Note: Since this information was created, the Wisconsin YT Corridor Project has been expanded nearly across the state. To visit the new web site for that project, go to www.yellowstonetrailwi.com. Use your back-button to return here.
The first combined effort to popularize Yellowstone Trail history and heritage travel was undertaken by individuals and CVB's (Convention and Visitors Bureaus) from Portage, Wood, Clark and Chippewa counties.
History of the Trail for the YT Corridor Project:
During the early days of the 1900's there were almost no useable automobile roads in the United States. Rural roads, used primarily by wagons, stages and beasts of burden, were essentially never even graveled. Dirt was the construction ingredient of the day, resulting in mud up to the runningboard on rainy days. Cars were becoming very popular, but with no place to run them for any distance, pressure mounted on states and the federal government to switch the transportation priority from the railroads to the highways. Wisconsin was particularly foresighted, establishing a State Highway Commission in 1911 which soon laid out a good state trunk highway system. In 1918 Wisconsin devised a highway numbering, the first in the U.S. and the world. Soon most other states had followed suit and in 1926 the states agreed on a U.S. route numbering system. But in 1912 there still were very few road maps; most maps of the day showed rail lines only. The adventurous automobilist followed mile by mile guides, usually published by the Automobile Blue Book Company.
Groups formed to promote the building of roads, among them were various trail organizations (trail meaning long-distance road.) The Yellowstone Trail Association was among the first of these organizations which laid out a route along existing roads, put up yellow markers (usually painted on telegraph poles or rocks,) got the route labeled on the few maps being published, and encouraged tourists to follow it by advertising, such advertising being paid for by towns along the route. In addition to pressuring government for road dollars, these groups functioned as the first tourist agencies.
There were many short trails, over 250 of them, but only a few transcontinental trails. The oldest may have been the National Old Roads Trail, whose association was founded just 6 months before the Yellowstone Trail Association was in 1912. The Lincoln Highway Association was founded in 1913. The Yellowstone Trail Association advertised its Trail as running from “Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound.” Some short trails in Wisconsin were the White Circle Route north of Abbotsford, the Red Square Route north of Cadott, and the Red Diamond Route along present US 53 north of Chippewa Falls.
By 1915 the Yellowstone Trail Association had established the auto Trail from Minneapolis to Yellowstone National Park, and was exploring Seattle as the western terminus. Then it voted to extend the Trail from Minneapolis to Chicago in 1915. A route was established through Wisconsin from Hudson to Menomonie, Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, Cadott, Stanley, Thorp. Owen, Abbotsford, Colby, Marshfield, Stevens Point, Waupaca, Fremont, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Slinger, Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Sheridan Road into Chicago.
This route, known as the ‘northern route,’ was chosen because it had already shown itself as an important east-west trunk route across the state. Chippewa and Clark counties already had voted large sums to improve the road. In 1916 and 1921 the federal government started to give aid to states to build connecting trunk roads and to support fewer, but better roads. Wisconsin selected the Yellowstone Trail route for part of its “federal-aid routes” because of the traffic it carried.
Drive along it today and see signs of the life of the Trail, 1915-1930. The roads in the 4 county “Yellowstone Trail Corridor Project” are mostly driveable, quiet backroads. See this website for maps of 4 counties, museums to see, places to go, antique shops to visit, and quiet villages to reflect in. The Yellowstone Trail Corridor awaits you.