yttrailman

If you would like to follow the route of the historic 1912-1930 Yellowstone Trail, "A Good Road From Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound" visit www.yellowstonetrail.org for basic information. From LaCrosse you would travel to Minneapolis and then head west on the old highway through South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho. A great route off the Interstates through small towns. In places you can stop ON the road and look at the scenery. Some of the route has a guide available. See the web site. You can contact us through the web site if you have questions. Do it. John Ridge Yellowstone Trail Association

On 26 March 2012, Foster Braun posted a Podcast about a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Yellowstone Trail in the American Road Trip Talk on this web site. He interviewed Andrea Jorgensen of Hudson, Wisconsin.

On 07 April 2012, Foster Braun posted Part 1 of a Podcast about the history of the Yellowstone Trail in the American Road Trip Talk on this web site. He interviewed John and Alice Ridge of the Yellowstone Trail Association. (He mistakenly refers to Alice as Ann -- but it is the right person!)

Mark Mowbray, the Executive Director of the Yellowstone Trail Association, is traveling the Trail again! Follow him at yellowstonetrail.tumblr.com He is "specializing" in Idaho and Washington during the first part of his lengthy trip and then will follow it back to the east through Montana, the Dakotas and Minnesota to Wisconsin.

Mark Mowbray, the Executive Director of the Yellowstone Trail Association, is traveling the Yellowstone Trail from Minnesota, through South and North Dakota, Montana and Idaho to Spokane. He hopes to keep us informed in his blog at http://yellowstonetrail.tumblr.com/ Let's let him know we are following him! John Ridge

I doubt that this is a "cogent comment or insight" but I do have another frustration to share! In several, if not many, places, maps, notably the strip maps, show those straight section line roads with right turns when in actuality the road wandered all over the place. Take the area just east of Mobridge, out about three miles, where the "straight" road actually ran along the land contours off as much as at least a 1000 feet to the north. And the YT Association boys have a neat map of the Trail northwest of Mobridge with straight one mile sections that add up to one too few miles to fit the real world. That throws the route in that whole area into doubt. While I'm griping, or at least observing the presence of bad data, I am reminded of the many places, today, where one can see a straight road laid out for miles ahead -- and note that every once and a while the survey crew put in an accidental small bend. THAT puts our entire western survey in question. Back to constructive work, YT Trailman

#1 There has been a fair amount of interest in the National Parks Highway, a sponsored, named route that generally followed much of the YT route. The two organizations competed with each other and their histories are intertwined in some respects. #2 The original motivation for including US 20 with the YT forum is probably not applicable now. Also, US 20 follows only small sections of the YT and those primarily only in the far East. There is little "traffic" about US 20, although it could be kept as part of the Forum without being a problem. Conclusion: Might we suggest the name of the forum be changed "The Yellowstone Trail and National Parks Highway?" or some such? It is hard to be interested in one and not the other! YT Trailman

As we research the Yellowstone Trail we rather naturally find information about the NPH. I was surprised to learn from Dave that the NPH ever considered the YT route through South Dakota as part of the NPH. That motivated me to pull out our NPH file folder and review it. Some miscellaneous findings: Early in 1915 (January) J. E. Prindle of Ismay, Montana, (an officer in the YTA) utterly rejected the proposal by the NPH people that the two organizations be amalgamated under the name NPH. The meeting of 1914 in Spokane resulted in the name NPH and the decision to generally follow the Northwest Trail as followed by Westgard. Supposedly the YT representative at the meeting agreed to joining together so, on that basis, the NPH chose the YT South Dakota route, which didn't come to pass because the officers of the YTA vetoed joining together. In 1915, the NPH officers were still unsure of the name they would be using, one candidate being Northwest Trail. The Northwest Trail was the route "discovered" by A. L. Westgard as he acted as Pathfinder for the AAA. That pathfinding occurred before any of the "sponsored" named highways, like the YT and Lincoln. But it never attracted the attention of the local folk to make it a national success -- until the NPH used the route. The AAA (actually the Inland Automobile Assoc, a AAA affiliate)suggests that Frank Guilbert, the father of the NPH, brought Westgard to Spokane for that early 1912 pathfinding venture. (Intermountain Motorist, Jan 1937 ) However, I personally rather suspect that Guilbert was not the major reason for the pathfinding trip. In 1915, the NPH Assoc., working with the National Highways Assoc. prepared a map of the NP Transcontinental Highway (the Northwest Trail and the Red Trail) showing the NPH from Tacoma through Albany where it splits in two, one branch going to Boston, and the other New York City. Westgard was "in charge" of the map as a leader of the Nat. Highways Association. The Summer, 1916, NPH tour of the leaders of the organization, followed the North Dakota route of the Northwest Trail, not the YT. The many articles about the YT and NPH found in newspapers suggests a great lesson that should be applied to our modern news reading: In areas traversed by both the YT and NPH, the responsibility for the great improvements to local roadways are claimed by both organizations. Reading from only one source gives an entirely wrong understanding. Especially, when neither organization was spending the money to improve the road; the locals were. YT Trailman PS Is there any chance you might share your strip maps with us on the Forum?

