General Highway History

Part I

The Final Dedication — Bethesda, Maryland

On April 12, 1929, Mrs. Moss visited Bethesda to see the site of the final monument that would be dedicated at Wisconsin and Montgomery Avenues, facing the Montgomery County Building. She conferred with S. H. Miller, chairman of the Bethesda Chamber of Commerce, who was in charge of erecting the monument. He supervised as workers completed the base on April 12.

Part H

Saving the Names

By 1928, the U.S. numbered highway system was an accepted way for navigating around the country. The named trails and their supporting associations were fading in importance.

That did not mean the named trail associations were not clinging to hope of revival. For example, on March 13, 1928, Representative Charles G. Edwards of Georgia introduced H.R. 12040:

A BILL

Part G

Madonna of the Trail — D.A.R. 1927

On April 22, 1927, during the thirty-sixth Continental Congress of D.A.R. in April 1927,

Mrs. Moss reported on the activities of the National Old Trails Road Committee.

She began:

Daughters, it is a great privilege and honor to introduce to you the grand old patriot of the Old Trails Road, the Honorable Ezra Meeker. He wishes to say a word to you.

Part F

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.

Part E

The Joint Board’s Report

Meanwhile, James and the Committee of Five were considering a numbering plan. James wrote to the committee members on August 27 enclosing a small map of the United States on which he had shown, he believed, "the possibility of a systematic plan for numbering interstate routes." Many years later, he recalled how he approached the task:

Part D

Numbers versus Names

For interstate motorists in the 1920s, the named trails were the way to navigate around the country. A 1923 road atlas included a one-page “Midget Map of the Transcontinental Trails of the United States.” It showed the line of the following named interstate trails:

Part C

Completing the Road in Indiana

In 1923, Indiana was working to complete its segment of the National Old Trails Road, classified as State Road 3. In July, Director John D. Williams of the Indiana State Highway Commission announced that the road was now open from Indianapolis west to Mt. Meridian. Good Roads reported:

Mr. Williams points out that since work started this year closing the last gaps in the road, traffic has detoured at a point about 4 miles west of Stilesville.

Part B

The Willite Proposal

Concern about the condition of the western half of the National Old Trails Road prompted Judge Lowe to make a bold proposal. He recommended that the portion of the road from Trinidad, Colorado, to Los Angeles be reconstructed with Willite, which he called “THE GREATEST DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF ROAD CONSTRUCTION.” That was the subtitle of the association’s bulletin of August 1922. The cover advised:

Read Openmindedly and Learn How the Best Road
Ever Devised Can Be Built for the Least Cost and Smallest Maintenance

Part A

President Harding on Trucks and Railroads

On December 8, 1922, President Harding delivered his second annual message before a joint session of Congress. For the first time in history, the President’s address was broadcast by radio to “be heard by many thousands outside of the House chamber and hundreds of miles distant from Washington,” as The Washington Post told readers. “The broadcasting will be done from the naval air station at Annapolis.”