the PROGRESS of the work
The Old Spanish Trail is one	^m'ffUnU	"‘ll'S	Pr0i"t5	,he	Unit,:d	S,U,CI
S. H. PECK, PRESIDENT, MOBILE. ALABAMA
The Old Spnnish Trail was born of the vision and eat of the people of the East. The convention for organization wa at Mobile. December 10-11, 1015. with 110 delegates front Jackson to New Orleans. Mobile was the headquarters for four jcar3 * worked to establish and build the highway despite the fear u P F sical barriers. In 191G a convention was held at Pensacola; w _ another at Tallahassee. The Florida people worked with enthusiasm and stand high among the founders of this great project.
During this period the people of Galveston, Houston, Beaumont and Orange, Texas, Lake Charles and the other Louisiana towns became interested and a string of automobiles plowed the roads to New Orleans. Most of them shipped their cars back by train. This resulted in an extension being agreed upon from New Orleans to Houston, Texas, and northward to Dallas, thence to California.
The year 191S was an inactive one due to war conditions. July 25, 1919 a conference was held at Houston to revive the work, and the members of the conference looked westward thru San Antonio rather than northward to Dallas for a way across the State of Texas.
A connected highway across South Texas was a poor prospect, yet San Antonio when asked to handle the work assented because ol the great merit of the project. Her Chamber of Commerce appropriated §1000.00. Other subscriptions were pledged at the Houston conference but not paid, and San Antonio took up the burden. Harral B. Ayres was asked to organize the work. San Antonio has since paid in memberships liberally. Years of struggle have followed to create a unity of purpose over the territory and a faith that the project could be nationally established; and at the same time to study and develop the ancient and almost forgotten historical background for its value and appeal.
A convention was held at San Antonio November 11-15, 1919, and there the route was defined from San Antonio thru Kerrville and Fort Stockton to El Paso 597 mile3 across the uncharted range country of Texas. The San Antonio-Houston route was unsettled until 1921. The routing thru Dallas was abandoned.
The country from Florida to California is dotted with noted cities and with realms rich ia the things men are doing, but between them for centuries have Iain barriers that have prevented intercourse and kept the people strangers to one another.
It came to pass that if the project as a national highway was to live Texas must carry a burden until the people in the oth states were prepared to enter into full partnership with so big ^ undertaking. Texnns had 9-17 miles of sparsely settled country T organize, and was given the responsibility for welding togethe ° national organization. In the six years of her stewardship she^h -given many thousands of dollars to the work.	n''
March 1920, OST and Texas Highway officials and some thi western ranchmen scouted the unbroken country around the n* Mountains in West Texas.	av’3
West from El Paso groups have been busy conquering the staclcs to the Pacific coast. Eastward the great waterways al the Gulf threatened the transcontinental integrity of the project * ^ January 28-29, 1921, the Fifth National Convention was h H at Gulfport, Mississippi, without much result to the eastern work *** September 15, 1921, after activity in East Texas, Mayor W p Lea of Orange, Texas, OST Vice President, called a conference r the people between Lake Charles, Louisiana and Houston, Texas it ° splendidly attended and led to the $1,500,000 construction progr^ on that East Texas section to be completed in 1925.	ram
The East still was inert. January 3. 1922, the managing dire established a headquarters at Mobile. March 20-21, 1922, thr* v* °r State Conference was held at Mobile with highway commissioners °U*rt engineers present from Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, aa(^n<* large attendance from civic organizations, counties and cities f & Pensacola to New Orleans. Bridging Mobile Bay was authorized °h the Alabama Highway Commission; the Gulf Boulevard project v V Orleans to Pensacola, was inaugurated; the deadlock in that sect‘°W was broken and the people heartened.	“>n
The Dixie Highway Convention was hold at Jacksonville, May 26-27, 1922. On the invitation of the Chamber of Commerce and of the Automobile Club of Jacksonville the managing director visited Jacksonville on that occasion. There was conflict and confusion in Florida. The attempts of numerous “highway associations” in recent years to develop national highways had resulted in a multiplicity of claims. The managing director explained to the convention that the Old Spanish Trail in convention some years ago had by vote claimed north and south lines in Florida which properly belonged to the Dixie Highway, and that the Dixie Highway claimed the route from Tallahassee to Jacksonville which properly was a part of the OST main line, and that if each association would concede to the other the lines logically belonging to each confusion would be removed and the people encouraged to give full support to a clearly understood program. Historically it was stated the OST in Florida should have its beginning at St. Augustine and at Tampa.
