r"..c Old -p: nisi Trail era;: .s t v-'’ :?v of f ■ dr*!-	•• ter:	' x: e ciniicd
O- iso.	jri’V ir.- :® rivers and basins has been a mighty task.	In the
West are vast ranches, deserts and mountains and few people. Yet the highway was built by a pioneer people across this continent despite obstacles and cost. A people that can^o that are a people to tie to for future achievement. £
- co -.ir t c? ouj+aia	or.:s is
a country of vital -ad enduring inters:t.
Not-alone-do-these-eonstruction achievements make one reverent of-the conquering spirit-of men but some prescience guided those men in the East when they called their dream child'the “Old Spanish Trail." From many Nations come letters that show the spell the name carries—from students/writers; editors* librar-ians, lecturers and/piiblicists. And from travelers we	v	i
£^ \\ hear of the same-spelk' As we develop the old history	{jC.	O-1-*
we are continually impressed with the truth of. the *vV'' '!*'	,
name. It begins with the ancient Spanish story .of ST. v Augustine and ends with the romantic Spanish story of San Diego. ^Wherever the traveler picks up the
I

highway^or its territory the Spanish atmosphere greets him.J^St) Augustine, Tallahassee, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, San Antonio, El Paso, Las Cruces, Tucson, Yuma, San Diego! East or west, desert, mountains or gulf, the marks of the padres and the con-quistadorcs arc there to make men pause and try to peer into that courageous past.
At—first—the-project -was-a-dream--to-connect- New
OrlcanSj-La.,-with-Miami,"*Flar^The^Spanislr-atmos-phere East is not so pronounced as^in-the 'West;"-Ir lies buried under a mass*of modern ideas: Why didn't they give their little project some commonplace name, some Main Street thought? I have asked often-who thought of the name? What vision prompted it. Ldo not know. The minds of those men are hazy on-this, luwas jc.ycral years- before the- dream -child-spanned
the continent. When .it.did -and-the-wcalth of-Spamsh history and romance in the Southwest enveloped it, the Old Spanish Trail was found so appropriately named no one will ever come in response to its lure and find its history lacking*
The Old Spanish Trail country will become the Nation’s playground. Florida and California have long been the popular retreats of the people, the country lying between, the Gulf of Mexico county and the Mexican Border country	now
they are opened,
p.'.ve ent is
■ fj e-.vc-s.at i- co-pletel three to four hundred lies south
T O. Sr-1 Antonio into Sid e::ico and is preosi.^ south'.:'rd to hexico City,
950 uiles south of San Antonio.
C[