The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-23
Oliver D. Street Writes In- teresting Letter to Jackson
 Highway Commission
HIS ROUTE IS STILL
 PLAINLY TRACEABLE
To Build Road Through Mississippi and Call It Jackson's Would Be ~ Misnomer, He Declares.
 Should Be Coffee Highway

Oliver D. Street of Guntersville. former United States district attorney. has writ ten letter to the Jackson Highway com | mission in Nashville pointing out that the only route General Jackson ever used was that through Fayetteville. Tenn, Hunts vile, Guntersvlle and Birmingham. Mir. Streets letter Is very interesting and is as folows;
 Letter to Commission
 Birmingham. Ala, September 22, 19l5 Jackson Highway Commission, Nash ville Tenn.
 Dear Sirs: Historically there can be
 but one proper route for an Andrew Jackson highway That is from Nashville | by way of Fayetteville, Tenn, Huntsville. Guntersvilie and Birmignham. This is the route followed by Jackson in the Creek war, which gave to the public do- main more than half the state of Alabama and much of Georgia and Florida; which rendered possible the defense of Mobile | and the capture by Jackson of Pensacola. Jackson's great victory at New Orleans
 could not have been won but for the sue
 cessful Creek war. Jackson's achieve
 ments in these two campaigns served to
 relieve one of the gloomiest periods in the
 history of the United States. not even ex- cepting the civil war period.
 Our armies had been defeated by the | British on nearly every field, almost the
 entire north had been overrun. The l Hartford convention was threatening se- cession. Only the south remained to be conquered. The uprising of the Creeks was to be the beginning of this conquest 1 At the same time England, relieved of many of her most pressing difficulties at l home, was preparing to send for the at | tack on the gulf coast nearly 100 of her
 finest ships and 2O,000 of her best sailors | and soldiers, veterans who had fought
 under Nelson and Wellington.
 l '.It was to meet these threatening forces | that General Jackson In October 1913. set out on his historic march to the Creek country by the route above defined. Col. | A. s. Coyar. in his Life of Jackson. | says this was the beginning of the so- | called Jacksonian era in our history, which was to continue for more than 30
 years, and which we might say has not yet spent it's force.
 l Jackson himself never led an army to | the southern field of operations by any other route than the above. It was, and
 has remained to this day, dstinctively | 'Jacksons trace 1t is still plainly I Iifdctdbic thtod6hpdt iit>h oh ieS NO"A "
 It runs through the farm on which the writer was reared, and has for more
 than 100 years been a public highway
 Would Be Misnomer
 "To build a highway via Decatur, oI Tuscumba, or through Mississippi, and call it Andrew Jackson highway would be misnomer Such a highway might
 with the greatest propriety be called the | Gen. John Coffee highway because General Coffee did bring to General Jack
 sons assistance at Mobile and New Or leans 2s0O men by routes other than the one by Huntsville and Guntersville. Il is also true that General Jackson led back | from Natchez, Miss by a route leading through Mississippi, in defiance of the {, orders of the Secretary of War, his army which he had been ordered to disband | there. But no true admrer of Genera
 Jackson would desire to commemorate this fiasco in his career. rather than the epic beginning which the Creek war fl 1913 and ending with the battle of New Orleans in Janury, 1915.
 "Topographically, the route via Hunts
 ville Guntersville and Birmingham is tht correct one. The difference in distance i' slight and there are no serious obstacle. in the way. Building material of the bes quality is abundant and much of the WE, is natural chert bed. Every consdera ton favors this route. Respectfully, | "OLIVER D. STREET"