The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways

by Earl Swift

  [>] A few days later, the county coroner ...: "Blame for Auto Deaths," NYT, August 28, 1909; Horseless Age, September 8, 1909.

  [>] Out-of-town criticism ...: "Useless and Barbarous," editorial, NYT, August 21, 1909; "Condemns Speed Trials," NYT, August 27, 1909; "Protests Against Auto Track Racing," NYT, August 29, 1909; and "Slaughter as a Spectacle," editorial, NYT, August 30, 1909.

  [>] Crews laid down 3.2 million bricks ...: Zeller, "Before There Was a 500"; Borgeson, The Golden Age of the American Racing Car.

  [>] "Three of us drove out nine miles...": D. R. Lane and Gael Hoag, The Lincoln Highway: The Story of a Crusade That Made Transportation History (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1935).

  [>] Alongside passenger cars came the first trucks ...: "A Broad Road Plan Is Outlined," NYT, February 9, 1913; "Street Congestion Opens Motor Field," NYT, March 23, 1913; R. W. Hutchinson Jr., "Motorized Highway Commerce," Scribner's, February 1914.

  [>] Then there was the question of health ...: Hutchinson, "Motorized Highway Commerce."

  [>] City and country alike ...: "From 'Horseless Carriage' to Palace Motor Car: A Story of Twenty Years," NYT, January 12, 1913.

  [>] He laid out their findings ...: Jerry M. Fisher, The Pacesetter: The Untold Story of Carl G. Fisher (Fort Bragg, CA: Lost Coast Press, 1998).

  [>] Four nights later ...: Ibid.; Lane and Hoag, The Lincoln Highway; NYT, September 15, 1912.

  [>] Joy brought field expertise ...: Henry Joy, "Transcontinental Trails: Their Development and What They Mean to This Country," Scribner's, February 1914.

  [>] Even so, Joy predicted ...: "11 Days Across Continent," NYT, July 13, 1913.

  [>] While Joy was on the road ...: Fisher biographies; NYT stories of July 1, 12, 15, 21, and 23 and August 3, 1913.

  [>] The last seemed the most fitting ...: Jerry Fisher, The Pacesetter. How bent on a direct route was Joy? President Woodrow Wilson requested in a June 19, 1914, letter that the highway swing through Washington, D.C. Joy refused the request (Bentley).

  [>] One such town was Jefferson ...: Jefferson Bee, November 5, 1913; Richard Weingroff, "The Lincoln Highway," http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/lincoln.cfm; Farwell T. Brown, Ames in Word and Picture (Ames, IA: Heuss Printing Inc., 1999).

  [>] The federal government's Office ...: L. W. Archives Page, October 17, 1914, memo to the secretary of agriculture; Page, September 22, 1915, letter to U.S. Rep. T. W. Sims (Archives).

  [>] This approach had precedent ...: Mertz; America's Highways; the Johnson-Fairbank manuscript; and Michael P. Conzen, "The National Road, or, a Landward Salient for a Potamic People," Geographical Review 88, no. 4 (October 1998).

  [>] Among the backers ...: "Road Makers Organize," Washington Post, December 14, 1914; and George Coleman, "The Origin and Development of the American Association of State Highway Officials," American Highways, October 1939.

  [>] By its first anniversary ...: A. R. Pardington, speech to the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, reprinted in the NYT of April 5, 1914.

  [>]Farther west, little had changed ...: Mark Twain, Roughing It.

  [>] That was the nature of the West ...: Lincoln Highway Official Guidebook of 1915, reissued by the modern association. I bought my copy at Lincoln Highway Association (LHA) headquarters in Franklin Grove, IL.

  [>] A. L. Westgard, the AAA's field agent ...: A. L. Westgard, "Motor Routes to the California Expositions," Motor, March 1915; Henry Joy, "Seeing America and the Lincoln Highway," Scientific American, January 1, 1916.

  [>] Others had attempted ...: Fisher biographies.

  [>] And he envisioned an artery ...: Ibid.; Claudette Stager and Martha Carver, eds., Looking beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006). For more on the proliferation of named trails, see Frederic L. Paxson, "The Highway Movement, 191–1935," American Historical Review 51, no. 2 (January 1946).

  [>] Regardless of what labels ...: Richard Weingroff, "Federal Aid Road Act of 1916: Building the Foundation," http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw96a.cfm; Mertz; America's Highways; L. W. Page, January 17, 1917, memo to the secretary of agriculture (Archives); February 16, 1953, BPR memo on highway history from Ed Margolin to Paul F. Royster (THM); L. W. Page, "One Year's Experience in the Federal Aid Road Law," speech delivered at AASHO's third annual meeting in December 1917 and reprinted in Good Roads, December 22, 1917 (THM).

