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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=47 style=" border-bottom: 3px solid #FF9900;" BGCOLOR="#FFFF33" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Wis Guide Home</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=162 style="border-right: 3px solid #FF9900;" BGCOLOR="#FFFF33" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Yellowstone Trail"><B><IMG SRC="30164140.png" border=0 width="100" height="20" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="wisguide0.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Wis Guide Home"><B>Wis Guide Home</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis00.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="How to use the guide/ legend."><B>How to and legend</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>By county:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis12.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="12 St Croix County "><B>12 St Croix</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis11.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="11 Dunn Eau Claire Counties"><B>11 Dunn & Eau Claire</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis10.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="10 Chippewa County"><B>10 Chippewa</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis09.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="09 Clark Marathon Counties"><B>09 Clark & Marathon</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis08.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="08 Wood County"><B>08 Wood</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis07.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="07 Portage County"><B>07 Portage</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis06.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="06 Waupaca County"><B>06 Waupaca </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis05.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="05 Winnebago Outagamie Counties"><B>05-Winnebago & Outagamie</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis04.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="04 Fond du Lac DodgeCounties"><B>04-Fond du Lac & Dodge</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis03.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="03 Washington Waukesha Counties"><B>03 Washington/</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis03.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="03 Washington Waukesha Counties"><B>Waukesha</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis02.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="02MilwaukeeCounty"><B>02-Milwaukee</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="guidewis01.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="01 Kenosha Racine Counties"><B>01 Kenosha & Racine</B></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=433 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="06100c00egerdp.jpg"> <div> <B>T</B><B>he Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin</B></div> <bR> <div> This guide invites you to travel a road steeped in Wisconsin history.  This guide invites you to explore an auto route that had no number - just a famous name.  The Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin invites you to come along and see, taste, and feel a Wisconsin of 1915-1930.  This was a time when rural roads were mainly dirt, when outdoor plumbing was coming indoors, when Saturday night at the movies was a family affair, and when the automobile was replacing the train as the major means of transportation.  </div> <bR> <div> You don’t need to wear a “duster” or goggles to travel the Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin today. So, travel all of its 409 miles from Hudson to Kenosha, or just sample parts of it near your home. This booklet has maps guiding you through all 18 counties touched by the Trail,  and to many historic sites on or near the Trail to explore.</div> <bR> <div> <B>What was the Yellowstone Trail?</B> </div> <div> Before there were numbered roads and maps, there were named roads.  The Yellowstone Trail (YT) was a transcontinental road, created by joining county roads into a long, connected chain from “Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound.”  Roads were so bad in most of the nation that private citizen, grass-roots groups formed to “get out of the mud,” which was the national cry.  Automobile sales were burgeoning and owners soon discovered that there were no connected roads out of town to drive the new black beauty on. The Yellowstone Trail Association (YTA) was one of many groups pushing for long-distance roads.  It started in 1912 with a small band of men, including founder J.W. Parmley of Ipswich, South Dakota, who envisioned a road from Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, to Puget Sound, Washington, through the upper tier of states. They called it the Yellowstone Trail. The Association did not build roads with pick and shovel. The Association, growing to 8,000 members, persuaded counties to build a single road that connected to a single road from adjoining counties. Thus, a long-distance road resulted, piece by piece. They also provided instructions to local people for the construction and maintenance of roads. They promoted cross-country tourist traffic, marked the route with signs, and provided maps, thus raising interest in using the automobile for other than local travel.</div> <div> The idea was supported by communities all along the 3800 mile route, which paid a fee to the Yellowstone Trail Association to be advertised in its travel literature. There was no federal or state money for such a long-distance endeavor. The YT quickly expanded. People fought to get their towns on the Trail, envisioning tourist trade, economic development, and an efficient way to get farmers’ produce to rail heads. By 1919, the entire route was firmly established coast to coast.</div> <bR> <div> <B>How Did the Trail Develop?</B></div> <div> The YT was routed along the route of the Milwaukee Road Railroad from the Twin Cities to Montana. It followed the Union Pacific further west. In the East, following a railway was irrelevant. There were enough shorter auto roads joined together to form a whole route. George Stewart, author of <U>US: A Cross Section of the USA</U> has said: “Roads tended to follow a railroad because a railroad itself was also the shortest line between two towns and because towns were strung out along the track.  Moreover, the right-of-way for a road could be established alongside the railroad with minimal disturbance to farms and private holdings.” Also, if one’s car broke down, your chances of being found were greater.</div> <div> Generally, the YTA wanted its many “locating committees” to locate the shortest route on extant roads, or to convince county boards to construct one. While anyone can connect the dots on a map with a broad pen, it is a different matter to draw on a map each of the little county roads the locating committees recommended, especially if the roads followed the township survey lines. One mile square sections of land were laid out from Ohio west  in accordance with  the 1785 Land Ordinance.  Sixty-six feet of land between sections were reserved for public right-of-way. As a result, there tended to be right angle turns or intersections every mile. Look at old maps from the 1920s or before and you will see many “stair-step” images of roadways. There were few curved roads, saving many miles, in the YT days.    </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> The Association was always looking for creative promotional ideas. In June,1915, the Trail Association held a relay race against time from Chicago to Seattle to advertise the Trail. Could they do it in 100 non-stop hours? The 21 drivers covered the 2445 miles in 97 hours, averaging 25 mph! Excited small town newspapers reported every nuance of the trip in hyperbole. Big town newspapers were more reserved. They, after all, did not live in remote areas where a single road was significant.</div> <bR> <div> In Sept.,1916, they did it again, but this time they went from “Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound.” One purpose of this race was to cement interest in the Trail across its entire transcontinental route. Another purpose was to prove that the Trail could be declared a  military road if we entered the World War. It took 121 non-stop hours 64 drivers to deliver a message from the War Department to Fort Lawton in Seattle.  They raced through Wisconsin at an average speed of about 30 miles per hour with crowds cheering them on. Stories from some individual cities about the races appear in this guide. Heady times! </div> <div>  </div> <div> Another promotional idea was that of “Trail Days,” one day a year when all citizens in towns along the Trail were asked to go out and repair their section of the Trail. It was a day of fun mixed with work. The press was invited, politicians showed up, food, frolic and smoothing the road was the order of the day. Bankers worked next to farmers, merchants next to doctors. It was quite a unifying event.</div> <bR> <div> Many Easterners still viewed the West with skepticism early in the 20th century. Weren’t Indians there? Can you find gas? Camping? Where? Part of the goal of the YTA was to invite people to go West to see its wonders (and to funnel tourists through Trail towns.) So the Association became a tourist business in the East rather than a road-building association, opening 17 tourist bureaus transcontinentally. Assuring travelers of the hospitality of the West, the safety of travel (there were Trailmen in each town to help you), and the availability of supplies became the goal. Magazines of the day helped, giving advice about camping supplies and wardrobe. Note the inclusion of camping sites in almost all of the old guides quoted in Italics in each town entry of this Guide. Still, when a “foreign” car  (cars with out-of-area plates) went by, the locals gawked.</div> <bR> <div> They had 18 good years, but with the construction of new highways and the advent of federal funding and numbering system, and availability of maps, the need for this and other trails finally faded in the 1930s. </div> <bR> <div> <B>Why was it called “Yellowstone?”</B> </div> <div> A first goal of the 1912 founders was to direct tourists along the upper tier of states to the Yellowstone National Park. They named their road “Yellowstone” to honor the Park and to help tourists easily identify the route to their destination. Since there were no numbered highways in 1912, it was the custom to use colorful symbols to mark a route, all of the 250 known trails except two shorter than the YT.  Naturally, yellow was the chosen color for the YT.  Rocks, telegraph poles, fence posts, silos, and anything else along the way were painted with the famous yellow circle and black arrow pointing to the Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately, the only known original road sign left in Wisconsin is a yellow “R” on the outside wall of a bar in Owen, repainted periodically, indicating a right turn for Trail followers.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <B>The Yellowstone Trail did much for Wisconsin. </B></div> <div> In 1915, when the Yellowstone Trail Association extended the Trail through Wisconsin, state aid had existed here for 3 years, but that aid was distributed locally, resulting in improvements of roads radiating from market towns. There was no connected state highway system.  The arrival of the Yellowstone Trail meant that the 18 counties through which the Trail went were leaned on, pushed, and persuaded by the Association to put their funds into a road that actually connected with the next county’s road.  Before that, there was little concern for connectedness.  Getting crops to town and to the railroad was the primary concern.  Roads joining roads aided everyone and the concept laid the foundation for the 1917 state trunk highway act.  Also, several YTA travel bureaus were established to aid travelers along the Trail, supplying Trail maps and road condition information. In 1919 the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee hosted the largest Trail travel bureau. </div> <bR> <div> By 1929 the YT became the first fully concrete road across the state.  It drew so many tourists through the state that when the highway department numbered state roads in 1918 and demanded all smaller trails desist, the Yellowstone Trail with its yellow markers was permitted to remain. That act in itself was historic in two ways:  Wisconsin was the first state in the nation, and probably the first place in the world, to number highways. Second, Wisconsin’s highway department acknowledged the preeminence of the Yellowstone Trail in this historic act.</div> <bR> <div> Everyone was not pleased with the idea of private organizations influencing county boards and charging fees to towns for advertising.  The state and counties had little control over such private ventures.  Some felt that a national trail could be a “sometime thing,” moving the route on a whim or away from any town in arrears of dues. That does not seem to have been true of the Yellowstone Trail Association.  The most direct route to the Yellowstone National Park over extant roads was their goal.  They were not a group subject to whim.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <B>Can we see the “original” today?</B></div> <bR> <div> In the almost 100 years since the Trail arrived, much has changed in relation to Wisconsin’s highways.  The original Trail has been smoothed with curves, moved slightly, received a face-lift and better profile.  But near Hewett, there is still a gravel road bearing the name of its historic past - Yellowstone Road.  There is gravel, still, marking the Trail near Junction City.  Although paved now, old Wisconsin highway 10 just east of Stevens Point gives a great picture of a winding way of the 1920's.  <A NAME="bm_1_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>The point of this Guide</B></div> <div> There is more interest lately in things historic. Various state tourism bureaus have been reporting a rise in short-distance heritage travel. Perhaps this is because of higher gas prices. But the result is a commensurate interest in local and state history.</div> <div> <I>American Road</I> magazine is dedicated to the celebration of historic roads, their past and their present. Circulation numbers of that magazine testify to the fact that folks are interested in old roads across the nation. The rise of the new Yellowstone Trail Association also attests to such interest.</div> <div> This Guide is developed to celebrate the Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin and to inform others about that national treasure.</div> <bR> <div> Read, travel, explore, and enjoy life in the slow lane!</div> </td> </tr></table></body>