The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-07-09

from town to town, which probably
would double the foregoing figures.
1t would be a pretty difficult thing
to estimate the publicity value in dol
lars and cents that has accrued to
Missouri through having nearly $500
state tourists pass through its best
farming section each year. But here
are some real figures. II we estimate
that each car carried three persons,
that each person spent an average of
five dollars a day for hotel fare and
garage facilities, and that il required
an average of two days to cross the
state (3Ol miles) at leisure travel, We
can say with certainty that the towns
and cities along the road gained ap-
proximately seventy-Gve thousand dol
lars a year because of the cross-state
highway.
According to the State Auditors fig
ures. there were about 125 automobiles
owned by farmers and in the smaller
towns along the road when the high
way was planned in 1911. In 1912, one
hundred and fifty more were purchased
and in 1913 and up to April Is this
year, $50 more had been purchased,
making the total number of automo,
biles owned along the route from st.
Louis to Kansas City, and not count
ing these cities, 625 cars. These run,
of course, all the way from the six
hundred-dollar runabout to the more
expensive makes of cars, and nearly
half of these were purchased by farm
ers Who have responded to the allure
ments of a good road as readily as the
citizens of the smaller towns.
Now, something about the road it
self. The inspiration for a Missouri
cross-state highway came with the
agitation for a national highway in
1911. The Missouri link in this road
was established by the State Board of
Agriculture in the same year. 1t is
known as the Old Trails Road, due to
ITO DNlllS lliN tOhN' Va iiiN Oiu ~
and gold seekers in the period before
the Civil War. Most of it follows the
original trail of Daniel Boone into the
western wilderness, to Boone's Lick,
in Howard county, Missouri, where
Daniel Boone and his brother manu-
featured salt from the salt springs, and
fnatad IL doWD tho MicCpuri River
to st. Louis in fiat boats and hollow
logs. From Boone's Lick to Kansas
City, it follows the Old Santa Fe trail,
and thence on through Kansas, New
Mexico. and Arizona to Los Angeles,
California. The eastern end of the
road starts at Cumberland, Maryland.
and from there it follows the old trail
of wagon travel to st. Louis.
But enough of h~istory-for this is an
: account of modern development. When
the route was first indicated through
Missouri, less than one-fourth of the
was was permanent rock road. Today
more than three-fourths of it is per-
manent road, and the dirt roads are
in excellent crowned condition and fit
for travel, except in the worst OF
weather. More than five hundred
stone, concrete, or corrugated iron cul-
verts have been built along these three
, hundred and one miles of travel since
A.. the road was first mapped out. The
D-.lA--. " ooa1 Daxy1r;an
| with legislative assistance, have mark
ed every mile with a granite boulder.
, Practically every telephone post along
the way has been marked with the red
white and blue insignia of the National
. Old Trails Road Association. and every
corner has a %signpost, pointing the
way.
, Now for the figures you have been
O waiting for. The increase in the value
:, of the real estate adjoining the road,
and these are the most difficult to OBJ
tain. Many optimistic real estate men
, place the increase at fifteen dollars
\ an acre in the last three years since
the TOdu Sldl leu. JuuSe JOHu ~ mar
o ston, ore of the most ardent road ad-
~vocates and a prominent farmer of
l. Howard county, Missouri, said the in
, crease in the value OF farm land for
o the three years had been at least ten
dollars an acre. If W. accept
his figures, the increase in the value
h of farm land along the road since it
O was started is in excess of three mil
lion dollars. The acreage along the
I road is about three hundred and eighty
n five thousand.
o Certainly these figures should be suf-
v icient to convince any Of the most
skeptical that it pays to build a good
v road-and~ especially a cross-state high
n way.
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