Life at Camp Funston

A Look at the Highways in 1918

I received an email from Brian Tucker of Frederick, Maryland (one of the stops on the route my Dad took to Baltimore.) He shared the following information:

"Old National Pike, what is now I-70, is certainly the road your father traveled on his trips to Baltimore. My grandfather, 1909-1993, lived all his life right beside Old National Pike...One of the oldest stories my grandfather would tell was when he used to pasture the family cows right in the middle of Old National Pike in the late teens and early 1920's...The reason he pastured the cows on the road was to keep the grass down, as there was so little traffic in those days. I'd say just from that, it is likely my grandfather drove the cows out of your father's trucks way."

In mid 1919 the Army initiated the first of two transcontinental convoys. The purpose was two-fold: to test recently developed trucks (some of which had been developed too late to actually use in the war), and to see if the juggernaut that had brought the Axis powers to defeat could actually traverse its own country. One of the observers along on that trip was a young lieutenant colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1919 Transcontinental Convoy recounts how the experience left an indelible mark on Eisenhower, who, 30 years later, became the architect for today's Interstate Highway system.

The US Army Signal Corps shot movie film of the trip, and the description of the film at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. is rather telling.

"On the Army transcontinental trip In 1919. Reel 1, Sec. of War Baker and Rep. Julius Kahn dedicate the Zero Milestone In Washington, D.C. Trucks leave Camp Meigs, Md.; cross the Juniata River at Chambersburg, Pa.; climb the Blue Ridge Mts.; pass through East Palestine, Ohio; and traverse the Lincoln Highway in Ill. and Ind. An overturned truck is righted near Fulton, Ill. The Mississippi is crossed at Clinton, Iowa. Trucks are pulled from mud in Nebraska. Reel 2, trucks are winched from quicksand near North Platte, Neb. The Continental Divide Is crossed In Wyoming. Trucks pass through alkali dust in Wyo. A truck breaks through a wooden bridge and is extricated. The convoy departs from Fort Bridger, Wyo., and halts for a meal in Utah. Sagebrush is chopped and used to fill wheel ruts in the alkali road bed. Reel 3, the Great Salt Lake Desert is entered at Granite Point, Utah. A meal is prepared in the trailmobile kitchen. Trucks are pulled through wet sand in Nevada, climb the Sierra Nevadas, stop in Kybury, Calif., for dinner, parade through Sacramento, and ride from Oakland to San Francisco on ferries. (Editor's Note: It would be twenty more years before they could take the The Oakland Bay Bridge.) Mayor Rolph greets Army officials."

"From Dense Ignorance and Otherwise" is a rather humorous look at what it terms the "100 year war with Europe" over highway bragging rights. It has some impressive pictures of cloverleaf exchanges that existed in Europe in the 1930s.

James Lin, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at CalTech, has a treasure trove of historical information online regarding The Lincoln Highway, the first major effort at building a continuous highway across the United States.

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