increased his income), the only income that is reported is his salary as a Judge of the Jackson County Court, which ranged from about $5,000 to $6,500 annually. [Sowell, Randy, Truman Library, email, November 30, 2022]
In addition to electing a new president, the convention elected Frank A. Davis secretary-treasurer. Davis, long involved with the association, also was involved with the King of Trails Association (see part 3), served as manager of the Kansas City Automobile Club, and was a friend of Truman’s. Other elected officials included Julius W. Becker of Springerville as general vice-president, and E. R. Moses of Great Bend, Kansas. [“Judge Truman Honored,” Independence Examiner, July 24, 1926. Provided by Randy Sowell, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum; “Old Trails Association to Continue Work,” Douglas [AZ] Daily Dispatch, July 24, 1926]
Having served as one of the district judges in Jackson County, Truman sought election as the presiding judge in November 1926 and won a 4-year term by 16,000 votes. His salary increased to $6,000. According to Margaret Truman’s biography of her father, Truman’s predecessor as presiding judge, Miles Bulger, “had made a policy of boondoggling away millions and running the country into murderous debt. In 1921 the Bulger court had spent $1,070,000 on roads that were already disintegrating because they had been built by crooked contractors using shoddy, low-grade materials.”
She wrote of her father:
He dates the real beginning of his political career from this 1926 election. For the first time he had the kind of authority he needed to build a record that voters could see and admire. He poured all his energy into the job, and he needed every bit of it. The county government was in disastrous shape. The roads, most of them built by Bulger, were called “piecrusts” by two local engineers whom my father hired to survey them. “These men, with my assistance planned a system of roads estimated to cost $6,500,000,” Dad says. [Truman, Margaret, Harry S. Truman, William Morrow and Company, 1972, pages 67, 70]
The Business Plan
Now that Judge Lowe was no longer available to use his resources to supplement the finances of the National Old Trails Road Association, its future depended on dues paid by members, businesses, and other supporters.
His successor, who was still paying debts incurred from his failed haberdashery store, understood the importance of assuring income for the association. The members had decided to continue the association’s operations, but Truman would have to put it on a solid financial footing.
In November 1926, he was still working on the plan, as reported in The Republican of Oakland, Maryland. One issue was to work out a coordinating agreement with the newly formed National Highway Booster Association of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. The booster group held a preliminary meeting during August 1926 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. When the group met again a month later on September 23 in Zanesville, Ohio, representatives from seven States were in for a surprise:
It was disclosed that there already was a similar organization, known as the National Old Trails Association [sic] in existence, a fact which few of those in attendance knew about.
J. P. Eagleson, of Washington [Pa.], who is vice-president of the National Old Trails Association, told the gathering at Zanesville that the association had been formed in 1912, covering the highway from Maryland to the Pacific Coast.
The purpose of the meeting at Zanesville was to form a permanent organization known as the National Highway Booster Association, and to discuss ways and means of perpetuating the traditions and history of the Old Trails, advertising its scenic beauty and many points of historical interest, and to promote additional tourist travel on the highway.
When Mr. Eagleson explained that a similar organization already was in existence, but had been inactive of late years because of lack of funds, George E. Lutz, temporary president of the National Highway Booster Association, urged that a committee be appointed with the view of consolidating the two bodies, the suggestion being favorably acted upon. [“Seven States Join to Boost National Highway,” The Republican, September 30, 1926]
(On February 27, 1927, when the National Highway Booster Association met in Wheeling, it considered recommendations “that the highway be used to erect beacon lights for the proposed model airway across the country. A large number of planes follow the course of the pike every month, and it would seem logical that this route would be quite advantageous for the erection of beacons. Should this be done, it would be a simple matter to light the roadbed as well and thereby make a most excellent highway for both day and night, driving.” [“Highway Booster Association,” The Republic, February 24, 1917])
By November, Truman had not finalized a business plan for the National Old Trails Road Association:
The plan of financing the national organization has not yet been completed and Judge Harry S. Truman, president of the older organization, was authorized to work out a plan and submit it for approval to both groups at their meetings later. It is figured, however, that on the basis of $5 a year for national membership, reliable hotels, restaurants, garages and other business places along the highway will become members and thus entitled to display the highway association insignia. These places will be thoroughly examined before being permitted to become members in order that all firms may have reliable backing in the association.
Among the activities of the association will be to issue courtesy cards to all tourists using the highway, to put up direction signs in all towns through which it passes and the many other necessities which may be required to make the National Highway the most popular road by which tourists may travel during the touring season.
During a recent meeting of the two groups in Dayton, Ohio, a plan was tentatively adopted, pending approval in coming months:
The plan as set forth in Dayton calls for the division of the highway system into four divisions extending from the Eastern seaboard to the Pacific coast, with terminals at Baltimore and Los Angeles. The National Old Trails road is perhaps the most famous in the United States and from the Eastern seaboard to St. Louis consists of the old Cumberland Trail and the National Pike, while from St. Louis westward it consists of the Boon’s Lick Trail, the old Santa Fe trail and old Spanish trails extending to Los Angeles. Passing through 12 states, the highway presents a vast opportunity to an organization for the bringing of tourists into those states which it traverses and by means of a consolidated organization, national in scope, those interested in boosting the highway feel that better results can be obtained.
