The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1915-06-06

Da-S VI ict~
1912, there was a tri-state meeting-In-
diana. Kentucky and Tennessee-of good
road enthusiasts which formed lakes
to-the-gulf association with Hon. PEN
dleton Beckley of Louisville as president
and Mr.. II. i. Ramsay secretary, and
adopted the route through Kentucky that
had been given to the Alabama Daugh-
tiers of 1872. We started out to keep
politics and sectionalism out of our work.
think Ike won on that. Here is a let
ter from the secretary of the "Lakes-to-
the-Gulf Good Road Association:
- Iakes-to-the-Gulf Good Roads Asso-
citation. 1926 Henry Watterson Hotel, Sep
TENDER 10, 1913
!" Miss Alma Rittenberry, Birmingham,
Ala.
Dear Miss Alma Wonder If 1t would
be safe for me to ask you for the route
of the jackson highway from Nashville
to the coast?
Mr.. Beckley. of our lakes-to-gulf
highway, has spent the last month with
the officials of the new Lincoln High
way association, or coast-to-coast route
at Detroit, and with Mr.. Charles Henry
Davis of the National Highways assoeia-
ton at Boston, and they have asked him
to submit route from Detroit to the
coast which they would show in their
maps
We have furnished them with the
details of a survey from Indianapolis to
Nashville, showing all grades, elevation
streams, and all the details, but We are
not financially able to send a corps OF
surveyors over the rest of the route to
get that In like condition. Therefore
am writing you to know If you can fur
nish me with any maps, routes ETC., OF
the Jackson highway.
" of course, / know that the fight be-
tween US has been about the name of
the road. To you it must be the Jack
son way; to me a rose under any other
name would be as sweet; and If we can
get Gen. Coleman DUPONT and his crowd
plugging for our road, l would like to
do it. All I want to see is the road built
then we will be chivalrous enough to call
1t by any name that the ladies-the
Daughters of 1S12-may desire.
" I have tried to get maps of Ala.
bama roads from Mendenhall. Scarbor-
ough. ETC.. but have been unable to do so,
therefore, l am appealing to you.
" Please give me the names of the
towns through which the jackson way
passes. and if possible, map.
How are you and southern good roads
prospecting? Sincerely yours,
III. L. RAMSEY
Now, really, don't you think this gives
us the right of way? And you don't know
the persistence and the steadfastnass of
the Daughters of 1872 If you think we
are going to give one inch of our high
way, the Jackson highway, to the pro-
posed route of the Dixie highway Most
of the daughters who have done the
work in the interest of the Jackson high
way are Daughters of the Confederacy
but they are loyal Daughter sof 1872, and
stand first and last to the memory of
Old Hickory
What about Tennessee? oh, we'll. we
will not discuss Tennessee. The Ladies'
Hermitage association will stand by US
in the Jackson highway work The
old Louisville and Nashville turnpike
will be the Jackson highway and we
know the people in Tennessee honor
the memory of Andrew Jackson. Col
A. M. Shook, Nashville's Dixie high
way delegate to the Chattanooga con-
ference, won't fight u.s. I'm sure, and
while Governor Rye has gone a little
bit awry on the proposition we don't
fear him, but trust he will hew to the
line of straight old Andrew Jackson
democracy and win back to Tennessee
her former political prestige.
South of the Tennessee river we
are all right. The highway is prac-
tically built from the river through
Birmingham and Montgomery to Selma
and the Mobile end of the line will be
worked UP this summer and fall on to
New Orleans.
LAS you well know. the Jackson high
way was launched May 25, 1911, in Bir-
mingham by a committee representing
the Daughters of 1912 at a good roads
convention. The purpose of the COM
mittee has been to stimulate interest
in the Jackson highway as monu-
ment to Andrew Jackson to connect
the lakes to the gulf in a commercial
way, bringing the northand the south
into more neighborly relations, to adj
vocate and by example push a policy
f.f a1r ff@v% - 81 sx,&-
in the city and in the country; to rar-
ticularly show the coming generation
the value of roads as monuments
to keep away from politics and sec
tionalism In the plan of building from
county to county. state to state We
are in perfect accord with the ideas of
the director of public roads, who says
that 1T is not only my hope. but be-
lief. that every state will eventually
adopt system the most important es-
sential of which will be the trunk line
road supplemented by intercommuni-
eating roads, in which graduated
system of state control will be exer-
cised and which will receive state aid
according to their Importance.
"The Jackson highway is the trunk
line road through the states from Chi.
cago to Mobile on to New Orleans.
And our committee in its earnest
efforts in behalf of the Jackson high
way was equally pledged to work to
get the convicts out of the mines and
placed on the public roads.
I'VE are not only advocates of good
roads, but we are advocates of county
bond issues to build and maintain them
for good roads are avenues of progress,
the best proof of intelligence; they aid
the social and religious advancement
of the people; they increase the value
of products they save time, labor and
money: they are the initial sources of
commerce which swell in great streams
and flow everywhere. distributing the
products of our fields, forests and fac
tories; the highway of the common
products of the country. Their benefits
Ito H., al nd al oh