Dave, Don't forget that Cle Elum is on the Yellowstone Trail! You might make inquiry about any info at all about early travel in the area. Most any tidbit from before 1930 or so would be useful. Also, don't forget to check out Northern Exposure sites in nearby Roslyn. John (Yttrailman) Your quote: Day before yesterday I met a women in Cle Elum, Washington, who had a copy of a letter written by a fellow to his wife describing part of his 1909 trip to a Seattle exposition. The lady was in her mid eighties and so her recollection wasn't perfect.

Good Morning, I ordered your book through PayPal. But I am not sure you received the order. Any encouraging words? We are anxious to see how you handled the layout and printing in as much as we are preparing a similar book for the Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin. John Ridge jridge@yellowstonetrail.org

The question was raised: "Has there been any contact between the Yellowstone Trail guys and the City of Seattle and/or WSDOT?" Alice and I have corresponded with John King and Julie M. Koler King County Historic Preservation Program Office of Business Relations and Economic Development 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2000 [MS-BOA-EX-2000] Seattle, WA 98104 206.296.8689 (phone) We informed them about the YT and got info about the Red Brick Road part of the YT. They have interest about but no real commitment to the YT. King County (Seattle area) has a Historic and Scenic Corridors Project. See http://www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/k...orsProject.aspx One of those corridors in the Sunset Hyway, partions of which were the YT. See http://your.kingcounty.gov/kcdot/roads/wcm...ldSunsetHwy.pdf But the Red Brick Road area of the YT is not included and contacting the Corridors people would be potentially helpful. Any volunteers? John Ridge Yellowstone Trail Association jridge@yellowstonetrail.org

At the urging of Becky Repp I will attempt to comprehend and take part in this Blog feature. For this last year our work with the Yellowstone Trail has been more or less limited to the Trail in Wisconsin. In deed, we have a product to show for the effort which I will comment on as soon as I have a better idea of what happens with this text after I "submit" it! Perhaps "Add Entry" is the way to go?

I forgot to mention the old concrete on Sunset Rd between Reardon and Deep Creek that has a construction date stamped in it -- 1928 -- I seem to remember. It now looks like it is un kempt and on private property, but it is probably still a local road. YT Trailman

Great work on the YT route in eastern Washington! I am so pleased to see others working at it! I can't spend time on it now (big things afoot in our lives until July) but I couldn't help comparing your maps with my draft maps. Pretty good match! Some notes: 1) I think the YT followed Main to the west out of Davenport, south on Leffel (or Rambo, now I guess) and west on "primitive" Mt View Cemetery Rd. 2) YT entered Almira from the east on Main, exited on Maxwell Rd with several turns, then to US 2 on what Delorme calls X NE Rd. 3) I don't have R NE Rd and 36 NE Rd going into Coulee City. Might be a route earlier than the 1927 Auto Club of Southern Calif info I have that has the YT following US 2 to near Coulee City and following Fordair Rd to the lake. Got to be a story about the name Fordair. Then south on 38 NE or I 8, then west on 36 or Walnut. At an unknown street it returned to US 2 in town. 4) I have the YT heading north from Coulee City into the lake and wiggling west north of US 2 and dropping down to Sulphur Canyon. If this is right, it probably followed what is now 1 Rd NE, but much of it is unmapped now. 5) I missed all the Sulphur Canyon routes you have. Maybe they were before 1917? We agree on all the rest. Has anyone tried Pine Canyon road? It was closed when we attempted that part of the old YT. Also, we have have the YT crossing the river on the 9th street bridge in Wenatchee. That was apparently the only bridge available? More in July or later. John (YT Trailman)