The local division of the highway will consist of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland with a headquarters at a suitable point in either of the four states. In controlling the work of the association it is planned to have the president and secretary of the national organization and two vice-presidents from each state form a board of directors, while the president and representatives from each state of the four divisions will form an executive committee. It is planned to have national headquarters located in Kansas City, where the National Old Trails Association [sic], which was formed in 1912, and is the older of the two organizations, now has its headquarters. [“Consolidation of Old Trails Roads Boosted,” The Republic, November 25, 1926, page 1]
While trying to put the association on a solid foundation, Truman was running for election as presiding judge of Jackson County. After his victory, Truman received dozens of congratulatory calls, but he was not home to receive them. He was on the road for the National Old Trails Association. [Truman, Margaret, Bess W. Truman, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986, page 102]
The trip appears to have been an opportunity for the new president to meet leading members of the association, familiarize himself with the road, and build relationships that would benefit the organization. Frank Davis accompanied Truman on the trip. Truman had wanted Bess to travel with him, but she stayed home with their little girl Margaret. Although Bess accommodated her husband’s annual 2-week summer army reserve duty, Bess “pursued him with complaints” during his trips for the National Old Trails Road. [Bess, page 102]
The collection of letters in Dear Bess from Truman to his wife provide a partial picture of his activities as president of the National Old Trails Road Association. The Truman Library and Museum has some additional letters, beginning with November 7, 1926, in Herrington, Kansas:
Dear Bess:
We have kept our schedule to the dot. Got to Council Grove at 2:30 P.M. and met all the prominent citizens in town, at "the" Building and Loan Association office. You'd think I was the President of the U.S. We discussed the National Old Trails, cussed Osage City, the next larger town to the east (we'll do the same for them when we go to Osage), and came over here to Herington. Arrived at 5:45, left Council Grove at 5:45. [This anomaly was possible because of the time zone variables in Kansas.] It is twenty-six miles, so we lost no time on the finest dirt road you ever saw. Had a flat tire at Burlingame. The hotel man called a garage and had it fixed while we ate the finest chicken dinner you ever saw with the leading lawyer, the county judge (commissioner they call him out here), and a couple of other prominent citizens. Tonight we'll do the same here. It has been misting since 3:00 P.M. I don't know if it is going to rain but I hope not. I am feeling fine and dandy. My voice is improved. I've eaten a box of the whiskered bros. cough drops. Be sure and kiss my baby and look in the mirror for one for yourself. Will write you tomorrow. I wish you and the young lady were here. Love to you both by the bushel.
Yours, Harry
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November 08, 1926
The Palace Hotel, Lyons, Kans. Nov, 8, 8:30 P.M.
Dear Bess:
We got on a train at Herington at 1:20 after Davis & I had made speeches to the Rotary Club and went to McPherson, a beautiful little town right in the center of a county of the same name. We had an hour there between trains and a number of the prominent citizens including the Mayor what would be the Presiding Judge of the County Court in Mo (they call him Commissioner out here) and the Chamber of Commerce head met us at the Chamber of Commerce and we had a very good meeting. At 5 o'clock we caught a Santa Fe train for this place and got here for the regular meeting of the Chamber of Commerce which they turned into a good roads boosters meeting and Harry had to make a real speech or try to. They've put us up at a good hotel and we can't pay for anything. We are leaving by bus in the morning for Sterling, south of here where we'll catch a main line Santa Fe for Great Bend where we'll have another booster's meet.
It has cleared off as nice as can be and by the time we get back the roads will be as good as when we came down. I'm feeling fine and I hope you are. How many phone calls from the Saviors of Democracy have you had? I hope Miss Marger is behaving herself.
I wish I could see her.
Be sure and kiss her for her daddy. Lots of love to her mamma from
Your Harry.
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November 09, 1926
Hotel Zarah, Great Bend, Kans. Tuesday 10:30, November 9, 1926
Dear Bess:
Got up at six-thirty, had grapefruit, bacon and eggs, oatmeal, toast, and hot tea for breakfast. Took a bus for Sterling and got a Santa Fe train for this place. Mr. Moses, of the Moses Milling Co., met us in a big Hudson sedan and the president of the Chamber of Commerce was there in his Buick sedan. We are billed to speak to the Lions Club at noon, after which these gentlemen are going to drive us over to Larned for a 3:00 P.M. meeting and a Chamber of Commerce meeting at six-thirty at Kinsley, after which they will drive us to Dodge. This is almost like campaigning for President except that the people are making promises to me instead of the other way around. They sure do treat us royally. The Rumanian Queen had nothing on us.
The weather is ideal, as pretty a day as you can wish for. This a beautiful town [sic] and seems to be plumb full of live wires. I do hope I get a letter in Dodge. Bill Francisco was at Lyons. He's straightened up and is making good as a salesman for the Rock Island Imp. Co.
You sure ought to be along. We'd have the time of our lives. I've got a trip all arranged to California for next fall if you want to take it. Kiss my baby and take a carload for yourself. I've got to run.
Love from Your Harry
The comment about Queen Marie of Rumania referred to a sore point with Bess. According to Margaret Truman:
Bess reported that Sunday was “poky” without her husband. She had wanted to go to a reception for Queen Marie of Rumania, who visited Kansas City during a world tour. Her majesty was the guest of honor at a musical extravaganza staged on November 5, to raise money to pay for the city’s memorial to the dead of World War I. Bess and Harry had been invited. She declared herself unable to go without him.
Bess allowed the comment to pass, as Margaret explained:
Instead, there were more complaints about missing the Queen and about the deluge of telephone calls from jobseekers . . . .
