TRIBUTE TO SOUTHERN PEOPLE,
CONSTRUCTION OLD SPANISH TRAIL A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT,
Tribute is paid the southern people for their constructive achievements by Harral Ayres, the Managing Director of the Old Spanish Trail, These people, Mr. Ayres says, have conquered at unparalleled cost great rivers and bays and black land soils in the East, and deserts, mountains and vast ranch country in the '.Test, They have spanned the continent with an automobile trunk line unmatched for interest and comfort. The total expenditure now is $70,000,000 of which $50,000,000 have been raised and spent the past five years.
Early in August a bridge will be dedicated at Pasoagoula, Miss, completing a 3-mi, crossing of the river there. It is the final event of a series of great celebrations the past ten years ivhick have heralded the opening of the Old Spanish Trail across its barriers. The Pascagoula event is the last chapter in the $50,000,000 construction program inaugurated in 1922,
More than this, 61$ of the eastern section is now paved and the people are proceeding so fast with their paving program soon a ribbon of pavement will reach from San Antonio to St, Augustine and all Florida, and by a feeder trunk line to Washington and the North.
It is an achievement in road and bridge building without parallel on the American continent, he declares.
In 1922, he says, there were not even connected roads as the Old Spanish Trail route was laid down. The country was rich in natural resources but dormant. The cities had little or no highway connections with the outside world.
In 1922 there were 80 mi. of ferriage in wot periods.	Tteo-thirds of
the drainage waters of the United States flow to the Gulf of Mexico across the OST oountry. The only waterways not now bridged are the Mississippi