I blew the date of Westgard's pathfinding on the Northwest Trail. It was 1911, a year before the YT was founded, not 1913. yttrailman

You might note that the National Parks Highway used the route through MN, ND, and MT that Westgard mapped in 1913 and called the Northwest Highway. AAA sponsored him but the AAA never acted in the same sense that the YT Association or the NPH Association did for their routes. It was not a sponsored named highway. Just a named route. I don't remember the exact limits but the part through ND was more often known as the Red Trail. I remember the Red Trail designation showing up on signs when we visited the Medora area a few years ago. I would not be surprised to learn that it had local sponsors in the early times. I'll be back with more maps of the YT through WA in July when this Wisconsin guide is finished and our anniversary trip is complete. yttrailman

Here is the like to my first attempt at a Google Map thing a ma jig. Should be the same as the previous one. This takes me to my map ok. It will look a lot like yours but check the terminus in Seattle. Mine starts at Pioneer Square and goes directly to Madison St. and then to Kirkland. Let me know your email address and we can work this out in email. I am sure I have your info but can't find it right now. Jridge@yellowstonetrail.org. I am very anxious to hear about your explorations. I do have some good info from near the Yakima and west area that I'll get to you if we can get this map thing going. John http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_d&...ca7afbb&z=9

To Sit Properly, I'm impressed with your work! I was not aware that we can draw and then share maps on Google Maps. So I had to try it. I very quickly drew a map of the YT from Seattle to north of Ellensburg using my sketch maps and notes. While we spent a long time working out the route with BBs, old maps, guides and all that stuff, we have not followed through by creating a detailed map. Nor have we checked out many ambiguities. But for what it is worth take a look at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_d&...p;msa=2&z=4 If it is of use to you, let me know and I will try to complete the Google map through the rest of Washington. Unfortunately I don't have time to discuss a whole lot about the conflicts and unknowns - at least until July. (We are getting the Wis YT Guide ready to print and then taking a month off for a trip to the UK). Go to it! Waiting to hear from you. I need to know if all this works. When is your trip? John Ridge (yttrailman)

John and Alice Ridge here. We are pleased to be the "esteemed friends" of 'Keep the Show on the Road!' We are, moreover, delighted about the re-formation of the National Parks Highway Association and would be privileged were we to be considered to be early members of the Association. We have acquired a fair bit of information about the NPH and its founder, Frank Guilbert, as we researched the Yellowstone Trail. Frank was a great character worthy of further research. There are many stories related to him and his Great Big (White?) Baked Potato worth writing about. His relationship to the Yellowstone Trail is such a story; he rather proposed a great joining of forces with the YT with one condition: the name YT would be dropped and NPH adopted by the combined group. Neither group seems to have even mentioned each other after that. Their routes are so intertwined and their histories so related that it would seem that the YT discussion group might well be expanded to include the NPH. Unlike Guilbert, I think the forum title should include NPH in its name along with US 20 and the YT! If you find this to be of interest perhaps you could take the initiative to contact Becky Repp or whomever would be appropriate. Allow us to comment on two of your notes about the NPH. I think your date of the beginning of the NPH (1916-1917) is not generous enough and, likewise, your eastern terminus is probably too pessimistic! I have in front of me (quickly located in its advanced storage location -- under the guest room bed) a map of the National Parks Transcontinental Highway "proposed" by the NPH Association and advocated by the National Highways Association published in 1915. It shows the route of the NPH from Chicago to Boston (with a lateral to NYC.) I have also seen maps, (probably Rand McNally but I would need to search them out) showing the NPH across the East. A quick search in our file cabinet found no proof that the NPH Assoc formally extended past Chicago. The NPH followed the route of the YT for most of the way with the exception of Indiana and some of Ohio. And, of course, they were much the same route to the West except between Milwaukee and Terry, Montana. It was in 1915 that Guilbert made his kind offer to take over the YT at the same time as he was formalizing the NPH Assoc. YtTrailman

