The National Old Trails Road Part 3Promoting the Road During a Warby Show
Setting The StagePresident Woodrow Wilson was up for reelection in 1916. While many issues would be raised during the campaign, one overall concern was whether the United States would enter the war in Europe that had begun in August 1914. The issues that resulted in the war seemed far removed from America’s concerns, but nevertheless affected many aspects of life, including international travel. German U-boats continued to sink ships in Atlantic waters, a threat that had been most dramatically illustrated on May 7, 1915. On that date, a German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania when it was only 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. As the luxury ship sank, 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans. President Wilson and the Department of State worked through diplomatic channels with the German government to reduce the threat to American shipping and lives, but whether an agreement could be reached remained uncertain in 1916. While the President would campaign in the fall on keeping America out of the war, the threat of war prompted many organizations to think about how their interest could benefit from preparations for American entry into the Great War. The Good Roads Movement was no exception. By 1916, the automobile was transforming the country (population: 91.6 million). The U.S. Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering (OPRRE) stated in 1915:
(In a reorganization of the Department of Agriculture intended to put all engineering activities in one place, rural engineering activities, such as drainage and construction of farm buildings, were added by the Department’s appropriation act for 1916 to the Office of Public Roads (OPR) on July 1, 1915, creating OPRRE.) In 1908, Henry Ford had introduced the Model T, which was built for the rough rural roads of its era but was sold at a low price that made it affordable for people who previously could only dream of owning a motor car. Demand for the Model T was so great that Ford, in 1910, began transitioning to mass production techniques that would soon be adopted throughout the industry and spread to other fields. In 1909, Ford sold 10,609 vehicles; in 1916, Ford would sell nearly 600,000 Model Ts. Historian Douglas Brinkley explained the impact:
Revenue from automobile taxes had increased as well, with much of it applied to road improvement. New York, the first State to collect vehicle taxes, took in $954 in the first year, 1901. By 1916, the States were collecting over $18 million, with about 90 percent of this revenue applied to road improvement. [Circular No. 59, page 1] In 1904, when the U.S. Office of Public Road Inquiries conducted the first inventory of roads outside of cities, it reported that the country included 2,151,570 miles of rural public roads, plus 1,598 miles of stone-surfaced toll roads. Only 153,662 miles of the other rural public roads had any kind of surface, including earth, gravel, stone, shells, and sand-clay. Only 276,920 miles had any kind of artificial surface. [America’s Highways 1776-1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program, Federal Highway Administration, 1976, page 50] Meanwhile, from 1904 through 1915, annual expenditures on rural road had increased from about $80 million to $282 million – an increase of more than 250 percent. The 1904 figure does not entirely reflect expenditures. About $20 million of the $80 million was paid in labor provided by those along the roads who worked to smooth them out or remove obstacles in lieu of paying poll taxes. An OPRRE report documented the change:
Interstate named trails were a relatively new development. Automobile clubs had provided names for early interstate roads, such as the Trail to Sunset (discussed in part 1), but these were mainly lines on a map, not a movement with advocates. The National Old Trails Road Association dated only to 1912, just as Congress began serious, if unsuccessful, consideration of legislation on national road funding. The influential Lincoln Highway Association, formed by automobile industry officials to back a “rock” road from New York City to San Francisco, had been formed in 1913. The Lincoln Highway Association was one of the few associations that actually built at least a small part of the trail as “object lessons” demonstrating what could be accomplished. For the most part, the growing number of associations depended on State and county officials to fund improvement of the road. These two and other early interstate named trail associations provided the model for hundreds of other named trails over the next decade and a half. Each had a colorful or descriptive name and a chamber-of-commerce type organization to promote its trail. They encouraged State and local governments to improve the road and issued maps and travel guides inviting motorists to use the road and patronize the businesses along the roadway that paid dues to the association. By the mid-1920s, enterprising good roads backers had created approximately 250 named trails. Many of the trails overlapped, especially where alternatives were few as in the far Southeast; routes sometimes shifted to communities more willing to pay dues or improve the road; and some associations were launched by fly-by-night operators. System of National HighwaysAside from the contribution these groups made to the improvement of their roads, they contributed to the general interest in road improvements and growth in auto travel. Advocates for long distance roads made their case to Congress that the country needed an interstate network of good highways. The National Highways Association, discussed in part 1, was an example, with its proposed 50,000-mile network of interstate roads. Judge Lowe, president of the National Old Trails Road Association and a founding member of the National Highways Association in 1912, had introduced his own map in 1913 of a System of National Highways:
