Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-01-14

Az GTdVeI Oy motor car across
Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Neb-
raska, those great farm states
where much of the wealth of the
nation originates, during or just
after a heavy rain, is to all in
tents and purposes impossible. II
it rains you stop where you are,
or. in the nearest town you are
lucky enough to reach, until il
stops raining and the roads have
dried off and been against dragged
to that boulevard smoothness
which characterizes the Lincoln
Highway in dry weather. That
is, If you are on a pleasure trip
you stop. If you are accustomed
to hardships and are making a
business of getting through, as l
was this year, you may 60 on,
making perhaps twenty five miles
day with prodigious expenditure
Of gasoline and effort, driving
eighteen hours out of the twenty
four, constantly sunk to the run
ming boards in a mud called gum
bo, which is unknown to our East,
and which has been characterized
as being eighty per cent pure glue.
You can 60 on, wet, cold, sleeping
when you can in bitches or where
ever you may happen to be stuck
when night falls, eating when you
4 can of anything eatible procura-
Sble at luncheon counters or med
'iocre restaurants, and subjecting
your Car to usage which ordi-
nary driving would not give it in
years.
There are not many people who
will do this. In fact, during the
terrible rains of late May and ear
" June Oh this year, all across the
Middle West, our party was prac-
gicaliy the only one in motion, and
[ w's not primarily on pleasure
"trip.
Yet the Lincoln Highway is
bringing better accommodations
along with better road conditions.
Increase in tourist traffic alone
aarTAnts the proIlietors along
main routes of travel in bettering
the conditions. With any luck,
you can sleep in a bed every night
OF your journey between New
! York and San Francisco, but you
must not be srr eamish if you want
to do it. Two years ago the trans
continental driver prepared to
camp out every night after he got
west Of Omaha, Nebraska.
The change in conditions is
shown by one typical instance.
h Far out on the edge of the Great
Salt Desert south of Great Salt
Lake, where the Lincoln Highway
clips cautious edge from the
American Sahara, stands one of
those ancient stone structures
built as station for the pony ex-
press riders back in the days i'm
mortalized by Bret Harte and
Remington. The old transcon-
tinental trail is dotted with these
relics of day when mail was re-
layed by daring riders and sweat
ing ponies from st. Joseph to the
Golden Gate. Every ten miles of
the western journey brings to light
one of these crumbling stone huts.
TT one at Fish Springs, Utah,
differs in that it has been contin,
uously occupied and kept in re-
pair since 1853. 1t is now own
ed, and has been forty years, by a
! character as typical of the old
West as the building he occupies.
Fish Springs, Utah. consists of J.
J. Thomas ranch. j. j. Thomas
has lived on this ranch, surround
ed by salt flats and plains of vol
canic dust and rock, for fifty years,
and he is as hale and hearty today
as in the days when Horace Gree
sey stopped when following his
own memorable axiom, "Go west,
young man, go west" Here the
greatest and least have stopped
and supped on their way across
the desert; here Mark Twain par.
took of the same fried eggs and
good white bread, teamed then, as
now. 50 miles across the desert be,
hind ten dusty mules. }. }.
Thomas has seen the evolution of
the West as no man has. All must
stop at his hospitable gate.
What has the Lincoln Highway
done for Thomas9 Ask him and
! he will show you careful records
kwhich reduce to the simplest terms
I ahe development which is taking
IAnlace in like measure along 3,4OO
of road. Read the penciled
figures in the big account book.
i Cars passing in June, 1882.
Y Cars passing in June, 1915-225.
4 An increase of over 400 per cent
/ in two years. -.