After the first massed-produced Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line in 1908, more and more Americans began a never-ending love affair with cars, along with a never-ending desire: Decent roads. The grass-roots answer to this wish in the early 20th century became a series of named, not numbered, “auto trails.” By 1917, one of the most important, if now-forgotten, of these trails was the Dixie-Overland Highway. The Dixie-Overland Highway, which later became US 80, was an ambitious sea to sea route that started in Savannah, GA, and ended in San Diego, CA. In between, it traversed Bossier Parish, went through the heart of Bossier City and crossed the Red River into Shreveport.
Mass-marketed in addition to being mass produced, the Model T automobiles continued rolling off the assembly lines by the millions. All these new automobile owners across the country wanted roads on which to not just drive, but to travel. Drivers didn’t wait for state highway departments to form and provide the roads they needed. In many states, like Louisiana, that would take another decade, or more. Instead, automobile owners formed automobile clubs, and these clubs advocated for and organized the original interstate “trails.”
The Automobile Club of Savannah, Ga. conceived of the Dixie-Overland Highway in July, 1914. First the club wanted a route across their state, but almost immediately they began to think bigger. The club conceived of the first Southern coast to coast route for automobiles. They wasted no time in forming an association, electing officers, and agreeing on a plan of operation to “promote the construction and use of a highway through the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.” The association determined a practical route and proudly determined that the Dixie-Overland Highway would be “the shortest, straightest, and only year-round (non-snowbound) ocean to ocean highway in the United States.”
On February 14, 1917, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association was officially incorporated in the State of Georgia for a 20-year period as a nonprofit organization headquartered in Columbus. Each state along the route had its own representatives. In Louisiana, where the highway followed the route of the V. S. & P Railroad, the state was represented enthusiastically by Caddo Parish businessman and planter Will Mercer, who was originally of Bossier and well-known in the parish. The whole eight-state association met yearly. In only its second year of existence, 1918, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association chose Shreveport, LA as the site of this meeting. The meeting started off dramatically with the hotly contested issue of which of two California cities would be the highway’s terminus, Los Angeles or San Diego. (Eventually, San Diego got the official honor). But one of the truly most urgent issues for the road had emerged only 2 months after the association formed; the United States’ entrance into WWI on April 6, 1917.
In 1918, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association focused its energies on obtaining “material assistance” from the Federal Government, urging it to put the newly-available asset of the “motor truck” to full and critical use. In an account of his own cross-country drive across the route in the spring and summer of 1918, which was published soon afterwards in the Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, GA, on Aug. 4th, Field Secretary Leland J. Henderson hoped to make the case that wartime was making the road indispensable, and that helping communities finish their part in it was in the federal government’s best interest. Of the return portion of his trip, Henderson wrote, “A vast amount of freight is now being carried on the highway. Motor trucks and burro teams have the preference. The retarding of highway construction is causing a noticeable deterioration of the roads in many sections. Rail facilities are largely absorbed in carrying war material.” Then he asked the reader, “How will we keep up the commerce of the country without a dependable system of roads?”
By 1919, California had completed its section of the Dixie-Overland route, and Georgia already had theirs complete for a few years. Louisiana was at about 65 percent completion, which was “near the bottom of the column in progress made,” according to Will Mercer, quoted in the June 12, 1919, Bossier Banner-Progress. This work was being done on a parish by parish, as well as a state by state, basis, so road quality could vary greatly. Arizona was well-ahead of game, paving their section in concrete. Elsewhere, providing an improved, “hard” surface could simply mean a dirt road that was graded, widened and extra hard-packed, or that gravel was laid.
Stay tuned here for the rest of the story next month. By the mid-1920s, state highway departments developed and a federal numbered system of highways was created, including US 80. In addition, come to World War II’s Day (Tuesday) next week, on Sept 8th at 10:30 AM in the Bossier Central Library Complex to hear speaker Wesley Harris, historian from the Claiborne Parish Library. Mr. Harris will speak about Highway 80’s role in WWII. He will show us the highway’s importance to the US military from coast to coast, with special mention, of course, of Barksdale, then a US Army Air Field.
The History Center remains closed while our new exhibits are completed, but 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:
- Snapshot of a Whippet touring car speeding west off Red Chute Bayou hill on what is now Highway 80, circa 1925. History Center photo, courtesy of Claude Corbett.
- Map of the Dixie-Overland Highway, 1918. From the American Geographic Society Library’s Digital Map Collection, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Article By: Pam Carlslie
