Williams, Pat Harrison, Joseph E. Ransdell, E. S. Broussard, C. A. Culberson, Morris Sheppard.
Congressmen of OST Districts—J. H. Smithwick, Fi-ank Clark, John McDuffie, John B. Tyson, Paul B. Johnson, W. P. Martin, H. Garland Dupre, L. Lazaro, James O’Connor, John N. Garner, John C. Box, C. B. Hudspeth, Clay Stone Briggs, Harry M. Wurzbach, Joseph J. Mansfield.
WAR DEPARTMENT STATEMENT
War Department Asks for Prompt Completion of Old Spanish Trail Trunklines—Best Federal Standards in Highway and Bridge Construction Urged—Highway Essential to Plans Formulated for National Defense.
The following, dated July 7, 1922, is signed by J. M. Wain-right, Acting Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:
“The highway from Pensacola through Mobile to New Orleans is considered by the War Department of first importance, and its early completion in accordance with federal standards, including necessary bridges, is urged in the interest of national defense. A standard federal highway between Pensacola and Jacksonville is also considered important.
“In Texas the following trunk highways are considered essential from the standpoint of military operations along the border: San Antonio to the lower Rio Grande Valley; San Antonio to Laredo; San Antonio to Del Rio, with branch road to Eagle Pass; along the Rio Grande from Brownsville to Del Rio, thence westerly to Marfa and El Paso with connections southward from Marfa to Rio Grande points; also from San Antonio to Corpus Christi. Standard federal highways from San Antonio to Houston, Galveston and Orange are also regarded as important.
“A standard highway running along the Mexican border through New Mexico, Arizona and California is also rated of first importance by the War Department.
“Considered as a whole, the proposed transcontinental trunk highway from Jacksonville to San Diego, with its connections to border points, is an essential element in the plans being formulated by the War Department for national defense and should be completed without delay according to the best federal standards for road construction.”
AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION Analysis of the National Tourist Movement, Issued July, 1922, by M. 0. Eldridge, Executive Chairman.
"Automobile travelers seek the scenic and historical sections; they want pleasant climatic conditions and to see things worth while; they like the historical places, for more driving soon loses its appeal. In summer they hunt the northern routes. Winter travelers want the southern sunshine; they have all winter to spend where they can live outdoors. They do not want to return north while the snow and ice still lie around. When the territory around the Gulf, and across southern Texas, and southern New Mexico, Arizona and California, is opened with an overland highway the motorist will
get to that sunshine belt by the most direct road and spend the winter roaming eastward and westward and in camping, fishing and visiting the wealth of historical scenes for which that south country is noted.
“This means two great classes of travel, the summer vacationist and the winter tourist. Numerous trunklines are building from the northern centers to the cities along the Gulf and the Mexican border points; these and the trunkline along the southern border known as the Old Spanish Trail will supplement each other and give to the multitude of northern people quick transit in winter by automobile to the outdoor climate and sports that prevail from Florida to California. In the summer these same highways will lead the people from the South to the northern scenes, where they will mingle with their brothers of the East and West and North, and throng the other national highways.
“A concentration of effort in improving basic highways will hasten an automobile travel movement in the United States that will leave a trail of gold along every highway, particularly those of scenic, sport and historical attraction.
“There are *9,500,000 passenger automobile owners in the United States. Including families, 50,000,000 people today are potential automobile travelers held in restraint by lack of highways.”
•Reports for the year 1924 show a total of 15,221,183 cars and trucks registered in the U. S. Registration report, January 1, 1923, for Canada. 473,2C3 cars nnd 30.407 trucks; for Mexico, 19,400 cars and 1328 trucks.
PUBLIC SCHOOL WORK Medium for Teaching Old History
The Old Spanish Trail, its literature and magazines, are being used by superintendents, teachers and college professors as a means for teaching of the Spanish Occupation and for picturing the story of the early explorations and settlement in the southern country. A history, the result of international research, is in preparation giving the story of those three centuries of effort embracing the territory from Florida to California and Mexico.
The San Antonio school children have published an interesting magazine as a medium of expression for their historical and other studies. Jeremiah Rhodes, Superintendent of Schools.
UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION Adopts Old Spanish Trail for School Study
Miss Florence C. Fox, Specialist in Educational Systems, Wash'ngton, announces that the Old Spanish Trail has been adopted by the U. S. Bureau of Education at Washington in its program for introducing in the public schools the study of national highway development. Historical booklets, magazines, data and information have been supplied the Bureau for this work.
