MEMORANDA 50 MS EDITORS
About n month ago tho Texas Highway Commission gave the nano of JF.FFERSfJN DAVIS to tho highway from the Red 3Hver thru Austin and San Antonio to Laredo. This highway, nationally known an tho IKRIDIAH HIGHWAY from 'Yininog to Mexico City, was sometime ago locally named the PAT NEFF HIOHHAY.
At tho sane mooting the OLD SPANISH TRAIL from Orange to El Paso was named in Texas the STEPHEN P« AUSTIN HIGHWAY. At tho last meeting of the Highway commission the name STEPHEN P. AUS”111 was abandoned and JEFFERSON DAVIS MEMORIAL HIGHWAY substituted.
News reports state tho highway from Rod River to Laredo is now being marked by the Highway Department as JEFFERSON DAYIS HIGHWAY and tho Highway Commissioners say JEFFERSON DAVIS MEMORIAL HIGHWAY is settled for tho Orange—El Paso road.
This if persisted in means the destruction of tho Old Spanish Trail from St. Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California as a national highway, for Texas with one-third the distance across tho continent can make or break tho project.
The old Spanish Trail was organized at Jlobilo in 1915 and has been a continuous active organization ever since. At a conforonco in Houston in 1919 San Antonio was asked to assume the national headquarters work. The value of connecting such a project across Texas was recognized and the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce appropriated £1000 and others followed with support in loyal measure. In tho ten years of this work members have spent over £100,000 personally. They have succeeded not only in making the Old Spanish Trail a connected transcontinental trunkline of very valuable possibilities to the South, but they have fostered tho construction program until :;35,000,000 have already been spent; £7,900,000 of construction in progress will bo completed this year; ”;10,000,000 of new construction will bo inaugurated in 1925.
Tho Old Spanish Trail is known all over tho land. It is of record in national officos everywhere, on all maps, in government manuals, at schools, libraries, colleges, and with all magazine editors interested in outdoor life and auto travel. More magazine and feature articles are published than for any other national highway. Its name, its historical background, its potential service to national tourist travel, and tho possibilities of its territory for settlement, development, fishing, camping and resting, all apneal to tho northern editors. If lot alone It will be the nation’s best known highway.
Tho OST association In tho past ten years has published 40,000 service and gonoral maps; 10,000 four-color lithograph wall maps; 50,000 miscellaneous leaflets and booklets; 20,000 Travelogs and now has a wealth of material ready for a Texas Travelog of 20,000 copies; magazine and feature articles have reached a circulation of over 4,000,000; over 2000 miles of roads have boon marked and new marking is necessary; zero milestones have been dedicated by presidents and govomors; OST field men have traveled ovor 50,000 miles in this work-in the early days they wallows!in mud and mire working out courses of tho highway across tho