North Missouri Cross State Highway

[Route66Fan]

Based on a previous post that I made here, I decided to do some more research on the "North Missouri Cross State Highway", and am trying to map out the highway's routing using volume 5 of the "1918 Official Automobile Blue Book". I have compiled a route log based on the routings given in the "Blue Book".

Ad for the "North Missouri Cross State Highway", as seen in volume 5 of the "1918 Official Automobile Blue Book".


I've already tried mapping out some of it in Google Earth, but I had to do it in sections because of getting lost due to some of the roads that the route used having been rerouted, the roads not existing anymore, or both.

[m2tbone]

My hometown is Mexico, and I now live in St. Charles County, so I'm very interested to know more about this old highway, especially since it connects both places.  I'm wondering if Mexico Road (that goes through several cities in my county) could possibly be the remnants of this old highway. It makes sense.


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[The Ghostbuster]

Since states were just beginning to number their highways around this time, I doubt this proposed highway was planned to have a state highway number. Since there were few paved roadways back then, I expect the North Missouri Cross State Highway would have been constructed as a gravel roadway, and likely would have been paved later on.

[edwaleni]

Liberty to Excelsior Springs is now County Road H. It is also called "St Louis Avenue" which is a tipoff.

[edwaleni]

Excelsior Springs to Richmond is now MO-10 except west of Richmond, MO-10 was redirected south to avoid a low clearance rail bridge.  There it becomes Main Street into Richmond.

[edwaleni]

Hardin to Norborne its now County Road DD

[edwaleni]

The "longest free bridge" in Brunswick over the Grand River is featured in Brigehunter.com





https://bridgehunter.com/mo/chariton/brunswick/

[Route66Fan]

My hometown is Mexico, and I now live in St. Charles County, so I'm very interested to know more about this old highway, especially since it connects both places.  I'm wondering if Mexico Road (that goes through several cities in my county) could possibly be the remnants of this old highway. It makes sense.


iPad Pro

Some of it may have been part of the North Missouri Cross State Highway, however, according to the 1918 Blue Book Volume 5, the auto trail took a more southerly routing once it reached Wentzville, MO, going through Dardenne, MO (Now called Dardenne Prarie, MO.) & Cottleville, MO, bypassing O' Fallon, MO to the South, following the old Boone's Lick Road, before entering the city of St. Charles, MO from the Southwest.

[Route66Fan]

The "longest free bridge" in Brunswick over the Grand River is featured in Brigehunter.com





https://bridgehunter.com/mo/chariton/brunswick/

I've seen those pictures on Bridgehunter. I didn't know about that bridge until the last couple of years (I used to think that this bridge was located farther upstream near where the US 24 Grand River bridge is.) & that the bridge was last used in 1979 & demolished in 1982.

[Route66Fan]

Excelsior Springs to Richmond is now MO-10 except west of Richmond, MO-10 was redirected south to avoid a low clearance rail bridge.  There it becomes Main Street into Richmond.

I'm having problems trying to figure out the original routing between Excelsior Springs, MO & Richmond, MO. It seems that some of the county roads that the highway followed don't exist anymore.

[m2tbone]

My hometown is Mexico, and I now live in St. Charles County, so I'm very interested to know more about this old highway, especially since it connects both places.  I'm wondering if Mexico Road (that goes through several cities in my county) could possibly be the remnants of this old highway. It makes sense.


iPad Pro

Some of it may have been part of the North Missouri Cross State Highway, however, according to the 1918 Blue Book Volume 5, the auto trail took a more southerly routing once it reached Wentzville, MO, going through Dardenne, MO (Now called Dardenne Prarie, MO.) & Cottleville, MO, bypassing O' Fallon, MO to the South, following the old Boone's Lick Road, before entering the city of St. Charles, MO from the Southwest.

You're right.  I saw the same thing after I posted that.  I'm guessing that current day Hwy N from Cottleville west to north on Hwy Z to Wentzville may possibly be where that highway was routed.