A caution on the map stated:
The plan, as described in the April 1913 issue of The Road-Maker, explained financing:
The article concluded:
Judge Lowe also prepared a bill that was introduced in Congress:
It proposed a National Highways Commission “consisting of the Director of the Bureau of the Office of Public Roads, and four other members to be appointed by the President of the United States, by and with the consent of the Senate.” No more than three of the Commissioners “shall belong to the same political party as the President. The OPR Director “who shall also be a member of the President’s Cabinet, was to be Chairman of the commission:
To assist in this effort, the commission “may apply to the Secretary of War for such part of the engineering force not now needed in the completion of the Panama Canal, and for such machinery or material no longer needed in such work and such as may be useful in the construction of said highways.” The bill directed all revenue from taxes on cigars, chewing, and smoking tobacco of every description “shall be set aside by the Treasurer of the United States and placed in a separate fund, to be known as the National Highways Road Fund.” The commission would draw on the fund for construction expenses. Section 8 of Judge Lowe’s bill stated that the commission would “lay out and definitely locate, take over, construction and maintain the following National, Commercial and Military Highways and Post Roads.” Road No. 1, of 18 specified in the bill, was the National Old Trails Road. The bill included the map Judge Lowe had prepared for the National System of Highways. [“System of National Highways,” National Old Trails Road: The Great Historic Highway of America, National Old Trails Road Association, 1925 (Revised Edition), pages 229-238] The bill was not adopted. In MissouriFor Judge Lowe, who lived in Kansas City, Missouri, the progress of the road in Missouri was of particular concern. In January 1916, Southern Good Roads magazine reported that, “The work of building a hard surfaced highway from Kansas City to St. Louis along the Old Trails Road, 303 miles in all, is practically half completed”:
(In the 1910s, the term “hard surfaced” did not mean a road with an asphalt or concrete pavement. It referred to a road that would not turn to mud in a rain, as was the case with earth roads. A common alternative term for a hard surfaced road was a 365-day highway. For example, a hard surfaced road might include a top coat of crushed gravel or rock over graded earth. In 1914, the country had 2,445,761 miles of rural roads. Only a total of 257,291.54 miles, or 10.52 percent, was surfaced:
[Public Road Mileage and Revenues in the United States, 1914. A Summary, Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 390, January 12, 1917, pages 3-4]) American Motorist magazine, published by the American Automobile Association (AAA), added:
(Although the Missouri State Highway Department dates to 1913, State funds from general or special funds available for road improvement were apportioned among the counties that had the funds to pay for at least one-half the cost of any road improvement or construction project. The role of State Highway Commissioner F. W. Buffum (1913-1917) was mainly advisory, with a primary responsibility to encourage the counties to improve their roads. In 1917, the Hawes Law, named after State Representative Henry B. Hawes, assented to the Federal Aid Road Act, created the position of State Highway Engineer, and established a four-member bipartisan State Highway Board. The State did not assume responsibility for the road work until 1921. [Serving Missouri’s Transportation Needs for 75 Years, Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, 1996, page 3]) In the SouthwestDuring the 1910s, construction of California’s State highway system involved three main acts. The State Highway Act of 1909 called for designation of a system of State Highways to be constructed at a cost not to exceed $18 million. All funds from the State sale of highway bonds would go into a State Highway Fund in the State Treasury. The routes included in the system were “to be selected by the Department of engineering . . . as to constitute a continuous and connected State Highway system running north and south through the State, traversing the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and along the Pacific Coast, by the most direct and practicable routes, connecting the county seats of the several counties through which it passes and joining the centers of population, together with such branch roads as may be necessary to connect therewith the several county seats lying east and west of such State Highway.” The highways were to be “permanent in character,” with the exact character and type of paving left to the Department. The 1909 Act was ratified during the general