HistoricAZ66: Old Trails Highway
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A cache along the National Old Trails Highway and original alignment of Route 66.
From the Federal Highway Administration website Highway History.
The National Old Trails Road also known as the Ocean to Ocean Highway, was established in 1912 and became a part of the National Auto Trail system in the United States. It was 3,096 miles long and stretched from New York City to Las Angeles.
The organizational meeting of the Old Trails Association of Missouri took place on December 19, 1911 in Kansas City to promote the "Ocean to Ocean" highway. The following day the Tri-State Road Convention was held in Phoenix for the states of Arizona, California and New Mexico with the purpose of influencing the Federal Government on transcontinental highway routings. The routing of the National Old Trails Highway was quite a battle in Arizona and Southern California. Two routes were proposed one across Southern Arizona from Phoenix to San Diego and the other across Northern Arizona from Holbrook to Kingman and on to San Francisco.
The discussion was intense and in the end the southern route known as the "Sunset Route" was chosen, however Col. D. M. Potter, of Clifton Arizona did have this to say "We have no more fight. But I can tell you the Lord could be proud of some of the fighters they have got in the northern part of the state, and the devil could afford to give half his kingdom for some of those fighters up there..."
While the Ocean to Ocean Highway Association promoted its route as the Southwest link in the expected national transcontinental convention the residents along the rival northern route began to promote their own claim. The Needles Eye issue of November 30, 1912, reported a meeting of the Mojave County Good Roads Boosters in Needles to promote a route from Las Angeles via Barstow, Needles, Kingman, Seligman, Ash Fork, Williams, Flagstaff, Winslow, Holbrook, Springerville and St. Johns, with connections to Prescott, Phoenix, Bisbee and other points "whereby the great auto traffic of the near future as well as the annual road races will pass through these various places." The boosters were convinced of the merit of their route:
It is generally conceded that this Northern route has many advantages over the southern roads and accomodations and is through country of great scenic beauty. The scenery in the Arizona Mountains cannot be excelled anywhere and the Grand Canyon stands alone as the most gigantic work of nature.
The accommodations were the restaurants, hotels and lunchrooms operated by the Fred Harvey Company since 1870 along the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railway.
The next month, December 1912, Touring Topics carried an article headlined "Still Another Nation Wide Highway." The good roads enthusiasts of northern Arizona and of San Bernardino County, in California, are agitating for the improvement of the old but little traveled transcontinental route which connects the Santa Fe trail in Santa Fe, New Mexico and extends westerly by way of Albuquerque, Nations Ranch, the Zuni Indian Cliffs, the Petrified Forest, Canyon Diablo, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, Ask[sic] Forks, Kingman, Needles, Daggett, San Bernardino and thence over the Foothill Boulevard to Las Angeles.
By the time the National Old Trails Road Ocean to Ocean Highway Association held its second annual convention on April 29 and 30, 1913, the Santa Fe-Grand Canyon-Nedles National Highjway Association was ready. The debate on routing took place during the afternoon of April 29. An anendment was offered to amend the associations constitution to adopt the Grand Canyon Route between Sante Fe and the Pacific Coast as the official route of the National Old Trails Road. Either during this session or that evening O. K. Parker spoke in support of the change:
"The Santa Fe, Grand Canyon and Needles National Highway follows closely the route of the Sante Fe railway from Las Angles to Sante Fe, the route being approximately that of the Kearney trail. It will form the western link of the Old Trails National Highway. There is good road most of the way and by the middle of summer it will be posted with signs. The posting of the Sante Fe Trail will have been completed by that time, so there will be a well marked highway from Kansas City to the coast".
With that the constitution was amended to adopt the official route west of Santa Fe:
through Albuquerque and Gallup, New Mexico; Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Ashfork, Seligman, Kingman, Yucca and Topeka [Topock], Arizona; Needles, Coffs [Goffs], Bacdad [Bagdad], Barstow, San Bernadino, Upland, San Gabriel, and from Barstow through Bakersfield, Corcoran, Fresno, Merced, Stockton to San Francisco, California. The association also dropped "Ocean to Ocean" from its name. Hereafter, it shall be known simply as the National Old Trails Road association.
Thus this route would become the Old Trails Highway and in 1926 Route 66. Just east of this cache is "This Old Bridge" GC1CGFQ which crossed Padre Canyon and allowed this alignment to be the first across Nothern Arizona.
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