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[edwaleni]

Excelsior Springs to Richmond is now MO-10 except west of Richmond, MO-10 was redirected south to avoid a low clearance rail bridge.  There it becomes Main Street into Richmond.

I'm having problems trying to figure out the original routing between Excelsior Springs, MO & Richmond, MO. It seems that some of the county roads that the highway followed don't exist anymore.

Now that I found the bridge in Brunswick, I found the route out of town to the west, but I am looking for something more specific out of Excelsior Springs.

[edwaleni]

I am going through the legacy MODOT highway maps.

The 1918 "highway" map is worthless. They look a simple state map and then drew straight lines between major towns with estimates.

The 1926 map is simply a railroad map of Missouri and a cartographer drew red lines where state and federal highways were with no detail. This shows US-69 from Liberty to Excelsior Springs and MO-10 from Excelsior Springs to Richmond.

I looked at some various Sanborn Maps from the 1906-1912 era (Excelsior Springs had a large quantity of hotels) and since this highway was essentially an "overlay" on various local and state roads, it is not noted in these documents.

Since this highway was marked by 3 white circles (like the Lincoln Highway had an "L") I would be curious if any of those markers were permanent, or simply wood posts with arrows (which was typical of the era).

More research needed. I have a feeling when the Feds & state built dedicated highways between 1920-1930, these named roads died pretty quickly

[edwaleni]

Here is what it looked like in 1921, it looks like they were moving it as the new roads were being built.

[edwaleni]

Here is why it was called the "North" state highway. From the FHWA archive.

Seems the central route became US-40

The south route became US-50.

The north route......?

The Missouri Cross-State Highway:

In the summer of 1907, Governor Joseph W. Folk of Missouri expressed an interest in a cross-State macadam highway. The Highway Department of the State Board of Agriculture identified three feasible routes. The northern route passed through St. Charles, Louisiana, Bowling Green, Mexico, Moberly, and Liberty. The central route passed through Columbia, crossing the Missouri River at Arrow Rock on the way to Kansas City. It incorporated Boon's Lick Road and part of the Santa Fe Trail. The southern route approximates modern U.S. 50.

The State Board and Governor Folk met on August 5, 1907, to designate the cross-State highway. Instead of choosing one, though, they designated all three routes. While this decision encouraged local initiative by keeping competition alive, it did not result in construction of a cross-State highway. The "idea slumbered," according to the State Board's September 1911 bulletin, until 1911:

Various newspapers gave space in helping keep alive the movement. The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Post especially are to be commended for the stand taken and for being consistent "boosters" for a cross - state highway. During this time the lovers of history and admirers of romance joined in the fight. This was on account of the historic route, over which Daniel Boone and pioneers of the West blazed their way and around which linger many pleasing tales of pioneer times, being one of the practical routes for a state highway. This brought the Santa Fe Trail and Boone's Lick Road Association, the Kansas City Historical Society, the Missouri Historical Society, and the Daughters of the American Revolution into the fight. The work of the latter was directed, however, more towards the placing of markers along the historical trail.
By 1911, the idea of a transcontinental highway was receiving increasing attention. The Fourth International Good Roads Congress, meeting in Chicago, endorsed a transcontinental route from New York City through Chicago to Kansas City, thence over the historic Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and continuing to Phoenix and Los Angeles. Dozens of good roads bills were introduced in the 62nd Congress (1911-12). Some involved a specific road proposal, such as S. 6271, which would have authorized construction of a national highway from the Canadian border south of Winnipeg to Galveston, Texas, or the bill that would have authorized $10,000 to build a road through the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve in Colorado.