She had succeeded in making him feel guilty. Although I think I have made it clear that I love both my parents, I must confess to a certain prejudice in favor of my father as I read these letters. The man was only trying to make a living for himself and his family! I suspect it was his honesty that got him into trouble. Much as he loved his wife and daughter, Harry Truman also liked to get out and see the rest of the country. He poured out his fascination for places such as Dodge City and the characters he met there and elsewhere . . . . Bess did not find such pieces of living history as interesting as her husband did. More to the point, he was enjoying himself too much — while he was several hundred miles away from her.
It did not seem to matter that he had urged her to come with him. “The child” was her excuse to stay home now, although her two sisters-in-law were ready and willing to substitute for her . . . . [Bess, pages 102-103]
Margaret cited the next letter as an example of activities and people that Harry found fascinating, such as the details about Ham Bell, while Bess did not.
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Dodge City, Kans
November 10, 1926, 5:30 P.M. (or 4:30?)
Dear Bess:
We had a fine meeting at 10 A.M. It lasted until 3 o'clock this afternoon with time out for lunch. We succeeded in getting Larned and Kinsley to let the wind dispose of their signboards tonight and all the towns from Garden City to Herington have buried the hatchet and are now pulling hammer and tongs for the National Old Trails Road. I also got them to pass a resolution favoring a State Highway Commission for Kansas, similar to ours in Missouri. That was a real accomplishment because the Kansans are 'agin" it on general principles. The president and sec. of the Chamber of Commerce wanted us to stay two days more and do some more fixing, but I told them we had some [fixing] to do at Marshall Missouri and Dayton, Ohio.
I met Ham Bell, who was mayor of South Dodge at the same time Bat Masterson was mayor of North Dodge. One lies south of the R.R. and the other north of it. They tell me that the Hon. Ham was not so pious in those days as he is now. He's a pillar of the Methodist Church and places a bouquet on the altar every Sunday now, but they tell it on him that in days gone by, when he ran a dance hall in the part of the city of which he was the presiding officer, he was pitched bodily over into his part of town by the invincible Mr. Masterson when he came across the track to meet some ladies from Wichita who were going to work for him. It seems that inhabitants of the two sections were supposed to stay in their own bailiwicks and if they ventured into strange territory, they did so at their own bodily risk. It seems that Mr. Bell thought he could get over to the train and back without attracting attention, but a long scar on his face shows that he failed. He's forgotten it and no one can persuade him to mention it, but gossipy neighbors spilled the beans.
We went out to old Ft. Dodge, southeast of here on the Arkansas River, just to say we were there. It is now a soldier's home and not interesting to look at except that it was an Indian frontier about sixty years ago. The fort is four miles from town because it was against the law to sell booze within that distance of a government post in those days and when the R.R. came they had to start the town four miles away. They showed us "Boot Hill," where they buried the gentlemen who were slow on the draw in an argument. It has a schoolhouse on it, a large brick structure which the city has outgrown. It has been abandoned as a school for a better one and is now vacant. The Catholics built a fine hospital here and some of the "Sheet Bros." bought "Boot Hill" to build a finer one but fell out among themselves, as usual, and it's still Boot Hill with an old schoolhouse on it. I am enclosing you a picture of it.
We're leaving at 7:00 P.M. and will be home Friday. You really don't know how awful glad I was to hear from you. I'm sorry you were so uneasy about me but I was never better in my life. I hate it because you had a poky Sunday. I hope the time will soon come when you never have one. Be sure and kiss my baby and take a carload of love for yourself.
Your Harry
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Dodge City, Kans., Nov. 10, 1926 Tuesday, 10:15, maybe 9:15
Dear Bess:
We had a grand meeting in Great Bend and Mr. Moses and the president of the Chamber of Commerce hooked up a fine 1927 Buick sedan and hauled us to Larned where we had a meeting at the Cafe Bon-bon with the town's leading citizens, after which we drove out to Pawnee Rock, which is a rock hill about one hundred feet above the surrounding plain at a little place about twenty miles southwest of Great Bend called Pawnee Rock and from the top of which you can see for miles. It is the only rock in forty miles and was formerly used by Indians as a place from which to jump out and slaughter unsuspecting travelers who were going down the Santa Fe Trail. The D.A.R. have put a fence around it and erected a fine monument on top of it to the early pioneers.
We drove on to Kinsley, where we had another meeting at 8:00 P.M. At Kinsley the road forks going east and the new Santa Fe Trail goes by way of St. John and Syracuse to Hutchinson and Emporia. At Larned the road splits and goes west to Garden City by way of Jetmore and is called North 50. If Larned directs traffic straight west by North 50, it misses Kinsley and Dodge City. If Kinsley directs traffic east over the new Santa Fe Trail, it misses Larned and Great Bend. Larned and Kinsley each have had signs up directing traffic away from the other but they each claimed that some outside town on the other road had put up the sign. The inhabitants of each town are almost afraid to be caught in the other town because of the situation. We have delegates from each place due at our meeting here tomorrow and from the look of things we have reestablished good relations and will have all the cities in this neighborhood pulling for our National Old Trails, which is what we came for.
