AMONG THE BAYOUS OP LOUISIANA J !*'■ 01,1 Spanish Trail is going across great bays, rivers and drain-rh,«„JS1,IS Paralleling tbe Gulf of Mexico where the engineering, Knud '1>! a,U ! 10 Period required for construction are proving fnrntnHm capacity for acliieyement. Louisiana lias 125 mi. of delta ron.i i faf*i an<j, 'vcst °f the Mississippi River over which to build of ilin ™ ondSe® f<F' t,le 01(1 Spanish Trail. The photos picture some ol the uork. Cut-off cast of Bayou Bouef.
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION
6.—To most people this report is an unexpected revelation. This total ultimate cost of over $63,000,000 for this eastern section discloses how great are the financial and engineering difficulties we are conquering. The prospect of a paved highway from St. Augustine across North and West Florida, southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas to San Antonio and westward is an achievement no one dared even dream of a few years ago.
THE NEW TRAVEL MOVEMENT
7.—All students of the travel tendencies have realized for some years that the concentration of travel to South Florida or to Southern California would change when this southern border country was opened. All the states are building important trunklines due southward to the Old Spanish Trail and the new travel movement will flow down into all the Old Spanish Trail territory as the various areas attract the travelers. The great concentration of public funds in the construction of modern bridges and paved roads along this highway shows how clearly the highway leaders recognize the trend of this new travel movement .
THE FLOOD WATER CROSSINGS .
8.—East of San Antonio are 31 rivers and bays that carry the fiood waters from half of the North American continent into the Gulf of Mexico. At Old Spanish Trail crossings many of these rivers suddenly flood sometimes as much as 30 feet high or spread out miles wide. The bridge construction, and the road construction over wet or delta sections, have entailed engineering and financial problems without parallel on any other highway. Financing has cost many years of sustained struggle, then when work started incompleted construction has been swept away, wet periods have stopped the work months at a time, contractors have failed and costs have mounted beyond all estimates, but of late years the determination to build has not faltered. So rapidly are the highway departments pushing this project the bridges and paved roads now under construction east of San Antonio to be completed this summer, fall and winter added to the roads, bridges and paving that are completed will give a well opened highway from Florida to the West for the first time in history. The West has been open for some years but the construction record has not been computed recently.
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