  [>] Shortly after the Federal Aid Roads Act ...: Transcript of the August 15, 1916, session (Archives).

  [>] And while its people might gush ...: F. H. Trego, Hints to Transcontinental Tourists Traveling on the Lincoln Highway, originally published in 1914 and reissued by the modern-day LHA. Trego's advice on firearms was the conventional wisdom of early autoists—see "A Practical Automobile Touring Outfit," Scientific American, March 1, 1902, which advises: "You might also place a good six-shooter under your pillow. You will sleep just as well, and it might come in handy."

  [>] A State Department survey ...: Report of Joint Committee on Federal Aid of Post Roads (House Doc. 1510, 63rd Congress, 3rd session).

  [>]The two sides might have smoothed ...: America's Highways; Richard Weingroff, "Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy: The Fight Against Federal Aid," http://www.fhwa .dot.gov/infrastructure/hwyhist01.cfm; ENR, January 9, 1919, and January 1, 1920; and Thomas MacDonald, February 13, 1920, speech to the Road Builders Association in Louisville, KY (Mertz and THM papers).

  [>] A month after the Armistice ...: Weingroff, "Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy"; America's Highways; and J. M. Goodell, report to BPR management chief J. E. Pennybacker about the conference (Archives).

  [>] He'd accomplished this ...: Thomas MacDonald, "Iowa Roads and Their Future," The Road-Maker, February 1913.

  [>] The offer came just after ...: MacDonald letter to George Coleman dated January 29, 1919.

  [>] The secretary took more than two months ...: Houston note to MacDonald of January 18, 1919; MacDonald letter to Houston of January 9, 1919; and MacDonald letters to J. M. Goodell dated January 20 and 24, 1919 (all, THM).

  [>] "Tender you the position...": Houston telegram to MacDonald of March 17, 1919; MacDonald telegram in reply dated March 20, 1919; MacDonald letter to Coleman of March 24, 1919; Department of Agriculture press release of March 25, 1919 (all, THM); "New Roads Official Named," Public Roads, March 1919.

  [>] He didn't much discuss ...: Johnson-Fairbank manuscript (FCT); Newton Fuessle, "Pulling Main Street Out of the Mud," The Outlook, August 16, 1922; undated questionnaire for MacDonald's entry in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Co.), completed by Caroline Fuller on MacDonald's behalf (THM).

  [>]MacDonald had been a typical Iowa teenager ...: Johnson-Fairbank manuscript; E. L. Anderson, "Efforts of Thomas H. MacDonald Result in Our Modern Highways," Iowa Engineer, May 1935; William Atherton DuPuy, "MacDonald of Public Roads," American Motorist, October 1923; Iowa State Gazeteer (Dubuque: Iowa Directory Co., 1892); WPA Guide to 1930s Iowa (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1986).

  [>] It turned out, though, that he was at home ...: DuPuy, "MacDonald of Public Roads."

  [>] He arrived at Iowa State ...: Bruce Seely, "Research, Engineering, and Science in American Engineering Colleges: 1900–1960," Technology and Culture 34, no. 2 (April 1993); MacDonald transcript (THM); 1903–5 Iowa State College catalog (ISU).

  [>] Still in his thirties ...: Anson Marston files (ISU); H. J. Gilkey, "Anson Marston: Builder of Engineering at Iowa State College," Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers 55, no. 2 (February 1929).

  [>]They agreed on a two-pronged assignment ...: MacDonald and Gaylord thesis (ISU). Gaylord went on to great success as a specialist in dredging and other marine projects; in 1912, he dug the Houston Ship Channel.

  [>] That spring, Iowa legislators ...: "Uncle Sam's Hired Men Who Serve You," a Department of Agriculture news release dated May 16, 1921, supplied to me by MacDonald's great-granddaughter, Lynda Weidinger; William H. Thom
pson, Transportation in Iowa: A Historical Summary (Ames: Iowa Department of Transportation, 1989); and Discovering Historic Iowa Transportation Milestones (Ames: Iowa Department of Transportation, 1999). That last source also yielded Iowa's 1904 auto registration.

  [>] Marston must have been persuasive ...: MacDonald letter of April 25, 1939, to Iowa State engineering dean'T. R. Agg (THM).

  [>] Quietly, patiently ...: Thompson, Transportation in Iowa: A Historical Summary; C. H. Claudy, "At His Nod Millions Move," Motor Life, June 1922; Mary Reynolds, "Brief Sketches of Interesting Western Road Builders," Western Highways Builder, October 1921; and William E. Lind, "Thomas H. MacDonald: A Study of the Career of an Engineer Administrator and His Influence on Public Roads in the United States, 1919–1953," a master's thesis prepared at American University in 1965.