I have met some real characters on this trip. This Old Man Moses I rode down with on the train from Kinsley and in the auto to that place is not the Kansas Milling Co. Moses but is a financier of these parts. He owns (or did until he gave them away) four department stores and three banks besides generous portions of the business sections of Great Bend, Larned, Pawnee Rock, and various and sundry other towns. Davis tells me he's worth a million or two. He has two sons and some granddaughters in whom he seems to be very much interested. He gave his department stores to the managers who had been with him longest and organized a finance company to run his banks and gave them to his sons. He is still burdened with his real estate. His wife died in June, but he told me that they had seen everything on the American continent and most of Europe before she died and that he intended to keep their big house in Great Bend running just as if she were alive for they both believed in getting everything out of life there is in it. He came here from Sedalia, Missouri, in 1874 after taking a much shot-up trip across Colorado to San Francisco and Portland. He said his brother was sheriff of Great Bend when he arrived and that the chief deputy killed a man that night and his brother had to kill one the next day. I'm meeting some fine old Kansas Red Legs, as my mother would call them, and they're not half bad.
We came down from Kinsley on Santa Fe No. 5, which arrived here at 10:05, stayed fifteen minutes and left at 9:20. You can't beat that and I'm sober too.
I'm hoping I get a letter from you tomorrow. I'll sure be disappointed if I don't. Be sure and kiss my baby. I'll be home Friday evening and gone again Saturday at 10:00 A.M.
Loads of love from Your Harry
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Hotel Stamey, Hutchinson, Kans., November 11, 1926
Dear Bess:
. . . This is Armistice Day . . . .
Truman recalled what he was doing 8 years earlier on Armistice Day, and the fright he had when he received a letter from Bess indicating she had nearly died with the flu:
I hadn’t suffered much except loss of sleep and worry for my outfit and here nearly all I had in the world was nearer the great divide than I’d ever been because I believed my name was on a bullet . . . .
I am ashamed now that I didn’t stay at home and fight the job hunters and take you to see the Queen. I’m afraid I’m not as thoughtful of your pleasure as I ought to be. If ever I can connect, you’ll never want to do anything you can’t. Kiss the baby. I wish I could her [sic] say “Lo Dad”
All the love to you, Your Harry.
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Daniel Boone Tavern, Columbia, Mo. November 13, 1926 8 P.M.
Dear Bess:
We had a very good trip to Marshall. Stopped at Higginsville by making a 5 1/2 mile detour and picked up Mr. Hopkins, president of the Traders Bank of Lexington and V.P. Natl Old Trails Road Assn. Had a fine meeting at Marshall. Independence, Lexington, Dover, Arrowrock, & Columbia were represented. We left there after the meeting at about 3:30 and arrived in Boonville at 5 P.M. Called on the newspaper man who, it developed, is a cousin of Dr. Nelson's and is called Edgar Nelson. I gave him my Kansas speil [sic] and he immediately agreed to called [sic] a special meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on our way back. He sent for Dr. Nelson to come over and call on us but the Dr. was not available. We had dinner at the same place you & I ate and came on over here. It sure poured down rain, but has quit now. We ran into a football game and (my pen ran dry at that point) came very nearly having to sleep in the street. The clerk told us he had only rooms with cots and sent us up to look at them. He made a mistake and sent us to one of his real rooms, which we immediately signed up for. We'll leave here about 8 AM, stop in Fulton about 10 and aim to get to Greenville, Ill at stopping time tomorrow.
I had such a terrible time getting out of Independence. I never did call you because I couldn't. It was 10:30 before I shook off all the leeches and on account of the detour to Higginsville I couldn't get to Marshall on time if I stopped. I'm calling you tonight to make up for it. Write me care of the Dayton Automobile Club, Dayton, Ohio. I hope you and the young lady are all O.K. Kiss her for me.
Love to you from,
Your Harry.
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Thomas Hotel, Greenville, Ill. November 14, 1926
Dear Bess:
Still it rains. We left Columbia about eight-thirty this morning and stopped in Fulton to see Nick Case, the senator from that town in the state legislature. He invited us out to his house and was very cordial to us. We arrived in St. Louis about one-thirty and came on out here. Found George's Hotel, and just now phoned the president of the Chamber of Commerce. He's coming down to see us after a while. We've seen the local newspaperman, who said our names and business would be in the paper tomorrow.
This hotel is run by an old fat codger who is very good humored but he has a tough egg for a wife. She made a couple of kids take their pup out of her hotel lickety-split just now. They were tourists same as we are, but my sympathies are always with the kids. The old lady told them they could take their dog up to the garage and let him stay in the car, which they did.
We are now traveling on the National Pike, which was surveyed and laid out in Thomas Jefferson's administration to get communication with Louisiana Territory. That was done along about 1806. Last year or the year before the road was finally paved into St. Louis. Quick action what? We've gone from wheels on the ground to wheels on steel and now we are back on the ground. What, I wonder will be the next step?
The National Old Trail is really on the map here. They have hotels, eating houses, garages, and drugstores all named for it. So you see we won't have a very hard time getting things rolling over here. I hope you and the young lady are in fine health and spirits. I'd like very much to see you both tonight. Be sure and kiss my "good girl" and make believe for yourself.
Love by the bushel from Your Harry
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Hotel Gibbons, Dayton, Ohio November 15, 1926
Dear Bess:
We arrived here at 8:10 P.M. after an all day's drive, and I find it a rotten town. I thought I'd get a letter as soon as I arrived and I found none. I was so disappointed that I went off to a show before I wrote this. Then I got to thinking that maybe you had so much to do Saturday that you couldn't write and maybe after you wrote Sunday it didn't get off until Monday, in which case that's today and I won't get it until morning. But I sure did want it.
