Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1910-07-10
MAKES TRIP OVER
EARLY WIRE ROAD
Under Three Flags Car. Finds
Once Famous Highway Ex-
lists Only in Spots
NATIONAL WAYS IN BAD SHAPE
Districts in the Ozark Mountains
Never Before Saw an
Automobile
NATIONAL WAYS IN BAD SHAPE

For about a week the Flanders 2O
Under Three Flags automobile has been
engaged in testing the merits of two
famous national, highways, built in
the days when the country was new
and transportation of families ana
household effects by wagon was the
standard method. Away back in Can
ada the crew began hearing about the
great national road, built by the gov
eminent of the United States from
Pittsburg to St. Louis. 1t was said
to be simply a dream. The tourists
began to look forward to it as sort
of aviation arena.
More was heard about the road in
Detroit and Toledo. But as the car
approached it at the rate of 100 miles
a day, over the excellent gravel of
Ohio nd Indiana, the enthusiasm OF
the road experts seemed to Wane.
When the road was actually encoun-
tered on the run between indianapolis
and ST Louis it was found to be only
a very poorly kept up highway, spots
of gravel alternating with sand and
clay Nearing st. Louis, it was in
such shape that, had the weather been
wet, 1t would have been well nigh
impossible.
THE WIRE ROAD"
But once into st. Louis there
stretched ahead, somewhere in the
west, that historic highway over which
passed the hundreds of thousands of
emigrants who, fifty years ago, began
streaming toward the setting sun to
people the great domain beyond. The
old "wire road" they called 1t in st.
Louis, because the government had
followed it's establishment by mkaing
it the route of the first telegraph line
which penetrated the southwest. Just
where it began and how 1t could be
reached was something regarding
which st. Louis was a bit vague. In
fact, nobody could be found who had
ever travelled it in an automobile or
otherwise. No road map was avail
able, either.
The tourists left st. Louis one after
noon about o'clock by the best street
available and Bruske showed Mem
Finger the setting sun.
"There she is George, chase it," was
the only road direction at hand.
Somewhere out there is the old
Springfield road; we want to find It,.
The car made sixty miles to Union
that night and there was found a liv-
erynan who had been over the road
as far S Arlington several years be-
fore. On his information the tourists
entered the Ozarks. At Sullivan the
road began to grow very rough. At
Rolla the steep hills began to appear.
At Arlington and Jerome a motor car
had never been seen and cliffs, ruts,
stumps and washouts formed incessant
road perils, while the climbing in some
places would have puzzled anything
less active than a squirrel. At Dixon
it was farewell to bridges. At Leb-
anon nobody could be found who
knew a practicable route to Sleeper,
the next town. And always the creeks
grew deeper, the hills sleeper and the
rocks bigger. Mountain families heard
of the approach of the car and herded
indoors, terror-stricken. Road direc-
tions were limited to the old govern
ment telegraph line. which still re-
mains, the monument of the once IA
nous highway. These conditions pre-
vailed to within a dozen miles of
Springfield.
ONLY POLES REMAIN
The old "wire road is a thing of the
past. Where it has not been fenced
in as a part of a neighboring farm it
has been so washed out by the rains
of the years that there no longer re-
mains any cushion whatever for the
bedrock that forms the basic material
for the whole country. Often it has
grown up to brush and wide detours