A vole was'carried agreeing to this proposal. After this action officials at Jacksonville submitted to the OST director plans for carrying the Old Spanish Trail to St. Augustine along the St. John’s River and down the beach front, a scenic route with roads built or in progress that would pass the site3 of the first settlements of the Huguenots and the Spaniards, and of Ponce de Leon's landing, and other spots graven in history by the fateful game of empires.
The way to Tampa should be worked out around the coast to complete the historical principles of the Old Spanish Trail.
During June and July, 1922, largely thru the support of Mobile, Alabama; the managing director was in Washington where the work of establishing national recognition and unity was completed. Following that all agencies swung «o the work despite barrier or cost
August 21-22, 1922, under the leadership of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce an expedition started across Alabama and Mississippi with cars in lino representing the Automobile Club, Rotary, Kiwanis, Civitan and Optimist club3, and with Alabama highway and other officials with them. Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis were visited. It was one of the finest examples of local activity in the whole OST movement. Today remarkable construction of paved roads, beach protection, hotels, golf and residence development help show the value of that effort.
The Sixth National Convention was held at New Orleans, March 2G-2S, 1923. The Second Gulf Boulevard Conference met with the convention and showed the remarkable progress since the Mobile Conference a year before bad broken the shackles that had kept those cities and towns of the New Orleans-Pensacola section without highway connections. The women, too, gathered at New Orleans and conducted the first Parliament on Highway Beautification—the first attempt in an interstate way to foster and promote roadside beauty and to abolish the billboard abuse. Another gathering at that convention was the Southern Road Congress where a Southern Trunkline c tem embracing highways of immediate importance to travel into nd thru the South was discussed and acted upon.
Today all the states are actively building. In each state the n inccrs, officials and people are solving engineering problems of °nusual difficulty, bridging numerous great waterways along the Gulf of Mexico; spanning sparsely populated sections of the West:
ilding across deserts and blasting thru granite mountains.
U1 Old Spanish Trail officials have traveled over 100.000 miles ir work, have published 40,000 service and general maps, -10,000 1 clogs, 10,000 lithograph four-color wall maps, 50,000 miscellaneous -	and booklets. Old Spanish history from Florida to Cali-
Ie . nn(i covering three centuries hn3 been searched and partly ompiled- Magazine and feature articles have reached a circulation c over .,,000.000 people. Yet real travel service is just beginning.
° ,pon years have passed. The Old Spanish Trail is a nationally cnized highway rated ns a basic trunkline, classed as of fore--t importance, declared essential to military defense, conceded a3 !r°tined to be the great continental travelway, and is improving at j e cost of many millions of dollars annually.
—43—
—14—
THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL ASSOCIATION, l„c,
A Membership Organization The membership is a voluntary band of men and women interest** in building a great highway from Florida to Mexico and Califoroi* nnd developing its travel comforts, and in the preservation of the old landmarks and the old history of those ancie: t and romantic period, in the Southern Borderlands where men anti empires struggled fCr mastery long before the American Revolution.
All funds arc controlled by an Executive Board of business men. The Department of Beautification plans to beautify, to sign th, historical places, to work against the roadside advertising nuisance, to plan distinctive marking, and to preserve the natural attractions and the wealth of historical values. Engineers, highway officials, women', club3 and boy scouts are cooperating.