We left Greenville, Illinois, this morning at 7:00 A.M. Old man Thomas, who is the proprietor of the Thomas Hotel, proved to be a right interesting old man. He told me about a former saloonkeeper of his town who was such a good citizen and ran such a clean place that all the high collars and "the ribbon ladies" (Thomas called them that) looked on him with favor. He told me all that to impress upon me how nice it is to leave your widow money, no matter how you get it. The good saloonkeeper died and left his wife rich. In due course of events she married a Baptist preacher and the money personally went to a good purpose.
Davis has just read in a Terre Haute paper that President Coolidge dedicated a $2 million memorial for K.C. and that Will Rogers says it looks like a silo. Other people have the right slant on R.A. Long's monument to himself as well as us perverted people who only fought the war behind a gun.
(On November 11, 1926, President Coolidge was in Kansas City to dedicate the $2.7 million Liberty Memorial, erected “in honor of those who served in World War One in defense of liberty and our country.” Humorist Will Rogers asked, "What is it? A silo?" The reference to the “R.A. Long memorial to himself, may refer to the R. A. Long Building at 928 Grand Avenue, a 16-story skyscraper in Kansas City built by lumberman and philanthropist Robert A. Long in 1907.)
We passed through a whole string of Illinois towns. Evidently they were all good ones too. We stopped awhile in Greenup to see a former supporter of the Old Trails and also stopped in Casey, another nice little town, to see quite a number of former supporters of the movement. They all seemed to be still enthusiastic.
We ate our noon meal at Brazil, Indiana, at the Hotel Davis. Had a grand lunch for fifty cents. Then we headed for the Hoosier State capitol. Got there about two-thirty and drove around and round the town for thirty minutes trying to find a place to park. They have a fine town, a good-looking state capitol, a federal building, and a courthouse equal to any. The Old Trail runs straight through the town from one side to the other on a big, wide street called Washington. Down in the center of town and a block north of this street is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument erected to the men who fought in the Civil War. It is a beautiful thing and is in the center of a large circle into which run four streets, one from each cardinal point. Around the circle are fine hotels, theaters, and clubs. We wanted to see the secretary of the Hoosier Auto Club, whose office is in the English Hotel. It is on this circle. After driving around about a dozen times and out each cross street and around the block trying to find a place to park, Davis finally got out and I kept going around the circle. Finally I stopped in front of the hotel and the secretary came out to see me. I told him I'd been around that circle so often I didn't know south from straight up. He set me right and we headed for here. Stopped in Richmond, Indiana, at 6:00 P.M. and had as fine a meal as I ever ate and safely arrived here for a woeful disappointment. No letter. This is a fine town, however, from a civic standpoint — good hotels, fine buildings, and apparently lots of business. I hope we have good luck tomorrow, and I hope that letter comes. Kiss my baby and lots of love to you from
Your Harry
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Hotel Lincoln, Indianapolis, Indiana 10:30 P.M., November 16, 1926
Dear Bess:
This day turned out to be fine in every way except the weather. Your letter came, we had a fine and successful meeting, got our pictures in both evening Dayton paper [sic] and got back as far as Indianapolis on the return trip. It was a grand and glorious feeling when your letter came this morning, appreciated the clipping, digested what you said of my friend Mr. Hall and am filing it away for future reference. I'd like to see both you and the young lady.
There was some very fine and intelligent men here to talk over the situation with us. Mr. Corcoran, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of Wheeling, W. Va., Mr. Schenk Sec Chamber of Com of Uniontown, Pa., Mr. Elkins, proprietor of the Elkins Hotel at Wheeling and the Cumberland Hotel at Cumberland, Md. as well as the Sec. & Gen. Mgr. of the Dayton Chamber of Com. Mr. Wayne Lee, and Mr. Ackerman of the Dayton Auto Club. I dictated a plan of action to the Auto Club Steno and it was adopted verbatim. All that had to be done now is work out a financial plan and that is tentatively agreed on. The National Old Trails is back on the map east of Indiana and is there to stay.
This is some city. We left Dayton in a snow storm but ran out of it about 40 miles this side and it is now clear with the moon shining. We ate supper in Jas. Whitcomb Riley's town of Greenfield. The "old swimming' hole" is just outside of town but it was a little chilly to go try it.
We arrived here at eight and got settled, then went out and walked over the downtown section. It's a lot easier to walk over it than to find a place to park. We'd expected to stay at the Washington Hotel, a copiously road advertised house, but we couldn't find it anywhere so we stopped here. This is a bigger and finer place we discovered after stumbling onto the Washington while walking around. We came across it right on the street we came in on but after placarding [sic] the roads for a hundred miles in each direction, the sign wasn't big enough to see on the Hotel itself. The Claypool is right across the street from here. That is where all the Indiana politics is brewed. It covers a whole block and has been here for a long time. We hope to see some of the Indianapolis politicians tomorrow.
We have to see the Pres of the Chamber of Com., the Auto Club and the Mayor or Manager if they have one. Probably got our pictures in the Indianapolis papers too.
We'll go to St. Louis tomorrow night and be home Thursday night. I'm going to call you on the phone. Kiss the baby and love to you.
From your Harry.
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en Route aboard The National Limited February 11, 1927
Dear Bess:
Davis suggests that I inform you of all the tricks we are entitled to on this Limited whether we use them or not; such as maid, hairdresser, barber shop & bath, secretary, valet, tailor etc. ad infinitum.
We left St. Louis after I called exactly at 12 noon and have been moving along about sixty to the house ever since. I could dictate this letter but I don’t like to dictate letters to my honey, even at the risk of being accused of inebriety. This train does not slow up for curves, towns or crossings, hence the wobbly writing.