election of November 1910 and became effective on December 31, 1910. As of June 30, 1920, the mileage completed with the $18 million totaled 1,100 miles of paved road and 400 miles of graded highway, the latter with culverts and structures. The mileage included a 53.5-mile road from San Fernando in the Los Angeles area to San Bernardino. The State Highways Act of 1915 called for an additional debt of $12 million for work on the uncompleted portions of the State system and $3 million for additional roads listed in the legislation. The voters approved it in November 1916. One of the routes improved was a 76.33-mile route from San Bernardino to Barstow. The State Highways Act of 1919 involved a $40 million bond issue, and covered a 255-mile route from Needles, via Barstow, to Mohave. [The State Highways of California – An Engineering Study, conducted jointly by the California State Automobile Association and the Automobile Club of Southern California, July 1920-January 1921, pages 11-16] Ben Blow, manager of the Good Roads Bureau of the California State Automobile Association, wrote in 1920 that the bond funds were far below what was needed. Of the first bond issue, he wrote that, “all was easy sailing, as easy as it could be when the fact that the Highway Commission was charged with building about $50,000,000 worth of roads for $18,000,000 is taken into consideration.” The first work began on August 7, 1912, in San Mateo County on the road from San Francisco to the south. The second bond issue was easily approved, but immediately ran into problems:
In January 1916, the Automobile Club of Southern California’s magazine, Touring Topics, discussed the condition of the western end of the National Old Trails Road:
The magazine updated its report a month later:
San Bernardino CountyWriter Nick Cataldo has examined the history of the National Old Trails Road in San Bernardino County. As a result of a special election on October 14, 1914, the road was improved “at 16 feet wide with crushed limestone aggregate and asphaltic binding.” The road through the San Bernardino Valley, he wrote, “meandered through the Cajon Pass before continuing into the Mojave Desert heading east.” As motor vehicle traffic increased along the road – 419 vehicles in 1914, 1,367 in 1915, 1,774 in 1916, 2,607 in 1917, and 4,240 in 1918 – stores, gasoline stations, and tourist camps opened:
Motorists continued 4 miles to Keenbrook, a railroad siding with water available. “Just beyond, the highway and the Santa Fe tracks close on the left twisted through the narrow defile of Blue Cut to Cozy Dell, shaded by great oaks, with its grocery store and gas station.” Fuel and supplies were available a mile and a half later at Cajon Station, with a public campground called Camp Cajon a half mile further east. In this era before roadside “motels,” a term that was not coined until the 1920s, communities often established camping areas for motorists to keep them from camping on private property along the way. Camp Cajon provided “50 cement tables, stoves and restrooms built by William Bristol, a wealthy citrus rancher from East Highlands. The AAA rated Camp Cajon, dedicated on July 4, 1919, as one of the best in the west.” Also in 1919, Marion Meeker established a café and garage called Meeker’s Store a mile and a half beyond Camp Cajon:
Columnist L. Burr Beldon of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin interviewed Sam McNabb, a former mayor of San Bernardino, in 1964. Mayor McNabb recalled the early days of travel on the National Old Trail Road:
An everlasting Debt of GratitudeAs discussed in part 1, the Automobile Club of Southern California had taken on the task of signposting the National Old Trails Road to Kansas City. The top of the sign was a diamond inside of which was a globe-like circle with the words “National Old Trails Road Association” inside a circular band surrounding latitude/longitude lines with a line depicting the road from “NY” to “LA” with the words “Ocean to Ocean” to the left, top, and right, with “Highway” on the line. Below the diamond was a directional road sign, topped by a band labeled National Old Trails Road. For example, the sign might read: KANSAS CITY
The signing crew finished in early 1915, as explained in the March 1916 issue of Touring Topics:
Judge Lowe was appreciative of the club’s work. He wrote:
The Topock BridgeOn March 25, 1916, officials dedicated the new $100,000 automobile bridge over the Colorado River at Topock, Arizona, near Needles, California. As Touring Topics pointed out in its April 1916 issue:
Funds for the new bridge came from San Bernardino County and the States of Arizona and California:
The dedication ceremony included representatives of the two States, San Bernardino County, the Automobile Club, and chambers of commerce of Los Angeles, Needles, and the county:
To illustrate how good the road already was, the article pointed out that the Packard provided for the Los Angeles officials who attended the ceremony traveled the 316 miles between that city and Needles in 9 hours and 45 minutes – an average speed of 30 miles an hour. To avoid any misunderstandings, the article added:
Donald C. Jackson's Great American Bridges and Dams discussed the Old Trails Bridge at Topock:
David Plowden, in his photographic book on bridges, wrote about the Old Trails Bridge. He began by noting that the bridge was, briefly, the longest arch bridge in America.
