Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1931-03-26
CONGRESSMAN DOWELL DIS
CUSSES HIGHWAYS IN WASH
INGTON'S DAY AND TODAY


c. c. Dowel of Iowa, IF he could re-
turn today and see what modern en-
gineering has done to provide this
country with a system of roads Con-
gresham Dowell is himself chairman
of the House Committee on Roads, and
takes immense pride in the nations
effort to provide itself with perhaps the
greatest highway network ever built
according to the Division of Inforna-
ton and Publication of the George
Washington Bicentennial Commission.
Washington, himself a tireless trav-
eler.' continued Congressman Dowell,
early saw the necessity of roads, and
throughout his life encouraged i'm
provement of these indispensable means
to the country's growth. His pleasure
in what we of today have accomplished
would be all the greater because in his
time road-building had to languish and
struggle The earliest Colonists were
entirely too busy fighting Indians and
clearing the wilderness to think OF
clearing permanent highways. The only
means of reaching out from their lit
tie settlements were the trails of the
Indians.
During the Revolution, Washington
often found rough and backward roads
one of his military difficulties. and the
strain of the war left the struggling
nation neither time nor money for
road improvement Today we have
every resource of modern engineering
to aid us in time when nothing inn
pedes us in realizing a long-recopnized
need-the need of ready conmunica-
ton in the development of the nation.
/ am sure that what we have accom-
plished would amaze Washington as
much as it would delight him.
"As one of the best-inforrned men
of his time, alert to every fact in the
1 growth of the country about him.
Washington must have borne with pa
tience the backward state of young
Americas roads Blazing the first prim-
tive openings through the forest had
been slow and arduous task. Soon
after 1920, five centers Of colonial
ton began throwing out rude paths.
These were Massachusetts. the Con-
necticut River and Long Island re-
gions, the territory round the mouth
Of the Hudson, and about Delaware
and Chesapeake Bays. But these were
hardly more than bride paths.
For years white settlements were
Il confined to a strip Of territory $50
miles wide along the Atlantic sea-
coast, blocked off on the west BY the
impenetrable Alleghenies. Travel then
was by horseback only and in gen,
erallv north-and- line Yet it
! was Just this primitive travel that
gradually heightened and established
what we have now perpetuated as
Route l, from Boston to Baltimore,
the first real main highway in tho
United States, muddy and dusty
trail in time to be rutted by the ia
nous Connestoga Wagon
in time the barrier Of the Alleghen-
les came to be penetrated by Gen.
Forbes, TIM by Braddock, and later
by Daniel Boone-familiar to Wash
ington in his earliest campaigns into
Western Pennsylvania. But in 1892, too
late to have eladdened Washington,
the first paved highway in the United
States came into being This was the
road from Philadelphia to Lancaster
soon to be famed as the Lancaster
Pike BY 1902, coach service had been
extended as far south as Savannah. al
distance of 1000 miles, and stages were
able to make this journey in 22l2 days
often travelling the astonishing distance
of So miles in day
IN 1906 Congress defined the first
approach to national road building
| policy in establishing the National
Pike from Cumberland, MARYLAND toll
Wheeling, then in Virginia. This was
gradually extended to St. Louis, and
as Route 40 it is to this day the prin-
cipal east-west highway from he At
lantic to the Pacific
Zone of the points in our modern
highway system that would most graft
fly Washington is the fact that we have
planned it on the basis laid down in his
day. Now those first rude blazings of
trails have become 100000 miles of
road Within this mileage we have
662, 1876 miles of surfaced highway. Our
State roads now total 314.136 miles,
208,324 miles of them surfaced And
greatly as we have accomplished. it is
not extravagant to say that with our
policy of Federal aid, we have hardly