I am filled with guilt that I have not responded to your note about the YT, the Durr Rd, and many other items of interest to me. We have undertaken a lot of work in reference to the YT in Washington and most of the results are in filing cabinets and computer files, awaiting the writing of our "Guide to the YT in Washington." We may get to it before we kick the bucket, but right now we are working on the Wisconsin edition and I don't dare get distracted. We can note that we have reasonably well established that the Durr Rd was never part of the YT. The Wenas Rd was. The YT was rerouted from its southern route (Walla Walla) to the northern route (Waterville) in 1925. The Canyon Rd was built before 1925 but we have no factual knowledge about whether the YT was rerouted on the Canyon Road from its building until 1925. We doubt it. I have notes that carefully route the YT through Washington in detail. They are not in a form that even can be copied. I will try to put together a Washington map of the Trail "soon." After July at least. Do you use DeLorme Topo or DeLorme Streets Atlas on your computer? Actually, now that Google Earth is around I should use it if I can figure our how to record a route. Good luck on generating some interest about the NPH, also! Automobile Blue Books, by the way, are the indispensable tools for tracing the old routes and Google Earth is a Great help. Best Wishes, yttrailman

I think Dave has directed you to the probable answer(s). -- Of course, local roads may have names for reasons known only locally. But as I refer to older plat maps I ofter find the mail routes specified and over time those route names can become the official road name. Star routes are common and are defined as: "Star route - a mail route, usually rural, served by a private contractor. The routes pre-dated RFD (Rural Free Delivery). The postmaster general was allowed by Congress to form contracts with private delivery services without specifying the mode used for the deliveries. To identify these routes, an asterisk was placed on the Post Office Department records. Consequently, they became known as 'star routes'. " I was not aware of Blue Star Routes but I found two good good references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Star_Memorial_Highway and especially http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/blue01.htm J Ridge

While planning your SD trip you might check a not-to-easy-to-find page on the Travel SD site: www.travelsd.com/travelprofessionals/grouptour/itineraries/highway12.asp It is just a "teaser" but might help a bit to plan the Yellowstone Trail part of your trip in SD. Also, if you do not have the Mobridge (SD) Tribune guide to the Yellowstone Trail pick one up in a business along the route. Or write to the Tribune for a free copy -- I think. Or e-mail me. That guide gives detailed and accurate (well, nearly accurate) maps of the old route together with some history and travel notes. Searching out the old road leading to the 1924 highway bridge is fun. On the West side of the river it is just on the south side of the sitting bull monument. Then there are traces of the old route as it goes north of present US 12 bridge. Let us know how it goes. John Ridge -- Yellowstone Trail Association

Mike: That is a great observation. How did you learn about the house? Driving the Trail again? I had to search around the Internet, my Delorme computer map, and Google Earth to find the address. Did it: 5046 South Greenwood Ave, Chicago, IL. It is one vacant lot from E. Hyde Park Blvd, the Yellowstone Trail. I assume that Greenwood is closed too? Coordinates: 41.802750,-87.599533. A picture and controversy is at http://www.zillowblog.com/barack-obamas-ch...-house/2008/09/ Another http://sedulia.blogs.com/photos/everywhere...amas_house.html We will have to send Obama some info about the YT and a request that he get the National Park Service to study and promote it like they did the Lincoln Highway. John Ridge Yellowstone Trail Association