The National Park Service says of the bridge:
Calling it “a landmark of American civil engineering,” the discussion continued:
On September 30, 1988, the Old Trails Bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Following the opening of the Topock bridge in 1916, Mohave County in Arizona took over the private mining road from Kingman to Topock via Oatman. According to Sherry and Richard Mangum’s book about the National Old Trails Road in Arizona, the county “began reducing the grade up the hill to Goldroad, which at the time was a twenty-six percent engine-buster. On the west side of the Black Mountains, Mohave County worked to reduce other steep grades.” [Mangum, Rickard K, and Mangum, Sherry G., The National Old Trails Road in Arizona, Hexagon Press, Inc., 2008, page 89] Retirement?On March 3, 1916, Kansas City Post:
Whatever the accuracy of this article, Judge Lowe remained president and continued issuing bulletins and fighting for the National Old Trails Road. Daughters of the American Republic, 1916The Daughters of the American Republic (D.A.R.) met in Washington on April 17-22, 1916. The new chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee, Mrs. Henry McCleary, reported on the committee’s activities. She began:
Mrs. McCleary had written to every State chairman seeking their cooperation:
The letters were appended to her address in the proceedings. She commented on the status of the legislation D.A.R. had initiated:
On December 14, 1915, at the start of the first session of the 64th Congress, Representative William P. Borland had introduced several bills, including:
The bill, which offered warrants for one-half the cost of construction to be issued to States on certification of completion of construction through each State, had been referred to the Committee on Agriculture. After commenting on each segment of the National Old Trails Road, Mrs. McCleary continued:
The Fight for National RoadsStill, the advocates of interstate highways were regarded by many as favoring the "idle rich" or “peacocks” who had time to travel the rigorous miles across the country by auto. An editorial in the Engineering News issue of May 6, 1912, had reflected the popular feeling:
Nevertheless, with the growth of automobile traffic, pressure for improved rural roads had grown. Congress had taken up the issue for several years, but had been unable to resolve the different viewpoints, particularly between those who favored Federal construction of national roads versus those who preferred a Federal-aid program of assistance to State and local officials. While the debates continued, a provision of the Post Office Appropriation Act of 1913, signed by President William Howard Taft on August 24, 1912, authorized a $500,000 experimental post road improvement program as a test of concepts. State or local governments were to pay two-thirds of the cost. The program produced few physical results, but had the positive outcome of convincing Federal road officials that aid should be limited to the States to avoid the complexities of working with the country’s more than 3,000 counties. [America’s Highways 1776-1976, pages 81-83] On January 25, 1916, the House of Representatives passed a Federal-aid bill by a vote of 281 to 81. All work would be under the supervision and control of the State highway departments or, if a State did not have one, in such manner as may be agreed to by the Governor and the Secretary of Agriculture. Any State receiving the aid after January 1, 1920, must have a State highway agency. Although States would select Federal-aid projects, the Secretary would examine all surveys, plans, and estimates; make progress payments as the work was underway; and make the payment of the Federal share only after an inspection of the work. The Federal share would be not less than 30 percent nor more than 50 percent. Backers of good roads were not uniformly pleased. Many good roads groups were still pulling for construction of national roads, namely their named trails, and opposed the Federal-aid concept that they described as States spreading money over local roads, to no national purpose, in a “pork barrel” waste of the funds. The possibility that the United States might enter the European war prompted the named trails associations to promote the value of improving the primitive interstate road network to support a potential wartime economy. On April 7, 1916, for example, Judge Lowe wrote to President Wilson:
He enclosed a clipping from April 7, 1916, issue of the Kansas City Times and requested “that you glance over it.” The article, titled “To Urge Old Trails Facts,” began:
The facts included:
The article listed the mileage of all roads in each Old Trails State from Maryland to California, and noted that the road was directly connected to road system totaling 694,161 miles.
