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“The
peppiest bunch of good road enthusiasts ever assembled in southwestern Nebraska
is now within our gates—and they will not be denied their goal—a state-federal
highway from Canada to the Gulf, running more or less north-south through
McCook,” said the evening edition of the McCook Gazette.
It
was the May 10, 1926, when some 200 businessmen from South Dakota, Nebraska,
Kansas and Texas converged at the Keystone Hotel in McCook, Nebraska, to put
together the Great Plains Highway Association.
The
Good Roads Movement was in full swing and about to have its greatest success.
Local and national associations for decades had come together to create auto
trails that would connect their towns. It was an alliance between corporations
who had a vested interest in promoting car travel—automobile, tire, cement
manufacturers—and local businessmen who wanted the same. By 1923, Ford was
cranking out more than 2 million Model Ts per year. Motorists were clamoring
for better driving conditions.
Such
associations had been popping up everywhere. The Lincoln Highway was the first
transcontinental road. The Bankhead was the second, but took a more southerly
route.
Between
cities and small towns, there was little in the way of actual roads, just ruts
in the mud. Some of these associations made logos they put on signs to help
guide motorists. Many of the trails converged and associations competed to draw
motorists to their trails.
By 1926, there were some 250 named trails in the
United States. Many of them were aspirations—just lines on a map with no real
backing or improved roads.
The
Good Roads Movement’s ultimate goal was to cajole the federal government into
doing more to build highways. And in that, it had already succeeded by 1926.
The American Association of State Highway Officials, with the blessing of the
federal government, had already released its draft proposal of numbered
highways and their routes. The committee tasked with creating the new system had long decided to do away with
named auto trails. The descriptive, colorful names—the Dixie Highway, the Blue
Pole Highway, the Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway—would not be official
names.
The
final list would be released in November, and it would mark the beginning of the
state and federal partnership to standardize roads in America, the Good Roads
Movement’s ultimate goal. The logos would soon be replaced by the federal
shield sign still in use today.
That
was undoubtedly known by most of those attending, but it didn’t damper their
enthusiasm for a Great Plains, north-to-south highway. At that point, there were
no highways going north to south between Kansas City and Denver. The closest
was the Meridian Highway, which hugged the state lines to the east (present day
U.S. 81). McCook good road promoters had succeeded two decades ago helping to
develop the O.L.D (Omaha Lincoln Denver) trail across the bottom half of the
state. By 1926, it had expanded to the D.L.D., the Detroit-Lincoln-Denver
trail.
The
businessmen came together in the afternoon to adopt a constitution and bylaws
and to elect officers. The president would be Charles O. Woods of North Platte; vice
president, A.B. Whitney of Murdo, South Dakota and the secretary-treasurer was
V. Barbazette of McCook.
One
by one the attendees stood up to add their support to the growing chorus of
those who thought there needed to be a north-to-south road. When it came to
highways, the country was still following in the footsteps of the Conestoga
wagons on their east-to-west journeys. When the first draft of what would be
the federal highway was released in 1925, there were no north-south roads in
the middle of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. That could not
have sat well with the citizens of Minot, Bismarck, Pierre, North Platte,
McCook, Oberlin, Garden City and Liberal.
Connecting
the prairielands to the ports in South Texas was one of the new association’s
stated goals.
The
guest of honor at the meeting was Nebraska State Engineer Roy Cochran. Nebraska
had already put in place a taxation system that favored the sparsely populated
part of the state. Some $1.5 million had already been spent improving the road between
North Platte and McCook, he said. From North Platte to Valentine, the heart of
the foreboding Sand Hills, there was almost nothing, he said. The state was
bogged down in the sandy soil as the Blue Pole Highway— a Fremont to Chadron east-to-west
road—stretched westwards. Only 25 miles had been completed in two years in
Cherry County.
“The
construction difficulties and the expense is so great that the progress has
been quite slow,” Cochran said. The fact remained, that most commerce was still
moving east to west, he told the audience. Nevertheless, he endorsed the idea
of a north-to-south road as long as funding was available.
Some
of the largest contingents at the meeting had come from the Sand Hills—towns
such as Stapleton, Gandy, Tryon, Thedford and Brownlee—to lend their voices.
Forty of the delegates came from Stapleton alone. The Sandhillers were a
gloomy, pessimistic bunch, according to their dire warnings about road building
in the dunes. Years of trying to traverse them had no doubt left psychological
scars.
John
Turner of Thedford had been trying to develop an east-to-west “Potash Highway” (present day State
Highway 2) for years, but to no avail.
“If
you take a trip through the Sand Hills you will be surprised at [the] roads
because there are none,” he said. He warned about the terrible, shifting sands.
“For
God’s sake, give us a road,” he said.
A
Mr. Christensen of Valentine did his best to dispel his town’s Wild West reputation as he encouraged delegates to visit his fine city.
“We
don’t have so many saloons and not nearly so much gambling…We want you to come
up there fishing I will show you that if you come up there fishing you will get
some fish,” he said.
“When
I came down here today I was tired and a little bit discouraged until I saw all
these men and I am very much enthused about this road and I am going back to
Valentine very glad I came down.”
A
Valentine to North Platte road tentatively called the Kinkaid Highway had been
proposed a decade earlier, but nothing came of that effort, either.
The
Keystone Hotel — only two years old at that time — served more than 600 meals
that day. After the meeting adjourned, the McCook High School Boys Band under
the direction of Leo Kelly provided entertainment in the afternoon.
At
the packed banquet room that evening, a trio of Robert Boles on flute, Charles
McCarl on the violin and singer Miss Lucile Hiler, provided the music.
After
the meal was served, the constitution and bylaws were formally adopted. The
terminal points would be Regina, Saskatchewan, and Mexico City, Mexico.
There
were no delegates from Canada or North Dakota noted in the reports of the
meeting. John McCurdy from Sweetwater, Texas, had traveled the longest distance
to be there at 900 miles.
The
meeting ended on a high note, with a great deal of enthusiasm and optimism. But
the fact of the matter is that by May 10, 1926, the end was near for the auto
trails. The federal highway system final draft released only five months after the establishment of the association would show the beginnings of
Highway 83 from just east of Bismarck down to Pierre, South Dakota.
The
association in about 1929 published a map of the final route from Regina to
Laredo. It would more or less
follow present day U.S. 83 from Minot to Abilene, Texas. Eventually, a U.S.
Canada Highway 83 Association would emerge.
As
for those poor Sandhillers, it would be more than a generation before a dependable
road would cut through the dunes. The last part of Highway 83 to be paved was
from Thedford to Stapleton in September 1959.
Sources: McCook Gazette, May 10, 1926 and May 12, 1926 editions.
Stew Magnuson is the author of The Last American Highway: A Journey Through Time Down U.S. Route 83: The Dakotas,
available at Amazon.com and bookstores and gift shops along Highway 83. And The Last American Highway: Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma edition to be released Feb. 9.
To join the
Fans of U.S. Route 83 group on Facebook, CLICK
HERE. And check out the U.S. Route 83 Travel page at www.usroute83.com. Contact Stew Magnuson at stewmag (a) yahoo.com
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