  [>] In March 1907 ...: "McDonald-Dunham," Ames Times, March 14, 1907; "Links That Bind: The Fate of the Chained Five," Ames Intelligencer, March 14, 1907. Thomas Jr.'s November 21, 1907, birth was recorded in a single sentence in the Times of November 28, 1907; his birth certificate was not filed in the county courthouse in Nevada, Iowa, until January 1943.

  [>] "Iowa has an estimated mileage...": MacDonald, "Road Improvement and the Automobile Tax," The Road-Maker, November 1912.

  [>] "Seldom has there been such a swing...": "Nature Promotes Better Highways," ENR, April 3, 1919.

  [>] "Six months ago...": MacDonald letter of February 24, 1919, to J. M. Goodell (THM).

  [>]The Des Moines Capital ...: Editorial, Des Moines Capital, March 26, 1919.

  [>] "I know it is not necessary...": MacDonald letter to Alabama state highway engineer W. S. Keller, April 24, 1919 (THM).

  [>] The nation's highways ...: MacDonald letter of May 7, 1919, to Delaware state highway engineer Charles M. Upham (THM).

  [>] Among the warmest letters ...: Henry Joy letter to MacDonald of April 2, 1919 (THM).

  [>]MacDonald replied ...: MacDonald letter to Joy of April 24, 1919 (THM).

  Part II: Connecting the Dots

  [>] Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed little promise ...: Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991); James David Barber, The Presidential Character (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992); and Richard Weingroff, "The Man Who Changed America," http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/03mar/05.cfm.

  [>] The trucks had trundled ...: Pete Davies, American Road (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002); Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988). My description of the convoy further relies on Eisenhower's after-action report, a lengthier report by army first lieutenant E. R. Jackson, and a program documenting a dinner held for the men in Sacramento, all available online from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum at http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov.

  [>] The Townsend bill called for ...: Weingroff, "Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy"; Mertz; America's Highways; and ENR articles of February 27, May 29, and June 12, 1919.

  [>] Good riddance to it ...: Townsend 1920 Senate testimony (Archives); "Hearings to Begin on Townsend Highway Bill," ENR, April 22, 1920.

  [>] Its district engineers spent ...: E. W. James, "Report of Operations for May 1919" (Archives); J. M. Goodell, January 23, 1919, letter to MacDonald (THM).

  [>] But the new boss was up ...: DuPuy, "MacDonald of Public Roads."

  [>] His first memo ...: Quoted in "The World's Greatest Roadbuilder," Road News (Australian Road Federation Ltd.), February—"March 1963; and in Damian J. Kulash, "Professionalism and Politics," Transportation Quarterly, Spring 2000.

  [>] The latter were more important ...: MacDonald speech published in ENR, December 11–18, 1919.

  [>] Other speeches followed ...: Transcript of MacDonald speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, April 29, 1920 (THM).

  [>] The importance of his topic ...: America's Highways.

  [>] "Picture a pile...": MacDonald, "The Future of Road Building," Curtis 1000, April 1922.

  [>]It was pure MacDonald ...: ENR briefs of April 21 and 28 and May 5 and 12, 1921.

  [>] The House approved ...: "Revised Townsend Highway Bill Goes to Senate," ENR, August 18, 1921; "Senate Passes Amended Townsend Bill," ENR, August 25, 1921.

  [>] The Federal Highway Act of 1921 ...: Mertz; conversations and e-mail exchanges with Richard Weingroff; Weingroff, "Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy"; and MacDonald and Herbert Fairbank, "Federal Aid as Road Building Policy: What Is It and What Has It Accomplished?" a paper prepared in April 1928 (DOT).

  [>] This wasn't necessarily recognized ...: NYT brief on the House passage, November 2, 1921. On November 10 the paper devoted just a handful of lines to the president's signing the bill into law.

  [>] MacDonald, however, saw ...: MacDonald, "Resume of Cooperative Road Improvement and Future Policies," speech (Archives).

  [>] The first step of the process ...: America's Highways; Mertz; Turner history interviews; and the following documents from THM: a February 27, 1920, "memorandum for the secretary" in which MacDonald lays out the genesis of talks between the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) and the War Department; remarks of agriculture secretary Edwin'T. Meredith, February 11, 1920; a July 22, 1921, letter from war secretary John W. Weeks to the agriculture secretary; an October 14, 1922, letter from Weeks to the agriculture secretary, accompanying Weeks's submission of the Pershing Map; and a February 12, 1923, letter from MacDonald to BPR's district engineers, distributing the map.

  [>] James was to be ...: America's Highways; James letter of February 21, 1967, to bureau historian Frederick W. Cron, reproduced at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/ewjames.cfm. The Arkansas financing mess was a pet cause of the NYT and enjoyed prominent play (usually front page and above the fold) in the paper's editions of March 26 and 29; April 2, 3, 10, and 18; May 8, 15, 16, 19, and 22; and June 7, 1921. James's role in the equipment scandal is summarized in "Trace Disposition of Road Equipment," NYT, August 3, 1921.