He estimated that one-third of the population to total 32,811,745 people.
The White House received Judge Lowe’s letter on April 10 and forwarded it to the Department of Agriculture, which received it on April 12. The StationaryBeginning in 1916, the National Old Trails Road Association introduced new stationary for its letters. At the top on the left appeared the names, title, and home town of the Association’s Officers, including Judge Lowe, president. On the right, a similar list for executive committee members. Centered below the list appeared: Centered between the two lists appeared the Automobile Club of Southern California’s diamond-shaped sign of the road, with the upper point of the diamond just below the “A” in “CANYON.” Below the diamond was the directional road sign from Kansas City described earlier. Arrows pointed the east-west directions for the cities from Kansas City. To the left and right of the centered road sign was a list of State Vice-Presidents The Federal Aid Road ActWhile advocates for national roads, including Judge Lowe, continued to fight for their cause, the House and Senate voted in favor of the Federal-aid concept of Federal-aid to States along the lines of the draft bill developed in Oakland by a committee of the American Association of State Highways Officials (AASHO) and adopted by AASHO for submission to Congress. Its chief advocate in the Senate was Senator John H. Bankhead of Alabama, chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. Senator John D. Works of California, by contrast, was one of the outspoken opponents of the Federal-aid concept. As the Senate debated the bill on April 21, 1916, he began:
He often had expressed concern, he pointed out, about “the present tendency of legislation in Congress . . . to wipe out almost completely the dividing line between the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the States and the Federal Government, and that this has been brought about largely by the desire of the States to secure appropriations of money from the National Government.” He listed dozens of such bills in areas of public health, education, agriculture, and defense highways and public roads. He considered the present Federal-aid bill “one of the worst of its kind.” He went through the provisions before concluding:
He had the statement, initially presented in January 1914, read into the record. The presentation was summarized in part 1. Judge Lowe asked:
One argument was that the State share was justified because the States would benefit from the Federal-aid roads. “If this is to be the policy, then why not apply it to rivers and harbors,” as well as public buildings, all of which were developed entirely with Federal funds. He explained:
Constitutions in half the States, he had said, prohibited cooperative participation; they would have to be amended. After going through the long history of debates over internal improvements in the 19th century, he concluded:
The Senate then took up an amendment from Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana to appropriate $1 million a year, for 10 years, for roads and trails in national forests. After Senator Walsh explained the basis for the amendment, Senator Works endorsed it saying, “it would bring one legitimate provision into this bill, because it does provide for work to be done that is national in its character.” The amendment was “entirely legitimate; and it is the only provision that I have yet noticed in this bill that, in my judgment, is legitimate and proper.” Despite the efforts of critics, Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act, which President Wilson signed on July 11, 1916. It established the Federal-aid highway program and the Federal-State partnership that remains in place, much altered, to this day. For the story of the legislation, see “Creation of a Landmark: The Federal Aid Road Act of 1916” on this Website at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/landmark.pdf. The 1916 Act authorized $75 million for Federal-aid projects over a 5-year period, through June 30, 1921, plus $10 million for forest road improvements spread over 10 years. To participate in the programs, States were required to have effective control of a large measure of road work, to avoid haphazard construction, plus strengthened State participation in maintenance. Each year, the Secretary of Agriculture was to set aside 3 percent of the appropriation for administration of the Act, then to apportion funds among the States based on:
The Federal share of costs could not exceed 50 percent, and all work required prior Federal approval. Projects were restricted to rural post roads, defined as “any public road over which the United States mails now are or may hereafter be transported, excluding every street and road in a place having a population, as shown by the latest available Federal census, of two thousand five hundred or more, except that portion of any such street or road along which the houses average more than two hundred feet apart.” At the time, several States did not have a highway department (Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Texas), while others did not meet the “effective control” test (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming). Recognizing that every State might not be able to use the funds apportioned to it, the Act provided:
The program operated on a reimbursement basis. The State paid the full cost of work with its own funds, or funds provided by the counties, then would be reimbursed for the Federal share, up to 50 percent, if the Secretary found that the work was in compliance with plans and specifications. The Secretary, at his discretion, could make progress payments to the State while the work was underway. However, the Act stated that payments could not exceed “$10,000 per mile, exclusive of the cost of bridges of more than twenty feet clear span.” The States were responsible for maintenance of the projects:
