Ur. Charles 'lays,
Editor, Post-Dispatch,
Houston, Texas.
Dear Hr. Hays:
v Hews ns poj? nan have suggested we give Texas editors the rollowing facts and ask editorial cooperation for the good of Texas.
About a month ago the Texas Highway Commission gave the name or JEPFERSOI! DAVIS to the highway from the Red River thru Austin and dan Antonio to Laredo. This "highway, nationally known as the MERIDIAII HIGHWAY, was sometime ago locally named the PAT HUPP HIGH./AY.
At the same meeting the OLD 3PAIII31I TRAIL from Orange to HI Paso was named in Texas the STEPHEN P. AUSTIN HIOHV/AY. At the last meeting of the Highway Commission the name STj'PHEI! F. AUSTIN was abandoned and' JBPFHR3GI! DAVIS MEMORIAL HIGH’.VAY substituted.
Hews reports state the highway from Red River to Laredo is now being marked by the Highway Department as JEFFERSON DAVIS HIGHWAY and the Highway Commissioners say JEFFERSON DAVIS MEMORIAL HIGHWAY is settled for the Orange--El Paso rood.
This if persisted in means the destruction of the Old Spanish Trail from St. Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California as a national highway, for Tex/:s with one-third the distance across the continent can make or break the project.
The Old Spanish Trail was organized at Ilobile in 1915 and has been a continuous active organization ever since. At a conference in Houston in 1919 San Antonio was asked to assume the national headquarters work.
The value of connecting such a project across Texus was recognized and the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce appropriated “il.OOO and other follow-' ed with support in loyal measure. In the ten years of this work members have spent over '''5100,00,0 piersonal'ly. 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 the construction program until 535,000,000 have already been spent; 57,900,000 of construction in progress will be completed this year; 5i0,000,000 of new construction will be inaugurated in 1925.
nhe Old Spanish Trail js known all over the land. It is of record in national offices everywhere, on all maps, in government manuals, at schools, libraries, colleges, and with nli 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 the possibilities of its territory for settlement development, fishing, camnjng and resting, all anneal to the northern editors. If let
ffiAOQUAKTERS^ANIONlQUX.
Sun Antonio, nexos, Huy ot'n, 1925.