We are evidently in for a fine meeting at Wheeling. Davis had two telegrams and three letters from the interested parties. The N.O.T. is getting bigger every minute even if we did pull a bloomer at Topeka. There’s no alibi for that, we were simply licked.
I hope the baby is all right and you too. It would surprise you how well my brain pan is feeling and apparently working.
Much love and a kiss for my girl and you,
Your Harry.
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Hotel Windsor, Wheeling, W. Va. February 12, 1927
Dear Bess & Margie:
We arrived some time during the night. The porter woke me up and said it was after seven. I got up very hurriedly shaved and dressed and then found my watch said it was still five minutes until seven. However when we got out on the street all the clocks said eight o’clock, so we were cheated out of an hour’s sleep by a chance in time.
The town is right on the edge of the Ohio River and looks as if it might fall in any minute. There are high bluffs on the east side, which gives you that impression. We were expected and assigned a room and are to be entertained at lunch at dinner, so you see we are the distinguished citizens again.
I am enclosing you a horoscope which Davis wanted me to send you. He said you were undoubtedly due for a splendid outlook unless all signs fail. He honestly believes it and so do I.
We expect to start home tonight and ought to arrive there Monday for breakfast. Kiss the baby. Love to you.
Sincerely Harry.
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Hotel Windsor, Wheeling, W. Va., February 12, 1927
Dear Bess:
The meeting is over and was one howling success. The National Highway Boosters Association is no more, and the National Old Trails Highway Association is a national organization indeed [sic] and in fact. We are completely organized back here and have had our financial situation practically guaranteed. George Washington Lutz, who was the president of the Boosters Association, is our executive vice president back here and Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio are completely organized with two vice presidents each and a bunch of enthusiastic boosters behind them.
George Washington Lutz is seventy-one years old and is the leading citizen of Wheeling. He looks like George F. Baker, the president of the First National Bank of New York, his mutton-chop whiskers and everything. He’s been president of the Board of Trade, the Fair Association, Chamber of Commerce, mayor of Wheeling, and most everything else. He is a widower with no children and has only one nephew, of whom he is very fond. He told me if his nephew had been a girl, he’d have married him long ago, which was his way of saying that he is very fond of him. He took us to his house just outside the city and gave us of his liquid hospitality and showed us the most complete house I’ve seen under one roof.
Our trip is a success. I’ve got to go to the train. Kiss my baby.
Your Harry
End of the Trails
While Truman was away from home building support for the National Old Trails Road, AASHO was finalizing plans for the U.S. numbered highway system.
In general, the major named trail associations accepted the need for an orderly, uniform system of marking, while wanting to preserve their own connected routing. Some of that interest in preservation was reflected in the numerous inquiries BPR received from Congress about specific named trails. In one case, congressional interest went beyond letters.
On March 15, 1926, Senator Park Trammell of Florida introduced S. Res. 169 asking BPR to “make no change in the marking and designating of interstate public highways which would bring about a discontinuance of the designation and marking of said highways by names as heretofore adopted.” Chief MacDonald advised Cyrus Avery that the resolution had been made as a result of a "determined effort" by trails people to defeat the U.S. numbering plan. MacDonald said he had spoken with Senator Trammell to explain that nothing would prevent the States from allowing trail markings. As a result, Senator Trammell had withheld the resolution, but MacDonald was still concerned that the numbering plan might be defeated by what he described as "a great deal of false and mischievous propaganda." [Kelly, page 168; S. Res. 169, 67th Congress, 1st Session, “Designation of State Highways,” Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1926, page 5593; “Designation of State Highways,” Congressional Record-Senate, March 25, 1926, page 6217]
The most contentious issue — placement of U.S. 60 — remained to be settled after several options had been rejected by Governor Fields or by Avery, Page, and Piepmeier. On April 30, 1926, with MacDonald acknowledging the merit in Governor Fields’s argument, the three State highway officials met in Springfield, Missouri, as Kelly described:
The three men got together in Springfield at the hometown of Avery’s friend and fellow highway supporter John T. Woodruff. Most likely, the men met in Woodruff’s Colonial Hotel.
By this time, Cy was critically aware that the whole highway numbering system was in peril. It had always been far more important to him to have his highway through Tulsa than the number it carried. He had been upset by the high-handed manner in which the number had been changed and distraught over money expended for now-useless signage and maps, but it was Piepmeier more than Cy who was truly wrought up over the situation.
After quite some discussion, Cy led the conversation around to the possibility of adopting one of the alternative numbers that had not yet been considered. He asked Page to look into the numbers that were left over. There were not many; with the way the numbering system had come down, after the major east-west highways ending with zero and the major north-south highways ending with one or five, the joint board had quickly given other numbers to bypasses, alternative routes, and the rest of the selected primary roads: odd numbers for north/south roads and even numbers for east/west roads.
Page went back through his records to a report by Markham that listed unused numbers. Out of the twenty-four unused single- and double-digit numbers, Page suggested that sixty-six might work.
Sixty-six.
To Avery that sounded like it might be a good choice. It may have been that he realized how easily the number sixty-six rolls off the tongue. With his promotional bent, he may have seen design possibilities in the rounded back of the double sixes. And it is not unlikely, given the era’s interest in the occult and spiritual, that at least one of the three men recognized the double sixes as a master number. In numerology, this particular master number was known to bring material pleasures and success. By mid-afternoon Piepmeier was on board and the decision was made.