The Act provided that “all roads constructed under the provisions of this act shall be free from tolls of all kinds.” The Secretary delegated authority for most work under the 1916 Act to OPRRE. To handle the increased work, OPRRE established ten districts with an engineer in charge to oversee projects in several States. The agency also reorganized its headquarters officials into two branches. “The management branch deals with all administrative fiscal, legal, statistical and economic questions, while the engineering branch has charge of all matters relating to construction and maintenance.” All projects required approvals by the district engineer and the headquarters engineering branch. [Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture for the Year Ended June 30, 1917, pages 37-38] OPRRE invited the States to send representatives to Washington to assist in preparing regulations for implementing the provisions of the 1916 Act. After OPRRE incorporated their ideas into the draft regulations prepared by the Department solicitor, Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston approved the regulation on September 1, 1916. Judge Lowe ReactsJudge Lowe issued an undated statement on “National State and County Highways.” It began:
Such a system, Judge Lowe wrote, was inevitable. In the meantime, the public had been “misled by mistaken legislation looking to the building of short stretches of local roads, beginning nowhere and ending nowhere.” This “mistaken notion” could be traced “to political demagogues, who, actuated by the opinion that there were a greater number of dirt roads than permanent ones, and possibly believing there was a larger population living in the back ‘districts’ than on the great highways. Their appeals have been made to a narrow prejudice which utterly misled public sentiment.” All attempts to develop a system of roads, “by first building local roads have been miserable failures.” As illustrated by common wagon roads and railroads, “not until trunk lines were built was there any material advance in road building.” The trunk lines created a desire for building local roads to them. “Otherwise, there was no desire or reason for the existence of such local feeders.” Federal construction of national highways would free the States to build improved roads on heavy traffic lines; that would free the counties to build roads from remote districts to the State roads:
Despite all these advantages, Congress was not ready:
At a time when military preparedness was “being agitated on every hand, we shall insist that as a vital and essential part of such preparedness, nothing is so important as a system of military roads, over which the armies, artillery and supplies, can easily be mobilized”:
He illustrated his point by discussing what Clay County in Missouri could do under existing statutes to build permanent roads, including the National Old Trails Road, that would increase the value of the land, concluding:
The 1916 ConventionThe August 1916 issue of Touring Topics reported on usage of the National Old Trail Road in California:
On August 7, Judge Lowe attended a dedication ceremony:
The 1916 convention of the National Old Trails Road Association was held on September 14 and 15 in Herington, Kansas. According to a summary in the October 1916 issue of Better Roads and Streets, Judge Lowe characterized it as “the greatest convention ever held, enthusiastic but well organized, and before its conclusion the enthusiasm was directed into real road-building channels.” The convention began with a parade of 400 automobiles, organized by delegations. Most were from the area but some “cars were present from as far as one hundred and sixty miles.” Over 700 cars were in town. Bands accompanied some groups, and the “float of the Childs Furnishing Goods Company, representing the Cradle of the Old Trail, was attractive, unique, and appropriate, and easily captured the prize as best float in the parade”:
There were, in short, no dirt road men attending the convention. Presiding at the opening of the first session, Judge Lowe reminded Kansas that they had promised the association that if the convention were held in Herington, they would ensure that the National Old Trails Road would be made a high-class thoroughfare across their State within a year. He commented on funding available under the new Federal Aid Road Act and the State’s Hodges Act, which he believed would enable roads to be built at less cost to the farmer than was the case in his home State of Missouri. (The Hodges Rock Road Law, approved in 1909, required county commissioners to comply with road improvement petitions costing more than $500 per mile if 60 percent of the owners of half the property along the route approved. The law had been expected to spur development of hard surfacing in the State. [Schirmer, Sherry Lamb, and Dr. Wilson, Theodore A., Milestones: A History of the Kansas Highway Commission & the Department of Transportation, Kansas Department of Transportation, December 1986, page 14]) The convention included numerous addresses. E. E. Peake of the Kansas City Auto Dealers Association, asked if anyone would put a paper roof on his house. He “compared the present work on the dirt roads to a paper roof which would be washed away by the first rain.” He emphasized the necessity of good roads for agricultural, commercial, and social development throughout the West in general and, in particular, the sections of Kansas tributary to Kansas City. Kansas State Highway Engineer W. S. Gearhart discussed legislation needed in the State and “pointed out how hard it is to make the country highways of one county match up with the county highways of its adjoining counties without some centralized authority.” He described the work of his agency and its plans for improving the State’s roads. Robert Bruce of Clinton, New York, special representative of the
National Highways Association, discussed his drive to the convention, noting a lack of interest in the project in Illinois. (See the next section for more on Bruce.) C. E. McStay, speaking on behalf of the Automobile Club of Southern California, covered highway improvement along the route in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. He described counties in California “that had been able to build and maintain hard-surfaced roads for less money per year than the dirt roads had previously cost them.” Several issues were discussed during the business session on the second morning:
The plan was to threaten “backward localities” with the motto: “Build it or lose it.”