Among the more ambitious bills was one introduced by Senator Shelby Moore Cullom of Illinois on August 11, 1911, to create a National Interstate Highways and Good Roads Commission to build seven named national highways radiating from Washington. The plan included a road from Washington to Seattle, Washington (Lincoln National Interstate Highway) and two roads to California (Jefferson National Interstate Highway to northern California and the Grant National Interstate Highway to southern California) as well as shorter routes to Portland, Maine (Washington); Niagara Falls, New York (Roosevelt); Austin, Texas (Monroe); and Miami, Florida (Lee). (One critic, Representative Michael E. Driscoll of New York, dismissed the flood of good roads bills, complaining that all of them came from "the great broad states in the South and West of large areas, long roads, small populations, and small taxing power."

With interest growing, several States decided to take it upon themselves to identify the best route within their borders for a transcontinental highway. These State efforts grew out of the belief that, someday, such a road would be built. Designation of the route in advance, they thought, would give the State control over the location.

In 1911, therefore, Governor Herbert S. Hadley revived the idea of a single cross-State highway from among the three chosen in 1907. Communities along the three lines understood the importance of the decision:

It meant that if the route was selected and put through, that not only would portions of the state be visited by many people and that this would be a link in the some-time Ocean to Ocean Route, but it meant the stimulation of a sentiment for good roads in Missouri that in the course of a few more years would bring about a great upheaval in this state which would mean the building of highways that would connect with this route.
During July 1911, a delegation headed by Governor Hadley inspected the three routes. Communities outdid each other in welcoming the inspectors, in the hope of securing the designation:

It is impossible to bring in all of the roads lined with bunting, the gate posts decorated with flags, garlands of flowers and farm produce; the crowds of people gathered at the country schoolhouses that had not been open since the closing of the sessions, of the barrels almost bursting with ice-cold lemonade; the tables "groaning" with fried chicken, Missouri ham, cake and ice cream, and dainties known only to Missouri housewives. As one member of the party expressed the trip, they "literally ate their way through fried chicken and ham."
On August 11, 1911, 1,600 delegates filled the Jefferson Theatre in Jefferson City for a meeting on the issue. Each of the three routes was defended in speeches. Dean Walter Williams of the School of Journalism, University of Missouri, spoke on behalf of the Central Route:

I have no word of criticism of any other route that may be proposed. But as for me and mine . . . we are for the Boon's Lick Road and the Santa Fe Trail. May I add that we are not polygamists either. We do not want to tie up the affections of Missouri to three Cross-State Highways . . . . We want no cut-offs in ours. I am for the Boon's Lick Road and Santa Fe Trail, the Old Trails Route . . . .
A few days later, State Highway Engineer Curtis Hill submitted a summary of the three alternatives to the State Board. One factor that Hill cited in favor of the central route was his view that the Old Trails Route had already been selected as part of a transcontinental highway:

The trans-continental route which would cross Missouri is the proposed extension from Washington to San Francisco of the Old Cumberland Turnpike and the route is termed the Ocean to Ocean Highway. The Old Cumberland Turnpike was originally surveyed to St. Louis, which is the logical place for it, and either of our proposed cross-state roads would be available. This Ocean to Ocean Highway, however, is now routed by the U.S. Office of Public Roads over the Old Boon's Lick Road or our Central Route.
This was a misstatement. The Office of Public Roads (another of the FHWA's early names) had not routed the transcontinental highway. Shortly before Hill prepared his report, the Office had published a map of nearly 15,000 miles of transcontinental, interstate, and trunk line roads contemplated around the country. Reporting on the map, Better Roads magazine (August 1911) pointed out that if the plans were fulfilled, they would result in "a network covering the whole country." The routes depicted on the map were:

Capital-to-Capital Highway (Washington, D.C., to Jacksonville, Florida)
Central Highway in North Carolina
Clay-Jefferson Memorial (Niagara Falls, New York, to Meridian, Mississippi)
Des Moines-Kansas City-St. Joseph Trail
Dupont Highway in Delaware
Lincoln Memorial Road (Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
Lincoln Way (Louisville to Nashville, Kentucky)
Memphis-to-Bristol Highway
Montreal-to-Miami Highway
Ocean-to-Ocean Highway
Pacific Highway
Rio-to-Rio Highway (Denison to Galveston, Texas)
Yellowstone to Glacier National Park
The route Hill had in mind was the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, described as:

