Coast than the storm did. The AP had sent the news nationwide that Biloxi was under six feet of water. Not only did that guarantee a zero winter tourist season, but it also greatly endangered the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s chances of being included on the proposed route of the Jackson Highway.
On October 6, the Alabama-Gulf Coast Highway Association met in Biloxi. The assemblage adopted a resolution to the effect that the Associated Press reports were greatly exaggerated and asked for a retraction and correction of the story.
On October 23, 1915, the Daily Herald reprinted an article published in the Mobile Register the previous day. The article read in its entirety:
After a full investigation of highway routes in proximity to the Atlantic coast and their relation to the future tourist traffic to and through Mobile, a joint good roads committee composed of members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club has decided to inaugurate a movement to build a highway from the East coast through Mobile to New Orleans to be known as the “Old Spanish Trail.”
It is the purpose of this committee, after going over all of the probable routes, to begin work of interesting all cities along the proposed route in a plan for a Gulf Coast Highway to extend from Miami, Fla., to New Orleans, connecting with the Dixie and Jackson Highways and affording a belt line of tourist’s roads around the eastern half of the Gulf Coast. It is so planned that the movement may ultimately be expanded to interest other states in continuing this highway by the Southern route to the Pacific Coast.
At this time a map of the proposed “Old Spanish Trail” and all connecting highways is being prepared by secretary of the Chamber of Commerce R. G. Cobb for the joint committee, and when completed it is expected to be the first detailed exposition of the roads through the South, east of the Mississippi River, showing main northern connections.
Apparently this is the initial proclamation of the existence of the Old Spanish Trail Highway Association. The Mobile Chamber of Commerce and Mobile Rotary Club, after dealing with promoters and pathfinders from other various highway associations, decided to form one of their own.
And there were many such associations throughout the nation operating under such names as “Jackson Highway,” “Dixie Highway,” “Magnolia Highway,” “Burlington Highway,” and “Colonial Highway.” None of them were government sponsored. They all aimed to run a “national highway” from somewhere to somewhere else for some reason or other. All of these organizations sent out automobile convoys of “pathfinders” to chart proposed routes. These pathfinders were wined and dined by the towns and cities along these proposed routes, and
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