North Missouri Cross State Highway

[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.

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.

According to some Google searches I did, there was some flooding that happened on the Missouri River in 1923-24, that may have affected the route, also some of the floods that have happened since then may have wiped out some of the roads as well.

[Route66Fan]

Appologies for bumping an old thread, but I recently found an article from the Carrollton Daily Democrat (Carrollton, MO) from Friday, August 17, 1923, on Newspapers.com that shows that part of the predecessor of US 24 (The North Missouri Cross State Highway, in this area, also referred to in the following article as "highway No. 10".) in Eastern Carroll County, MO was rerouted permanently due to the road being washed out into the Missouri River.



Here is a 1914 map of the area overlayed onto satellite images, of the same area, from Google Earth, that shows where the roads that got washed out were.



I've updated my map here

[Scott5114]

Gotta love how in those days, you were just expected to know where E.E. Lewellen lived and where Mr. Goodbar's farm was. (You think he was growing peanuts?)

[kphoger]

Gotta love how in those days, you were just expected to know where E.E. Lewellen lived and where Mr. Goodbar's farm was. (You think he was growing peanuts?)

I know I've mentioned this before but, when my family first moved to Atwood, the rural roads had no names.  My dad, a pastor, had a big county map pinned up in his home office, on which every farm was marked and the resident's name labeled.  I distinctly remember, when a friend of mine invited me to his house (near the Rawlins/Decatur county line) for New Year's, looking up the location of his family's farm on the map, writing down some simple directions on how to get there, and then heading out.  When I got there, nobody answered the door.  So I went from neighbor to neighbor, with no one answering (farmers go to bed on time whether it's New Year's Eve or not), till I finally found someone who told me that they had moved a few miles away, and that the house I'd gone to was just the hired hand's house now.  Fortunately, I was able to get directions from him.  This was the late 1990s.

My dad's predecessor as pastor had kept a database of church members, and one field was for directions to their farm.  For example, Scott Nazelrod's entry in the database might say 6E3S1E2S, which would mean six miles east, then three miles south, then one mile east, then two miles south.

There were also geographical markers such as "Rudaville", which as far as I know never existed as an actual place name, but which everyone knows as the place where the Ruda family has a fairly large farming operation.  Or I could give someone directions near the Rawlins/Thomas county line by referencing "the farm where the Sweet family recently moved in from Texas", and everyone would know what I meant.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

There were also geographical markers such as "Rudaville", which as far as I know never existed as an actual place name, but which everyone knows as the place where the Ruda family has a fairly large farming operation.  Or I could give someone directions near the Rawlins/Thomas county line by referencing "the farm where the Sweet family recently moved in from Texas", and everyone would know what I meant.

Every state has geographical markers which were just names for a tavern or a junction.
The old Delormes Gazetteers were wonderful (or notorious) for listing every geographical name possible.
(Ex. Good luck reaching Paget, Ohio)

[kphoger]

Every state has geographical markers which were just names for a tavern or a junction.

Reminds me of Tucker.s Corner, IL.  I remember in the mid-2000s, when I asked a local resident how to get from Norris City to Akin, his directions made explicit mention of Tucker's Corner—as if a box truck driver from a county or two away would obviously know where that was.

https://www.thevillagersvoice.com/remembering-tuckers-corner

[Rothman]

It was a little unnerving to me when maps started showing road names for previously unnamed roads along KY 122 between KY 80 and US 23/US 119.  Always found that a strange, irrational emotional reaction to improvements that have tangible, obvious benefits (e.g., emergency response).

[kphoger]

Always found that a strange, irrational emotional reaction

Well, it's not like that's the only irrational reaction you've shown.  I mean, there's the Olive Garden thing.

[Rothman]

Always found that a strange, irrational emotional reaction

Well, it's not like that's the only irrational reaction you've shown.  I mean, there's the Olive Garden thing.

And meanwhile, you've given us a good example.