Ocean to Ocean Highway, extending from Cumberland, Md., to Tacoma, Wash., and passing over the old Cumberland Road, through Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, over Boone's Lick Trail and St. Louis to Old Franklin, Mo.; through Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. 3,800 miles.
The Office did not endorse the route. As Better Roads explained, the Office had published the map ". . . merely for the purpose of gauging the extent of the good roads movement as fostered by individuals, associations, and communities."

After Hill's report had been adopted, the members of the State Board designated the central route as "The Missouri Cross State Highway--Old Trails Road." The cross-State route was dedicated on October 28, 1911. Dedication parties left St. Louis and Kansas City, to meet in Columbia for the ceremony. Governor Hadley delivered the dedicatory address, in which he said:

This marks the beginning of the end of bad roads in Missouri. The people who are building this road are as truly pioneers as those hardy frontiersmen who blazed the Old Trails Route into the forests and over broad prairies . . . . With great pleasure in the present occasion, and with hopes for the future, I now dedicate the Old Trails Route the Missouri Cross State Highway, to the men and women of Missouri of the present and the future.

[Route66Fan]

I am going through the legacy MODOT highway maps.

The 1918 "highway" map is worthless. They look a simple state map and then drew straight lines between major towns with estimates.

The 1926 map is simply a railroad map of Missouri and a cartographer drew red lines where state and federal highways were with no detail. This shows US-69 from Liberty to Excelsior Springs and MO-10 from Excelsior Springs to Richmond.

I looked at some various Sanborn Maps from the 1906-1912 era (Excelsior Springs had a large quantity of hotels) and since this highway was essentially an "overlay" on various local and state roads, it is not noted in these documents.

Since this highway was marked by 3 white circles (like the Lincoln Highway had an "L") I would be curious if any of those markers were permanent, or simply wood posts with arrows (which was typical of the era).

More research needed. I have a feeling when the Feds & state built dedicated highways between 1920-1930, these named roads died pretty quickly

I figured that the 1918 map was useless, I actually think that it was more of an advertisement for the highway. What I was actually using was the turn by turn mileage descriptions that the book gave.

[edwaleni]

Here are the 3 "Cross-Missouri" routes in 1926.

I would like to think the north route had a couple of advantages (since it was called the "All Bridge Route").

In 1906, the route only had 1 major river (Grand River) to cross and it was free. The other 2 routes at the time used ferries to cross, 1 in Boonville and the other in Jeff City.

When they too got bridges (tolled ones) I would assume the traffic started diverting shortly after.

[edwaleni]

Here is the Boonville Bridge which replaced a ferry when it opened on July 4th, 1924.



Once this opened and became US-40, it cleared out the last obstacle or the "last resistance" that would divert traffic to the north route.

Seems this road used to get backed up waiting on a ferry to cross the river.

It was a very narrow bridge and was replaced in the 90's.

[STLmapboy]

Here are the 3 "Cross-Missouri" routes in 1926.

I would like to think the north route had a couple of advantages (since it was called the "All Bridge Route").

In 1906, the route only had 1 major river (Grand River) to cross and it was free. The other 2 routes at the time used ferries to cross, 1 in Boonville and the other in Jeff City.

When they too got bridges (tolled ones) I would assume the traffic started diverting shortly after.

I've used 44 to 50 as a STL-KC route before (bottom line). There's simply no reason now to go up through Moberly.

[Route66Fan]

I think that I got most of the route from Richmond, MO to Excelsior Springs, MO figured out. One part of the old highway in Western Ray Co., East of Excelsior Springs, MO is called Old Stage Rd, which is a pretty good clue.

