Two weeks ago, this column took readers on a “horseless carriage” ride on the Dixie Overland Highway through Louisiana and Bossier Parish points like Red Chute and East Texas Street in Bossier City, and over the Red River into Shreveport. Named, not numbered, “auto trails” were the grass-roots answer to the public clamor for good roads that arose once mass-produced, more-affordable automobiles (such as the 1908 Ford Model-T) motored off the assembly line. By 1917, one of the most important, if now-forgotten, of these trails was the Dixie-Overland Highway. In this column, the ride continues later into the twentieth century on a more recognizable road for today’s drivers. By the middle of 1920’s, the United States government was waking up to both the national benefits and requirements of motorized travel, for pleasure (tourism), commerce, and defense, and with the creation of a national, numbered highway system in 1926, the Dixie Overland became US Highway 80.
The Dixie Overland Highway had been only the second coast to coast auto route across the United States, coming after the Lincoln Highway, established in 1913, that connected New York City to San Francisco. The Dixie Overland, which connected Savannah, Georgia (and later, Tybee Island) to San Diego, CA, was the shorter of the two routes, and the only one that was considered year-round, given that it was not prone to the snowstorms that could make northern routes perilous or impassable. With the demand for good roads that arose almost overnight from new automobile owners, auto enthusiasts formed their own private auto clubs, formed the clubs into associations, and designed, surfaced, and maintained roads on a county by county, parish by parish, or town by town basis, over thousands of miles.
By 1920, the country was realizing if these automobiles could take us from one state to another, or even a handful of states, in only a day’s time, roads that were consistently maintained and easily navigated, were necessary. The U.S. was not long out of WWI, and wary of Bolshevism and a German invasion. WWI Army General Jack Pershing had extolled the efficient wonder that was the German Autobahn. Thus, the Federal Government was calling for a connected, well-maintained, physically resilient, as in able to withstand the weight of a convoy of tanks, national highway system. On February 20, 1925, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Howard M. Gore approved appointment of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways to design a uniform system of interstate numbering and marking to replace the national “hodgepodge” of named trails. On November 11, 1926, the US numbered Highway System was approved by American Association of State Highway Officials.
In addition to a federal highway system and administration, local roads departments also began to answer to or work with state and other more centralized highway departments. Louisiana had already formed its state highway department in 1922. The cause for good roads was eagerly taken up by Louisiana Governor Huey Long, who entered office in 1928. With less than 300 miles of paved roads in the state, Governor Long blamed his 1924 losing bid for governor on heavy rains that kept his rural supporters from the polls on account of deep mud. Long embraced the creation and paving of highways and the building of free bridges (as opposed to toll bridges, or ferries) to connect Louisianians that were far apart both in physical location and location on the political spectrum. He also saw paved roads as a way to put Louisiana on the national map, so to speak, with a goal of paving more roads, faster, than as many other states as possible.
A photograph in the History Center collection shows Gov. Long, accompanied by his wife Rose, in 1929, cutting a ribbon at Fillmore (near Princeton and Haughton) in Bossier Parish to mark the opening of US Highway 80 from Shreveport to Minden. The Fillmore area was the last section to be paved on the Minden-Shreveport highway segment of Highway 80. In addition to paving, parts of the road were straightened, bridges widened, and hills made lower in order to make the highway less dangerous. This was especially so around Red Chute, which was considered one of the most dangerous points on Highway 80, according to the April 9, 1930, Minden Signal Tribune. The photo shows the first ribbon-cutting for a concrete road in the state, a visible reminder of the governor's theme to "get Louisiana out of the mud." A man identified in the Oct. 11, 1963, Shreveport Journal as Bossier banker and state senator V. V. Whittington, holds a sign that reads, “Gov. Long's Plan, 1932 Louisiana Will Lead the World in Good Roads”.
US 80 had the rare distinction that it very closely followed the original route of its “trail” or “trunk road” (main road) predecessor, the Dixie Overland Highway. Highway 80 as a coast-to-coast route has also been passed by, by the interstate highway system. I-20 was constructed here in the 1960s. Parts of US 80 have been decommissioned at a time, going eastward, so that currently the western terminus is in Dallas. The highway remains under an official historic designation in California.
Do you have any mementoes or stories of old US Highway 80 in Bossier? We would love to hear or see them. The Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, located in the Bossier Central Library complex, remains closed while our new exhibits are completed. Watch our Facebook page or library website homepage for updates at www.bossierlibrary.org. You can also visit the website to use our online resources. You may call us at (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org
For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.
Images:
- US Dept. of Agriculture Bureau of Public Roads Map of United States Highways 80 and 90
- Ribbon Cutting, 1929, Highway 80 in Fillmore, LA, with Governor Huey Long.
Article by: Pam Carlisle
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