At four o’clock in the afternoon of April 30, 1926, Avery sent a brief telegram to MacDonald: “Regarding Chicago to Los Angeles Road, if California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Illinois will accept Sixty-Six instead of Sixty we are willing to agree to this change. We prefer Sixty Six to Sixty Two.” The telegram was signed Avery and Piepmeier.
Some negotiations were needed to complete the decision. As BPR’s chief engineer, P. St. John Wilson, observed, the agreement meant that U.S. 60 would begin in Virginia, but end in Springfield, Missouri, not the West Coast, while U.S. 70 would begin in North Carolina, but end in Arizona, closer, but still not on the West Coast — both with termini on the new U.S. 66. This would, he said, “upset the general theory of numbering.” As Kelly pointed out, however, “Not surprisingly, no one else cared about the niceties of the theory, at least not enough to stop the highway system’s newfound momentum.” [For a detailed account of these events, see Kelly, pages 155-175]
In July, Kentucky agreed to this arrangement — U.S. 60 from Newport News to Springfield, and U.S. 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. When James informed Avery of this news, Avery wrote to thank James for his interest in finding a solution. As for the Chicago to Los Angeles highway, "We assure you that it will be a road through Oklahoma that the U.S. Government will be proud of." As for the U.S. 60 shields that the States had placed on the road, we "will have to junk them."
(Although Route 66 would, indeed, become a road America could be proud of, neither Avery nor Piepmeier would be around to make it happen. Piepmeier submitted his resignation in December 1926 to accept a private business opportunity. In Oklahoma, Governor Martin E. Trapp was succeeded by Governor Henry S. Johnston, who dismissed Avery and Page. As for Fields, his term as Governor of Kentucky ended on December 13, 1927.)
In the first week of August, AASHO’s executive committee approved the complicated deal. They also wrangled with a few other lingering debates over numbers.
By November, when AASHO was in Pinehurst, North Carolina, for its annual meeting, only a few cases remained to be settled by the executive committee on November 8. In all, the executive committee had acted on requests from the State highway agencies seeking 132 changes in routing or numbering. The network of U.S. numbered highways had expanded to 96,626 miles. The time had come for AASHO to adopt the Joint Board's proposal, as modified during the past year.
Perhaps approval was inevitable, but as E. W. James reported to AASHO on the work of the executive committee, he brought the subject up. He could not speak for the executive committee, he said, but he would express his personal view. His words reflected the tension and frustration he had experienced over the past year and a half in mediating disputes about the numbered highway network that had nearly doubled in length during that time — while fending off entreaties by and on behalf of the named trail associations:
I urge the immediate adoption of the system as now laid out. It is not perfect. After 18 months almost continuous experience with the work I am convinced that to leave the case for further consideration will not improve it. So far as it contains errors of arrangement or selection, the worst ones are due to efforts to meet narrow local viewpoints, and this condition has become more and more pronounced as the requests for changes have come from the States. The Joint Board started out with a broad general conception of the country as a whole and the nationwide significance of a great system of routes. We should not announce an opportunity for further revision but adopt the system as nearly as possible as it now comes from the Executive Committee.
It was, moreover, too difficult to continue making changes. James had canvassed the States and found that 22 States had nearly completed marking their U.S. highways. Signing was underway in 10 States while another 14 had ordered the signs to be manufactured. Only two States had not responded:
This means that the system is rapidly being crystallized. Changes can not be made satisfactorily without altering signs now in place, and in fairness to the States such changes should not be asked.
The fact that 32 States have the work far advanced indicates the reception which the plan has had and argues well for its ultimate complete success. [James, E. W., “Executive Committee Report on Numbering of United States Highways,” American Highways, January 1927, page 41]
On November 11, AASHO adopted the U.S. numbered highway system.
Not everyone was happy about the new numbering plan. Henry Bourne Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company and president of the Lincoln Highway Association, was so bitter that he wanted to send, but did not, a note to President Coolidge, his Cabinet, and all Members of Congress:
The Lincoln Highway, a memorial to the martyred Lincoln, now known by the grace of God and the authority of the Government of the United States as Federal Route 1, Federal Route 30, Federal Route 30N, Federal Route 30S, Federal Route 530, Federal Route 40 and Federal Route 50.
Ernest McGaffey expressed his concerns in humorous fashion by suggesting that "substituting arithmetic for history, mathematics for romance" opened illimitable prospects for innovation. Why, he asked, burden the minds of school children with the events of yesteryear? "Perish the thought." Why not number our Presidents ("let George Washington hereafter be known as
No. 1"), our Senators ("numbered according to seniority, with a judicious sprinkling in of ciphers where necessary"), our Supreme Court justices, our rivers, our mountains, our States, our Governors, our Mayors, and certainly our oceans (No. 1 and No. 2)?” He noted:
They were all very well in their day, but they have no claim on the "American" Association of State Highway Officials and the Federal Bureau of Public Roads.
In short, McGaffey wrote, the trail signs would come down, tossed aside as so much useless junk. "Logarithms will take the place of legends, and 'hokum' for history.” [McGaffey, Ernest, “Numbering Highways of the United States,” Highway Engineer and Contractor, February 1928, pages 31-33]
Even after AASHO adopted the U.S. Numbered Highway System in November 1926, Pennsylvania’s Connell would raise concerns, not with the overall plan, but about the numbering of Pennsylvania highways, particularly the splitting of named trails among several numbers. (For information on the dispute, see “U.S. 22 — The William Penn Highway” on this Website.)