[Route66Fan]

Another thing that I have found out is that, due to the Grand River, between Dewitt, MO & Brunswick, MO, flooding & changing course over the years, parts of the old highway & some other county roads in the area have been wiped out. Also a 1914 Carroll Co, MO plat map I found on Historic Map Works seems to not show some of the roads mentioned in the 1918 Automobile Blue Book.

[edwaleni]

Another thing that I have found out is that, due to the Grand River, between Dewitt, MO & Brunswick, MO, flooding & changing course over the years, parts of the old highway & some other county roads in the area have been wiped out. Also a 1914 Carroll Co, MO plat map I found on Historic Map Works seems to not show some of the roads mentioned in the 1918 Automobile Blue Book.

Probably another reason the route markers used wood poles at the time, due to the constant changing of the routes. Another problem was the removing of roads that essentially crossed farmers private property.  What started as a way to move their horses and wagons, the path ended up becoming shortcuts for cars when they became more prevalent. So farmers put up gates to shut off the the road and made the route inaccessible.  I remember reading an old paper (early 1900's) reminding people that driving their new cars across private farmland was illegal. We might think that funny today, but people saw a path and would drive down it oblivious.

[Route66Fan]

Another thing that I have found out is that, due to the Grand River, between Dewitt, MO & Brunswick, MO, flooding & changing course over the years, parts of the old highway & some other county roads in the area have been wiped out. Also a 1914 Carroll Co, MO plat map I found on Historic Map Works seems to not show some of the roads mentioned in the 1918 Automobile Blue Book.

Probably another reason the route markers used wood poles at the time, due to the constant changing of the routes. Another problem was the removing of roads that essentially crossed farmers private property.  What started as a way to move their horses and wagons, the path ended up becoming shortcuts for cars when they became more prevalent. So farmers put up gates to shut off the the road and made the route inaccessible.  I remember reading an old paper (early 1900's) reminding people that driving their new cars across private farmland was illegal. We might think that funny today, but people saw a path and would drive down it oblivious.

I think that was also mentioned in the 1918, or another, Official Automobile Blue Book.

I've got about 99% of the routing of the 1918 routing of the North Missouri Cross State Highway mapped out here. I am still working on revising it, but I think it's pretty close to the route described in volume 5 of the 1918 Official Automobile Blue Book.

[edwaleni]

Another thing that I have found out is that, due to the Grand River, between Dewitt, MO & Brunswick, MO, flooding & changing course over the years, parts of the old highway & some other county roads in the area have been wiped out. Also a 1914 Carroll Co, MO plat map I found on Historic Map Works seems to not show some of the roads mentioned in the 1918 Automobile Blue Book.

Probably another reason the route markers used wood poles at the time, due to the constant changing of the routes. Another problem was the removing of roads that essentially crossed farmers private property.  What started as a way to move their horses and wagons, the path ended up becoming shortcuts for cars when they became more prevalent. So farmers put up gates to shut off the the road and made the route inaccessible.  I remember reading an old paper (early 1900's) reminding people that driving their new cars across private farmland was illegal. We might think that funny today, but people saw a path and would drive down it oblivious.

I think that was also mentioned in the 1918, or another, Official Automobile Blue Book.

I've got about 99% of the routing of the 1918 routing of the North Missouri Cross State Highway mapped out here. I am still working on revising it, but I think it's pretty close to the route described in volume 5 of the 1918 Official Automobile Blue Book.

That is a great map. I was tracing your route south and west of Brunswick. Seems the route turned north then west prior to the Missouri unless you think the river changed it course due to a flood after 1918.

[sparker]

FYI, the "North Missouri Cross State Highway" follows the old Wabash (now part of NS) RR line for its entire length; east of Moberly it's on the St. Louis-Council Bluffs line, which crosses the KC-Hannibal line, followed closely west of Moberly.  It's more than likely the highway had its origins as a service road next to the rail line (more than a few US and state highways started out in this fashion).