(As required by the Federal Aid Road Act, the legislature created a highway commission in 1917, and it began operations on April 4, 1917.) The convention resolved the routing problem in New Mexico and Arizona by amending the association's constitution to allow signs to be posted on both the Gallup and Springerville alternative routes. The convention also considered the long running dispute between the Old and New Santa Fe trail routes:
President Lowe was to appoint a commission of five members of the association, actual residents on the road, “to take up this work systematically with the various counties and cities through which the National Highway, as now adopted and marked, exists as a temporary monument.” The commission would confer with the State Highway Engineer on a plan for permanent surfacing, with the Federal Government to pay its 50-percent share. In addition, the commission was to assess the urban population along the road “as will be necessary to carry on the work of securing the necessary signatures of the individuals necessary under the Hodges Law and the adoption of paving in cities and villages for the cost of the other fifty per cent. of the road.” Further, the commission was authorized, with the counsel and advice of the president and secretary of the association, “to make such deviation from the present adopted and marked road as may be absolutely necessary to secure the endorsement and building of one half its cost by the local individuals and communities benefited.” Any such deviation would be permanent only if approved by a two-thirds vote of the subsequent annual convention. The convention passed a number of resolutions in thanks, including to the host city of Herington; the counties of McPherson, Dickinson, and Morris that had “exercised splendid judgment and economy in the construction of permanent cement crossings on the Old Trails Road”; the Automobile Club of Southern California “for being one of the few automobile clubs that has any appreciation of what such clubs should stand for”; and the Citizens Bridge Committee of Richmond, Indiana, which had “labored courageously to build a splendid memorial bridge in Richmond.” The convention also adopted a resolution commending the National Highways Association and its founder, Charles Henry Davis, “who has given so lavishly and unselfishly of both time and money to the cause.” No other association had “approximated its vast appropriation of money or the great educational work it has accomplished.” Some other associations had “grown lukewarm and discouraged” as a result of the Federal-aid legislation, but the National Highways Association and its National Old Trails Road department “have remained in this great field of useful endeavor, contending all the more earnestly for the great ideals for which we mutually stand.” Judge Lowe was reelected unanimously as president, while Frank Davis was again elected secretary. [“National Old Trails Fifth Annual Convention,” Better Roads and Streets, October 1916, pages 12-14] Next Section >> What document did Calhoun cites precedent for the doctrine of Nullification?What document did Calhoun cite as precedent for the doctrine of nullification? The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
What about the Bill of Rights was most remarkable in its departure from British precedent?It provided constitutional recognition of religious freedom. What about the Bill of Rights was most remarkable in its departure from British precedent and even the Declaration of Independence? Several states imposed tariff duties on imported goods.
What position did President James Madison take regarding government sponsored economic development quizlet?He insisted that a constitutional amendment would be required to empower the federal government to build roads and canals. What position did President James Madison take regarding government-sponsored economic development? Land ownership is not evidence of superior intelligence or moral judgement.
When John C Calhoun was secretary of war he recommended Andrew Jackson be court martialed for what unauthorized act?Calhoun was Secretary of War, he recommend Andrew Jackson be court-martialed for what unauthorized act? land speculation and credit debt. All of the following is true about the Missouri Compromise, EXCEPT: It established that future territories would decide on the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty.
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