Department of the Interior Bulletin, 1923, No. 38, 42 page3, entitled “Main Streets of the Nation” and outlining methods of study, has been distributed to schools, colleges and libraries throughout the United States. The Old Spanish Trail is the southern trunkline included, and numerous inquiries are being received for literature and data for student and class use.
FIRST TO ORGANIZE FOR BEAUTIFICATION Women Start Movement for Roadside Improvement Along Old Spanish Trail The first movement in the United States of interstate or national proportions for preserving and promoting roadside beauties was initiated by the women of the Old Spanish Trail . when they met as a “Parliament of Women” at New Orleans in March, 1923, and planned for organization, work and legislation in the OST states, and in the other states where their influence might reach. Women individually and as club representatives were present from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, with the western states represented by proxy or by club indorsement. Governors appointed delegates. Sixty-two women’s clubs were represented. The Federations of Clubs of New Orleans, Louisiana and Mississippi gave their leadership to the movement.
This Parliament delegated to the women of San Antonio the authority to create the permanent organization. The San Antonio women are organizing the Department of Beautification under a Director-General and are extending the organization and work to all OST states and counties.
The women are undertaking a work as great as that of the men in their construction work, and the Old Spanish Trail is the medium for leadership in this as in so much other national highway effort.
WAR DEPARTMENT MAP Roads of Military Necessity The new map of roads considered essential to public defense, adopted and signed by John J. Pershing, Chief of Staff, August 23, 1922, includes Old Spanish Trail trunklines as a part of the national military system. During the Managing Director’s stay in Washington a general agreement was reached among the Federal departments and interested officials, and the state officials, respecting all important details of this southern trunkline.
THE GREATEST HIGHWAY MAP
The National Highways Association, in co-operation with the Old Spanish Trail, has been engaged since March, 192>. in preparing a map of this highway that will be the most , complete of any transcontinental highway map in the United States. It will show all cities, towns and villages, elevations, tributary lines and territory, data and information. The first edition is now in national circulation, but for a long while yet details and improvements will be in progress and moie perfect maps issued.
SOUTHERN TRUNKLINE SYSTEM Old Spanish Trail the Basic Trunkline
The Southern Road Congress at New Orleans, March, 1923, accepted the principle that auto travelers of the United States and the people of the southern border states will be served best by the immediate development of the Old Spanish Trail and of the nationally recognized trunklines from the North that feed into it. A map of connecting primary trunklines was submitted entitled “The Southern Trunkline System” and adopted for submission to the highway departments “as a program of first importance, and one that will enlist the support of the people behind the officials and the program.”
National Highways Included in the Southern Trunkline System
THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL—The basic transcontinental trunk highway for the trunklines from the North.
COASTAL HIGHWAY—Along the Atlantic Ocean.
DIXIE HIGHWAY—Reaches Old Spanish Trail at Tallahassee, Lake City and Jacksonville, Florida, and serves South Florida.
BEE LINE HIGHWAY — Main trunkline through Alabama, reaches Old Spanish Trail at Marianna, Florida, and by branch extensions should serve Pensacola and Mobile.
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HIGHWAY —From the north-west with main trunkline through Mississippi, and with terminals at Mobile and Gulfport, and over Old Spanish Trail to New Orleans.
JEFFERSON HIGHWAY—Winnipeg to New Orleans.
JACKSON HIGHWAY—From Chicago to New Orleans, entering Louisiana over the Old Spanish Trail.
PERSHING HIGHWAY—Winnipeg, and through Louisiana to the Old Spanish Trail at Lafayette.
PELICAN HIGHWAY—West Louisiana and into Lake Charles over the Old Spanish Trail.
HIGHWAY down east Texas connecting into Orange, Beaumont and Port Arthur.
KING OF TRAILS—Winnipeg, and thru central Texas to Houston, and to San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
MERIDIAN HIGHWAY — Winnipeg, and thru central Texas to San Antonio, Laredo and Mexico.
TRAVEL AND HISTORY LOG By the Automobile Club of Southern California,
Los Angeles, California
The most interesting travel log ever published has just been issued by this great California Club covering the Old Spanish Trail from St. Augustine to San Diego. With each page of simple but complete map information is a corresponding page of history and description. Travelers will like it. OST members must keep work moving that this highway may be equal to the expanding interest in it.
Don S. Doig mapped the route and initiated the idea. Ernest McGaffey wrote the history lines.