The local Councils of San Antonio and Boerne are proceeding to make the section from San Antonio to Boerne a model of beautification. Their plans call for many notable undertakings and it is hoped net only members along the Old Spanish Trail but others thruout the United States will learn from these efforts the best methods for tbt beautification of the roadsides.
OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS
S. II. Peck, President, Mobile, Alabama Harral B. Ayres, Managing Director, San Antonio, Texas
Executive Board, National Headquarters, San Antonio Kenneth Wimor, Chairman	Percy Tyrrell, Secretary
II. B. Ayres, Managing Director	Leon N. Walthall, Treasurer
Attorneys, Birkhead, Lang ■& Beckmann, San Antonio
Division Vice-Presidents S. L. McGlathcry, Pass Christian, Miss. Coke R. Stevenson, Junction, Tex. Julius Dupont, Houma, La.	A.	II.	Gardner, Tombstone. Arix.
Honorary Vice-Presidents W. M. Corry, Quincy, Fla.	Mrs.	A. F. Storm, New Orleans
Mrs. T. A. Bnnning, Robertsdale, Ala. Mrs. George Sealy, Galveston Mrs. B. H. Scott, Irvington, Ala.	Mrs.	Henry Drought, San Antonie
Mrs. P. J.Friedrichs, New Orleans, La. Mrs. Bert Couch, Sanderson, Tex.
Directors
Prod W. Marsh, Pensacola, Pin. Mrs. A. A. Anding, Opelousas, La. Mr3. Rucks Ycrcer, Gulfport, Miss. J. C. UnuniEnrten, Schulcnburg, Tel. Ed Fletcher, Jr., San Diego, Calif.
Field Engineer—Harry Locke, Los Angeles, Calif.
department of beautification
National Board of Managers, San Antonio
Dir™!?' 1I?.nrS' Dro,'Pht. Director-General. Mrs. J. H. Lnpham. Vice Adam °r*c rS'	Cnssin, Vice-Director. Mrs. Sterling Prf*
and m'JMrs- R W- Sorell. Treasurer. Mrs. J. B. Le*rfcW Qtld Mr“- P- F- StaufTer, Associate Managers.
State Directors
Bucks YerlvA ^,ra'	Banning,	Robertsdale.	Mississippi""^
3 Yerner, Gulfport. Louisiana-Mrs. A. F. Storm, New Orient-
Committee on Design for Historical Milepost Galveston	San	Antoni°.	Chairmnn.	Mrs.	Ccorge	Seal
H. Scott ’irvin Mrs' ^03ePKine Couch, Sanderson. Texas. Mrs-■ IrVln,:lon' A a- Mrs. Della Human, San Diego, Colit.
HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT Headquarters Seetion-San Antonio to Boerne
Mrs. p. WCSoreH°r1tT.COUn<:il	Kendall	County	Coonril
Mrs. w. w. McCrIl^I™o"n	Mrs. George Belsey. Chairman
Mrs. John i p.n “^Secretary Miss Hilda Hathaway. SecrctaS Pr,d*«n. Treasurer	Mrs. Fritz Reinhard, Treasurer
Executive Committee	Executive	Com""'*
—15—
The Old Spanish Trail still has difficult sections. It follows a route of great attraction, also a route of financial and engineering difficulties. But all the states are building. Thanks to the organized efforts of the Old Spanish Trail membership and of the engineers nnd highway officials, it is even now built and well maintained on ninety per cent of its long milenge. Inquiry at chambers of commerce and motor clubs along the wny will provide dependable local information. If the traveler is interested in groat construction works he will find much to compensate him as he travels along.
THE GREAT HISTORIC HIGHWAY
CONNECTING
" * FLORIDA-CAUFORNIA-MEXICO*
OFFICES, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAwT.
THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL
! TRUNKLINES AND TRIBUTARIES