  [>] Now James and two other ...: James letter to Cron.

  [>] As finally laid out ...: MacDonald speech of June 4, 1923, at the dedication of the Zero Milestone, in the Ellipse in front of the White House (THM).

  [>] "This Roda serves...": Joseph Conley letter of August 7, 1918, typed on the letterhead of the Conley Hotel in Wendover (Archives).

  [>] If the bureau paid any notice ...: Utah Governor Spry's role is documented in Henry Joy's February 18, 1927, letter to U.S. Sen. Tasker Oddie (Joy papers, Bentley).

  [>] But in September 1919 ...: My account of the Wendover Road controversy was informed by documents preserved in the Lincoln Highway and Federal Aid-Utah files at the Archives: L. I. Hewes's letter to his Utah district engineer of October 18, 1921; "The Lincoln Highway," an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1922; "Nevada Urges Utah's Governor to Complete Lincoln Way," a news release containing an April 7, 1922, letter from Nevada officials to Utah governor Charles R. Mabey; Gael Hoag, June 8, 1922, report to the Lincoln Highway board; Hoag's July 25, 1922, report to the BPR on "Primary East and West Highways in Utah & Nevada"; undated BPR "Memorandum re Federal Aid Routes in Nevada"; Henry Joy letter to F. A. Seiberling of October 10, 1922; Warren G. Harding letter to Henry C. Wallace of October 25, 1922; Harding letter to Wallace of November 8, 1922; and "Are We to Have a Transcontinental Highway?" editorial, Scientific American, December 1922. I also relied on the Fisher biographies and Davies, American Road.

  [>] Newspapers throughout the West ...: "Statement of Facts on Lincoln Highway," Ely Daily Times, February 3, 1922; editorial in the Mountain Democrat of El Dorado County, CA, quoted in "Broken Faith," editorial, Salt Lake Citizen, March 31, 1923.

  [>] In a May 1923 letter ...: Wallace wire to Joy of June 4, 1923; Joy letter to Wallace of June 8, 1923; Wallace letter to Joy of June 28, 1923 (Archives).

  [>] Joy and the rest ...: Joy letter to Wallace of September 26, 1923.

  [>] Carl Fisher was too busy ...: Fisher biographies.

>   [>] More than 200 ...: Charles Pierce Burton, "America's Billion-Dollar Industry," Harper's, June 1922.

  [>] The first tentative step ...: The LHA's efforts to build its "Ideal Section" are detailed in its survey results, titled "An Ideal Section: The Lincoln Highway" (Archives); "Minutes of Meetings of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Lincoln Highway Association, held at the Yale Club, New York City, on Friday and Saturday, December 18 and 19, 1920" (Archives); "Resolutions Passed by the Technical Committee" (Archives); "Plan Ideal Motor Road," NYT, January 2, 1921; and W. G. Thompson, "Design Features of Lincoln Highway 'Ideal Section,'" ENR, June 15, 1922.

  [>] Finally, its surface...: MacDonald's views on surfacing materials dominate his correspondence with the LHA from March 1920 to February 1921 (Archives); "Opposes Limiting Highways to One Material," Highway Engineer and Contractor, June 1921; "MacDonald Opposes One-Material Highways," The Highway Magazine, October 1921.

  [>] The stuff itself...: Earl Swift, "Rock of Ages," (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot, December 16, 2007.

  [>] The following year, American factories ...: Rudi Volti, "A Century of Automobility," Technology and Culture 37, no. 4 (October 1996); Fred C. Kelly, "How Many Can Buy Cars?" NYT, August 28, 1921; Earnest Elmo Calkins, "Virgin Territory for Motor Cars," Atlantic Monthly, March 1929; and Flink, The Automobile Age.

  [>] Buyers demonstrated an eagerness...: "Huge Auto Outlay Seen as a Menace," NYT, April 22, 1925.

  [>] In mid-1925...: NYT, January 4, 1925.

  [>] A year later, they stood...: Thomas MacDonald, "Highways in the Making, TAC, January 1928.

  [>] The invention's costs...: "Automobile Fatalities Becoming One of Our Deadliest Scourges," TAC, September 1926.

  [>] Manhattan's streets...: "Start Parks and Stop Skyscrapers," TAC, September 1926.

  [>] In 1928, the rate...: "About 1,000,000 Accidents and 27,500 Deaths from Motor Vehicles Last Year," TAC, July 1929.

  [>] In 1929, when a new...: Brief, TAC, June 1930.

  [>] "Our street systems will soon...": Daniel L. Turner, "Is There a Vicious Circle of Transit Development and City Congestion?" TAC, September 1926. See also "New Layout for City Urged by Planners," NYT, June 14, 1925.