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Show COLORADO WORKING ON 10L10 TRAIL Highway Greatly Improved in Glenwood Canyon; Grades Reduced. GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo., July 8. "It is the greatest piece of road work, ever attempted in the state of Colorado and, when completed, will prove one of tho finest scenic drives in the Rocky mountain region.'' Thus spoke Hon. Thomas Tynan, warden of the Colorado penitentiary, upon a recent visit to the road work in Glenwood canon, east of Glenwood Springs, and hicdi reaches from the lava beds of Dotsero to the boiling springs in Glenwood Springs, one of the greatest health and pleasure resorts on the Midland Trail. Giant cliffs are crumbling; steep grades are disappearing; sharp curves are being eliminated and the old Taylor Tay-lor State road is being replaced by a sixteen-foot highway which ranks wrell up with the most celebrated mountain highway in the ' world. Colorado convicts con-victs are mastering obstacles in road making and no expense is being spared to make a permanent highway. It was over this road and through this canyon that the 'first trans-continental auto journey was made. "The Taylor State road had just been completed, but, as men looked upon the first auto, they shook their heads and predicted pre-dicted that the time would never come when such vehicles would be used to any great extent in journeys which called for crossing the mountain regions. But the time lias come and each summer sum-mer finds hundreds of autos following the Midland Trail across the continent. Colorado convicts have been employed em-ployed on this canyon section of the Midland Mid-land Trail for nearly one year and they have almost finished the surfacing of the first five miles of the road. At no point is the road less than sixteen feet wide, while for a great part of the distance dis-tance completed the highway is fully twenty-two feet wide and the best possible pos-sible "grade has been maintained. To do this, thousands of pounds of high explosives have been used; the only steam shovel ever employed on a Colorado Colo-rado highway has been tossing aside rocks and debris which would require from three to four hundred men to handle han-dle in the same time; monster cliffs have been blasted away only to leave others which tower to a greater height; great trees which have withstood the storms of ages have been felled to allow al-low straightening of the curves; wheelbarrows, wheel-barrows, dump carts, picks and shovels, steam and air drills, scrapers and other implements and tynes of machinery have been brought into play and the work has gone forward with rapid strides considering the character of the country coun-try through which the hitrhwav is being built. Nor is there a more beautiful piece of scenic highway along the Midland Trail than is to be found on this fifteen miles of Glenwood canyon. Cliffs rise abruptly to a height of from 1000 to : l.i 00 feet above the highway which 1 skirts the north bank of the Grand river, while on the opposite shore of this stream is the D. & R. G. railway; deep gulches and monster canyons brea k , through the mountain range and give variety to the ever chanin scenery ; j streams rush down the mountains and j across the highway, affording ample protection pro-tection to radiator and to human thirst, while speckled trout lurk in the shadows of the water-lashed rocks and give sport to the angler. Another year and possibly two more years will be required to complete this "section of the Midland Trail under present pres-ent plans but, when completed, it will prove one of the greatest reasons why all touring autoists should follow the Midland Trail as they cross L'ncle Sam's countrv from coast to coast. |