The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-02-25
HAS BEEN Revived
Old Time Hospitality Brought
Back by the Automobile.
Is Now Chief Mode of Travel on
Long Trips.
WELCOMED At CAMP GROUND
During 1921 Season 1,4OOl
Parties Entertained Here.
Free Water, Electric Light and
Stoves Are Furnished.
AT CAMP GROUND
BY VERNON E. BUNDY.

BY VERNON f. BUND4.
The automobile stands accused,
with more or less justice, of many
evil things, such as the iconoclastic
smashing of traditions. and customs
and all that sort of thing.
PitifuI pictures have been drawn of
the passing of that faithful friend of
man. the horse, and the stimulation
of travel and living conditions to the
point where there is no longer the
time for social enjoyment, restful
drives thru the country, and the like.
But there is an old time virtue
which had nearly died out, which the
automobile has revived, and that is
hospitality.
In the old days when one travelled
by prairie schooner or on horseback,
in the big open spaces Of the west,
the traveller was welcome to make
his home where nightfall found him.
Every homestead was a camp ground,
every roadside grove was a hotel
Then came the railroads. Travel
for long distance over the continent,
was altogether by rail, for many
years. 1t had the advantage of be-
ing more rapid, but it resulted in a
decrease in the western hospitality
which was never experienced except
where movement was slow and men
lived close to nature.
Transcontinental trips were under
taken before the railroads pushed
their steel tracks across the Great
American desert, and along well
known and defined trails, in creaking
oX-drawn or horse drawn wagons, the
pioneers, the settlers and traders of
the early day, made their way 1t
was an event in the lives of the home
traders along their trails, when a wag-
on train, or even a single group of
emigrants, halted for the night or for
two or three days.
Hospitality Vas Lost.
The railroads abolished this No
MAIDS became objects of suspicion and
were unwelccme. Gypsies and unde-
sirableS were the only persons to
travel across country by wagon. Hos
pitality to the p-;sserby became lost
art.
Then that iconoclast, the automo-
bile, rose Up. For a while it was the
plaything of the man in the city. Its
cruising radius was confined to the
paved streets and the coed roads.
1t was improved and developed, till
it became the premier cross country
means of transportation of the coun-
ty. Automobiles carry, annually,
more people across the continent than
had crossed it in ell the years before
railroads made a transcontinental trip
a possibility in less than a years
travel
<all0 liio TIE
part of the prairie schooner and the
ox-wagon in mobility, following the
same conditions as regarded accom-
mediation, was at once a step far for
ward, and "throw-back.'
Once more nomads followed the
roads across the country. Once more
they camped at night, where the set
ting sun failed them. Once more the
rate of their progress was measured
by the condition of the roads and the
reliability and power of their own We
hicles.
They Prefer Automobiles.
Cross country automobile touring
began to attract the eminently de-
sirable. People who could afford to
travel by rail preferred to travel by
automobile. No ''undesirables'' they.
And hospitality in the west has
been revived. No longer is the man
who finds himself far from a town at
the end of the days travel, perturbed.
He is welcome to camp by the side of
the road, just as the pioneers of the
early days were welcome. And so he
does camp.
He outnumbers the pioneers. There
are hundreds of motor tourists today,
for every single pioneer who roamed
the country in the early day.
The hospitality which the touring
automobile has brought back to life
must be on a scale never contemplated
in pioneering days.
Many Free Camp Grounds.
1t has been revived On that scale
City after city has provide free