Ogden Daily Standard | 1917-04-14 | Page 17 | Spirited Rivalry in Promoting Main Roads

SPIRITED RIVALRY IN PROMOTING MAIN ROADS "Giving individual names to our most traveled highways, and identi-1 fying them the greater part or all of their length by some quickly-recognized and easily-followed symbol or color, is a practice which is making remarkable progress throughout tho United Statos," says Robert Bruce, writing on the subject of named and marked automobile highways. In the current number of American Motorist. "This," he continues, "Is duo largely to popular recognition of tho increased in-creased travel by automobile, the multiplied mul-tiplied distance that can be covered In a unit of time aa compared with other methods of transportation In tho dayB of fragmentary and detached roadways, and-the-competltlon among- enterprising communities to be 'on well-known lines of travel." Mr. Bruce names the National Road, Lincoln Highway, Mohawk Trail, Dixie IHghway, River-to-River Road, Pike's Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, Meridian Road, Yellowstone Trail, Jackson Military Highway, and Midland Mid-land Trail as a random selection to illustrate tho accepted names of Important Im-portant through roads, and then ho goes on to tell of tho spirited rivalry existing between somo of the groat highways. "The rivalry between the central route, or Lincoln Highway, and the southern route, or National Old Trails road has come to bo particularly splr. ited, he says, "At Big Springs, Neb., there has been erected a signboard ten feet high and twenty feet wide. Upon this Is drawn a map of the entire surrounding country; supplemented supple-mented with explanatory reading mat-tor. mat-tor. Both tho reading and the outline out-line map are meant to impress i-e tourist with tho fact that ho may here leave tho central route, go down through Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo to Trinidad, connecting there with the 'all year route to California via tho Grand Canyon. Yet Trinidad, the nearest point on tho Old Trails route, Is over 300 miles from the big signboard on the Lincoln Highway!" After discussing the competitive features of the signboards of the Middle Mid-dle WeBt, Mr. Bruce, remarks: "Truly there Is nothing left of the old frontier; even Jts romance and traditions are rapidly fading from the memory of living men."