On the Road to Yellowstone: The Yellowstone Trail and American Highways 1900-1930

Before 1900 long distance travel in America and elsewhere was strictly a railroad phenomenon, but with improvements in the internal combustion engine, automobile travel gradually became popular. First a sporting activity of the wealthy, this new means of locomotion quickly spread to a greater consuming public and a cry for better roads swept across the land.

Public funds for raod improvement and contruction between centers of population were virtually nonexistent, and roads were in a deplorable condition. Thus there was a short period in highway development, roughly spanning the two decades from 1910 to 1930, which saw the growth of a network of privately promoted routes bearing fanciful names whose avowed purpose was to stimulate traffic.

Softcover, 199 pages.