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alone it will be the notion's best known highway.
The OS? Association in the past ten years has published 40,000 service and general naps; 10,000 four-color lithograph wall maps; 50,000 miscellaneous leaflets and booklets; £0,000 Travelogs and now has a wealth of material ready for a Texas Travelog of 20,000 copies; magazine and feature articles have reached a circulation of over 4,000,000; over 2000 miles of roads have been marked and new marking is necessary; zero milestones have been dedicated by presidents and governors; OS? field men have traveled over 50,000 miles in this work, in the early days they wallowed in mu at and mi re working out courses of the highway across the 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? "/hat is the Texas situation with a trunkline north and south and one east and west, both marked Jefferson Davis and both of them nationally known highways of interestate character and with nationally recognized names? And what of the great travel movement that depends ur>on the national trunklines to carry them on their interstate journeys?
Texas is the middle third on the Old Spanish Trail. Its geographi col 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 cast aside.
Texas, in naming roads for local sentiment, should not interfere with highways of interstate and national character. The Lincoln Highway if named and marked according to the ideas of each state would soon lanse os 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 end other attention as you can give. Texas has a vital interest in the preservation of this Old Spanish Trail project, and in its utmost deA'elonment and publicity. North Texas has the same interest as South Texas for travel must nass southward to get to this trunkline. ^he idea of marked copies to the Highway Commissioners and others is also submitted. it is a. serious thing to hamner, hurt or it break a nr&ject that has achieved so much and that now is enjoying unrivalled construction nrogress in all its states, and that has built up such favorable recognition all over the United States.
Sincerely,
WRA /b
H.	D. Ayres
os? Managing Director.