The New York Times quoted the Lexington Herald of Kentucky:
The traveler may shed tears as he drives down the shady vista of the Lincoln Highway, or dream dreams as he speeds over a sunlit path on the Jefferson Highway, or see noble visions as he speeds across an unfolding ribbon that bears the name of Woodrow Wilson. But how in the world can a man get a kick out of 46 or 55 or 33 or 21?
The Times added:
This is part of the effort to “save the souls of the national highways.” For it seems the United States Bureau of Roads has officially changed their names to numbers and has sprinkled the highways with signs that bear cold numerals instead of names that glow in American history. [ “Numbers for Names,” The New York Times, June 18, 1927, page 16]
Despite such sentiments, the U.S. numbered highway system proved its worth, almost immediately rendering the named trails and their booster associations obsolete.
As for the National Old Trails Road, the new numbering system broke up the route, with the longest segments split among U.S. 40 and U.S. 66. According to AASHO’s first log of the United States Numbered Highways, published in 1927, U.S. 40 was a 3,205-mile highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to San Francisco. The route went through Baltimore and connected with the National Old Trails Road at Frederick, Maryland, then generally followed the older National Road to Missouri.
In Missouri, U.S. 40 followed State Route 2, partly on the old named trail but following the Victory Highway on other parts. From Marshall to Waverly the National Old Trails Road was part of U.S. 65 (St. Paul, Minnesota, to Ferriday, Louisiana). From Waverly to Kansas City, the old trail was part of U.S. 24 (Pontiac, Michigan, to Kansas City).
In Kansas, the new numbering stirred up the rivalry between the Old and New Santa Fe Trails. As discussed earlier, both wanted to be on a two-digit, zero-based number, not a three-digit number. AASHO’s executive committee approved a split. The Old Santa Fe Trail became U.S. 50 North from Baldwin City to Larned. At Larned, U.S. 50 North left the National Old Trails Road for a detour through Jetmore before meeting the main line again at Garden City. The New Santa Fe Trail, and the segment of the National Old Trails Road between Larned and Garden City, became U.S. 50 South.
In the Southwest, AASHO modified the numbers assigned to the National Old Trails Road in Colorado and New Mexico. The National Old Trails Road between La Junta and Trinidad was U.S. 350. South of Trinidad, the road became U.S. 85 (from the international boundary north of Ambrose, North Dakota, to Las Cruces, New Mexico) through Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The number was continued along the National Old Trails Road branch to Socorro, then continued south to a terminus at Las Cruces.
U.S. 66, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway crossed Oklahoma and Texas before joining the National Old Trails Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The AASHO log listed the main contact points:
New Mexico Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Grants, Gallup to the New Mexico-Arizona line west of Lupton.
Arizona Beginning at the New Mexico-Arizona State line west of Lupton via Navajo, Adamana, Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Ashfork, Seligman, Peach Springs, Kingman to the Arizona-California line west of Topock.
California Beginning a the Arizona-California State west of Topock via Needles, Ludlow, Daggett, Barstow, Victorville, Pasadena, San Bernardino, Los Angeles to San Fernando.
By July 1926, with the battle over “60” resolved, Cyrus Avery was determined to promote the new highway in the manner of the named trail associations. “We designed Route 66 as the most important highway in the U.S. and it will carry more traffic than any other road in America.” On April 2, 1927, he took the lead in forming a Missouri corporation called the U.S. 66 Highway Association, with his friend and associate, John Woodruff, as president. Avery was State vice-present for Oklahoma. The route was, the association stated on all its literature, “The Main Street of America,” a slogan once applied to several named trails, including the National Old Trails Road, the Lincoln Highway, and the Roosevelt Midland Trail. The phrase also was appropriated by the U.S. Highway 40 Association. [Kelly, pages 190-193]
If E. W. James's words to AASHO at Pinehurst in 1926 contained a hint of desperation about approval of the uniform plan, a relieved James could assure AASHO members in 1933:
After nine years the wisdom of the course pursued can no longer be questioned. The Joint Board designated a total of 75,000 miles of routes to be marked and provided a method for increasing this number as additions became desirable. At the present time the system comprises 124,758 miles. The trail associations so far as they cause embarrassment or annoyance have almost entirely disappeared. Several at once converted themselves into proponents of one or the other of the principal numbered U.S. highways. For several years, the “U.S. 40 Association” was active but it was soon seen that the plans of the several States for systematic construction were actually producing the very results for which the earlier associations stood, and it became evident that their continued existence was no longer necessary . . . .
The present scheme needs no defense, because it has the merits of being easily extensible to include any reasonable additions, has that impersonal aspect which resists all local favoritism, and has actually accomplished the purpose for which it was created. [“Making and Unmaking a National System of Marked Routes,” American Highways, October 1933, pages 16-18, 27]
But perhaps AASHO expressed it best in a statement issued in 1927:
Probably there is no single item which shows the value of federal and state co-operation more than the work of the officials of the state highway departments and the Bureau of Public Roads in the selection of a limited system of roads to receive national numbers, so that people may travel across the continent following the same number.
The named trails served a valuable purpose in their day, but they began to pass into history when AASHO adopted the U.S. numbered highway system on November 11, 1926. Today, their remnants are scattered across the map. A motorist can still travel bits of roads carrying the old names — the Bankhead, the Dixie, the Jefferson, the Lee, the Lincoln and many others — although for residents of the towns they pass through, the origins of the names often have been lost in time, part of the unknown history of America.
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