continent; now the women are organizing and beautifying the highway and they too have made great contributions to the service.
Is all this now to be broken down and all this time and money to be wasted? And what explanation can we as Texans make to these other states from Florida to California that trusted our loyalty and entrusted the national work to Texans? What is the Texas situation with a trunkline north and south and one east and west, both marked Jefferson Davis and both of them already nationally known highways of interstate and international character and with nationally recognized names? And what of the great travel movement that depends upon the national trunklines to carry them on their interstate journeys?
Texas is the middle third on the Old Spanish Trail. Its geographical location will give it large advantage in bringing and keeping travel in the state. Texas has lands to settle; it needs investment and development---all this good will and national interest built up by ten
years of work should not be lightly oast aside.
Texas, in naming roads for local sentiment, should not interfere with highways of interstate and national character. The Lincoln Highway if named and narked according to the ideas of each state would soon lapse as a national highway known to everyone and sought by tens of thousands in their overland trips.
Plans involving tens of thousands of dollars are now "in the air"— —printing travelogs, maps, developing campsites and travel comforts,
marking, beautifying, meetings, field work----there can bo no dependence
on finances or on the allegiance of the workers in other states, or in this State, and national magazine articles are in abeyance with a half dozen editorial requests before us. It is suggested this calls for such editorial and other attention as you can give. Texas has a vital interest in the preservation of the Old Spanish Trail project, and in Its utmost development and publicity. North Texas has the same interest as South Texas for travel must pass southward to get to this trunkline. The idea of marked copies to the Highway Commissioners and others is also submitted. It is a serious thing to hamper, hurt or break a project that has achieved so nmch and that now Is enjoying unrivalled construction progress in all its states, and that has built up suoh favorable recognition all over the United States.
Sincerely,
May 5th, 1925 HBA/b
H. B. Ayres,
OST Managing Director