Roads Volume 1-2; Hearing Before the Committee on Roads, House of Representatives, Sixty-Seventh Congress, First Session (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 Excerpt: ...our State for a part of the way. In other words, the Lincoln Highway enters Illinois from Dyer, Ind., and there are feeders into Chicago from three different points. It has been hard surfaced and is an accomplished fact to-day, and this year's building season will see that 150 miles of road hard surfaced and 18 feet wide from the Indiana line to Clinton, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. The old National Trail runs from East St. Louis to Terre Haute, the nearest point in Indiana. I remember when I was employed as a passenger brakeman on the Vandalia Railroad, in 1881, seeing that grade that ran parallel to this railroad on which I was employed. I inquired whether that represented some former railroad grade and was told that the National Government had started to build a highway from Washington to Kansas City, I think, but it languished because the steam railroad came along and the electric railroad development followed, and for the entire life of our State, a period of 102 years, the Federal Government did not furnish us the example of a highway across our State. Now, then, that highway is all under contract, as explained by Mr. MacDonald, as it goes from East St. Louis across to what he said was Paris, which is true, because Paris is in Edgar County, and the Dixie Highway runs from Chicago to Danville, Uncle Joe Cannon's home town, and by building a connecting link of about 28 miles between Danville and Paris, you see, we have completed this loop from Chicago down to East St. Louis, and we have there 500 miles of Federal-aid highways practically completed. So that is the reason we feel it is worth while for Congress to seriously consider the matter of appropriating substantial sums of money for the continuation of Federal aid. The greatest road project in ou...