Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1910-03-18
LAYING OUT
AUTO ROAD To
The STATE Line

What will eventually mean the
construction of better roads leading
from Salem to Portland on the north
and to the line between California
and oregon on the south. is the ac-
ton now being taken by the Port
land Auto club and the State Autl ,
association in establishing an auto
mobile tourist route from Portland
to the extreme southern boundaries
of California, over which thousands
of tourists will pass coming from
the big coast cities and sightseers
from the east will take advantage
of the opportunity of seeing the
grand oregon and California seen
cry from an auto, which cannot be
seen from the cars
G.. 4. Beck, "Pathfnder."
With Civil Engineer Frank and
an expert auto driver H. r. Glenn,
g. F. Beck, an agent sent out by the
Portland Auto club, which is affiliat-
ed with the State Auto association,
arrived in this city today from Ger
vais, the nearest point north be-
tween here and Portland, where they
completed a permanent strip of auto
road Mr. Beck and his assistants
came up from Portland in a large
Locomobile machine and stopped
here in order to give the engineer
time in which to work on the maps
laying out the road.
Points Touched by New Route.
A Journal representative looked
over the maps and charts drawn up
by Engineer Frank since his arrival
here, and the towns touched by the
new auto route are set out. Leav.
ing Portland, the route runs to Os-
wego, a distance of s miles; then to
Oregon City and reaches Salem,
passing through New Era, Candy
Barlow, Aurora, Woodburn, Ger
vais and Chemawa. The auto guide
which will be compiled from Mr.
Beck's observations will give the eX-
act distances between the different
towns and the per cent of the grades
over which the route passes, as the
machine in which the paths are be-
ing found is. equipped with two
speedometers and other instruments
necessary to finding of exact rls-
tances, altitude, etc.
Waiting for Dry Weather.
AS soon as the roads become suf-
ficiently dry, Mr.. Beck will complete
the path-finding between Salem AMI
the boundary line of California AMI
Oregon, and then the route will be
laid out in book form. The party is
taking the opportunity OF criticising
some of the highways they have
passed over, among which is the
road between New Era and Barlow,
which they say is very bad and
should be repaired, if only for the
wagon traffic.
Mr. Beck Friend of Farmers.
what we wish to make plain,
said Mr.. Beck today, lis that auto
drivers must be more careful while
driving over the country roads, of
the rights of others. The State Auto
association and the Portland Auto
club are strictly opposed to an auto
'hogging the road VLen coming ii
contact with a horse and buggy
They should anyways take the precau-
tion to slow up, shut off the mufflers
and be very careful especially on d
narrow road. We do not approve
of an auto driver going by any team,
for that matter, without noticing
wnat may be the result should
horse take fright What we cham
pion. and it will come to be law in
the course of time, is that an auto
mobile' take no more privilege of the
road when meeting horse anr
buggy than would another man in
buggy"