Mexico weekly ledger., 1917-03-29
ROAD MADE COUNTY
OVER A HALF MILLION
A $4,000 Investment on a Through
Highway by Kentucky Com
munity Returned Tenfold
SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
Actual Story From Elizabethtown,
KY, Should be Needed in Au-
drain Co. and Mexico

ELIzABETHTowN, KY, March %.
= A return of " million dollars on
an investment of $4,000 is the answer
Hardin county can give to other coun-
ties along the Dixie Highway or any
through national thoroughfare to the
query, "Does the construction of
through highways pay2" The finan-
cial profit is definite and is fully real
lied by every citizen of the county.
Residents of the county are also ap-
preciative of the further value in
the construction of forty miles of the
Dixie Highway through the county in
that they can travel in ease and COM
fort in any weather to market, to
church and to amusements with GER
tainty that the journey there and
back again will not be barricaded by
mud holes produced by few hours
rain.
Of the u million dollars of profit
from the construction Of the Dixie
Highway through the county at least
$21 900 is traceable to new money left
by the tourist. A count was kept Of
the cars bearing license tags of
other states than that Of Kentucky
which furnished the basis for a con-
servative estimate that in the seven
months of the touring season of 1916,
twenty one thousand foreign cars
travelled over the Dixie Highway
through the county. Although each
car averaged four tourists, making
total of $4,000 visitors, the estimate
of the money these tourists left in the
county has been placed at the small
amount of twenty-five cents each.
The proprietors of the hotels and gar
ages of Elizabethtown, the county
seat, say this estimate is too low.
1t is an accepted fact in Hardin
county that every farm in the county
along the Dixie Highway has increas-
ed in value more than $40 an acre.
There are approximately two hundred
and forty farms which have as much
as 1000 feet Of frontage on the high
way on either side. These farms alone
will average 200 acres If extended
back distance of one mile, and a farm
is comparatively situated if it is with
in the distance of two miles of first
class turnpike, so this statement is
entirely reasonable. Then the in
creased value of all these farms in
Hardin county in the last two years
is more than $4S0,O00. The entire
county is benefited its proportional
part of the increased wealth.
No consideration is taken of the
saving to the farmers in cost of trans
portation of their products to market.
Two years ago it was an all day trip
in motor car from Elizabethtown to
Louisville, a distance of forty-five
miles. Neither does it consider the
increase in real estate values and in
business to Elizabethtown. Two
years ago Elizabethtown had one ho-
tel catering only to commercial trade.
Today there are two excellent hos
telries doing a flourishing tourist
business and featuring in the balmy
days of spring, summer and fall,
chicken dinners which bring thous-
ands of motorists from Louisville.
The value in dollars and cents to
Elizabethtown and Hardin county of
the construction of the Dixie High
way does not measure the pleasure
which the highway affords in enabl-
ing the citizens of the county to mo-
tor into Louisgille and attend the
theatre or concert and return the
same night, which was an impossi-
bility before the highway was con-
structed.