The Winslow mail., 1925-08-04
ROUTE OF THE
national. OLD
TR AILS MAY
FAVOR SOUTH

A dispatch in the albuquerque
Journal of last Friday states that
/ w. c. Lefebvre. state highway en-
/ gineer of Arizona. is in Washing
ton, and yesterday attended a con-
! ference of federal and state high
way engineers at which one of the
principal items to be discussed
was the rerouting of the National
Old Trails via Socorro, N. NJ, in
stead of following the right-of-way
OF the Santa Fe railway via Gal
lup, as at present
The dispatch stated that New
Mexico favors the present route
from Albuquerque to Holbrook via
! Gallup while Arizona is commit
ted to the HolbroOk- k-Springerville-
Socorro route, which lies south of
the line favored by New Mexico.
The dispatch further stated that
/ Mr.. Lefebvre will urge the south
route, on the contention that So
corro is the converging point of
roads both from the northeast and
the southeast, and that from So
cOrrO the motoriSt has a direct
route both to Ell Paso and through
Albuquerque to the midwest and
east. 1t will be urged, too, that
by leaving the National Old Trails
at Springerville, the tourist can
take the recently constructed Rice
Springerville highway to Miami
and Globe and Phoenix, in the
southern part of Arizona, and
thence by way of Yuma to Cali
fOrnia.
The dispatch states also that Mr..
Lefebvre will urge that the south
route from Holbrook to Albu-
querque does not materially in
crease the distance between those
two places. The north route is
eighty-four miles shorter
A wire to The Winslow Mail from
G. NJ Zander, secretary of state in
stitutions, disclaims any knowledge
of the move at the capital
Messages of protest were sent to
Washington by Williams, Flagstaff
and Winslow Commercial clubs,
against changing the route of the
National Old Trails.
The Miami Silver Belt, one of
the staunchest supporters for the
construction of the link between
Springerville and the southern
part of the state, in a recent news
dispatch, says:
when the Rice-Springerville
road is completed, the state of Ari-
Zona and the county of Gila will
receive back the money which they
have expended on it's construction
ten times over every year IN the
flood of dollars which will pour
into the communities benefited by
tourist traffic over this route.
There are in New Mexico and
Arizona two cities which are the
natural distributing points for
auto traffic. They are Albuquerque
and Phoenix. The Rice-Springer-
vile road is the short and logical
route between the two main dis
tributing points. 1t starts some
where and goes somewhere.
"The only completed route to the
COdSl 10 ny W dy VI II 10
not likely that any other route to
the California coast will be fin
ished for several years. The Rice
Springerville road is the long
missing link which will connect
transcontinental highways directly
with the Yuma route
The people of Needles are
10 oil hn
Needles Nugget last week con-
tanned the following front-page edi-
torial on tourist traffic being di-
verted to roads other than the
National Old Trails:
Tourists passing through Nee
dies from the east report that they
were told that gas stations are
sixty-five and seventy-five miles
apart that the water on the des-
ert is unfit to drink; that the heat
is so intense many cars have
caught fire. that the sand is so hot
it melts the tires, and that if one
gets off the road it is impossible
to get back on the highway
THAT the National Old Trails
highway is not carrying it's share
of the tourists this year that its
superiority over the southern route
should warrant is a fact that is
recognized by every business man
along it's route through Arizona,
New Mexico and California, and the
reason for this condition is due to
a well-organized campaign of the
interests along the southern route
that has been carried on for the
last two years, with the result that
the southern route by actual check
is getting 72 per cent of the west
bound tourists, while the National
Old Trails highway, much bet
ter road, just as scenic and short
er route to California, is by the
same authority, getting but % per
cent of the travel.
"The southern highway employs
a man who resides at Los Lunas,
N. M, the junction point of the
two highways, whose sole business
it is to proclaim the advantages OF
the southern highway, and by the
same token, perhaps, to misrepre-
sent, if not by actual word of
mouth, at least by inference, condi-
~, Doora Turn