First, I'm all for a cooperative old route mapping effort. I don't mean to be negative at all, but I know what effort it takes and I know how difficult productive cooperative action is! But some of the ideas presented here appear realistic, assuming the technical stuff can be found, understood, and agreed on. Like tracing routes on Delorme. About the time it takes to map a given segment: I would like to divide the problem into three Steps. First is determining the route, second is setting up to produce shareable maps, and third is the actual production of distributable maps. Dave's report of mapping the PPOO across Kansas appears to fall into Step 1. My experience with the Yellowstone Trail would support his conclusions for stretches of the YT along what is now US 212 in Minnesota, for example. Those same conclusions would be extraordinarily optimistic for the YT between Mobridge, SD and McLaughlin, SD. That was an ill-mapped Indian reservation with the YT following a wagon trail with no built roads. And then the map produced by the YT Association had a mile missing at some unknown place and a "generalized" line near the Missouri river. And the Missouri was damned to flood out miles of the old route, so existing roads were relocated. An no sign of the original route now remains is some areas. It wasn't until we spent time at the National Archives that we found a useful map to rather accurately locate the route and determine the remaining existing roads it followed for part of the way. But Step 1 is a reasonably doable step, and I will volunteer to prepare the route of the YT from "Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound" simply because I have reasonable information already ready. If, that is, Steps 2 & 3 are such as to make it a reasonable task. Part 2 is worth brain-storming about. I like the idea of marking the route on a Delome map and saving it is some distributable form. Even better would be Google Earth. Google has a much better attitude about supporting efforts of individuals. Part 2 must be set up to be a piece of cake. Publishing the route in print format with driving instructions, comments and historical notes is something else. Alice and I will work on that (as we have been) state by state for the YT as we can for publishing. Might even finish some of it. Another matter that needs to be considered. Either Delorme or Goodle Earth allow the recording of enough detail to be accurate and useful. Printing out copies to use "on the road" is another matter. Three miles to the inch is often sufficient. By many little areas need greater detail. Printing out any length of route can be very consuming of paper and ink. And neither Delorme nor Google appear to have a way of printing out "blowups" of limited areas. Just food for thought. Part 3, the actual production, is what I was reflecting on in my previous note. The actual drawing in a form that could be used for either display on the web or in printed format -- after the exact route is known -- takes the 8-16 hours per about 40 miles. And then, of course, a better way of doing it becomes apparent and you do it all over. Anyone have more good ideas/specifics for Part 2?? Dave: are you aware of the PPOO book researched by Harold Meeks and published after he died? That might have the PPOO route nailed down. John R. YtTrailman ----------------------------------------

I am reading with interest the comments about a cooperative creation of modern maps of the old trails/highways. As some of you know, my wife and I have been working for several years to research and write about the Yellowstone Trail, the "Good Road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound," 1912-1930. A major task for me has been to determine and then map the exact route of the YT across the Nation in reference to modern routes. It is a fascinating task. A good share of the results can be found at www.yellowstonetrail.org, although the maps might be hard to find and print out as they are county by county and we have hundreds of corrections and additions to make. I first determined the old route through the use of old maps (especially the old AAA strip maps) and Blue Books and the like and YT Association maps and articles in newspapers and anything else that we could find. For what it is worth, here is the process I then used to create to create the maps. For most of them, I drew the old routes on my computer-based Delorme maps, decided on a scale (a frustrating task because it is always too large or too small in any one area), copied the maps to the clipboard, opened them in Corel PhotoPaint (same as Adobe PhotoShop), resampled them to yield 4 miles to the inch, and saved the result to a jpg file. Each one was then imported into CorelDraw (a vector drawing program) on a "layer". I then traced the major roads, towns, streets, lakes, rivers, etc on higher layers. Then I drew the YT route and added road/street names on the next layer. Most of the maps you will find on the web site show the YT as the top layer as a yellow line bounded by black. Newer ones show the YT as a wide grey "shadow" under the modern roads. (I'll discuss that if anyone wants to, but the reason takes too much writing for now.) Then the Delorme map area is "turned off" never to be seen again. This avoids all copyright and royalty questions. The problem is that each county takes eight to sixteen hours of intense work. They print out nicely and can be changed to jpg files or anything else for a web site or for printing. You can understand that the idea of some sort of collaborative effort is extremely appealing to me, but for the life of me I have no idea how to accomplish it. It just takes quiet individual slave labor. And decision-making. And creativity. And more labor. I would be happy to explore other approaches such as using Google Earth to communicate the route to interested people. But my primary goal is to publish detailed route maps of the YT TOGETHER WITH its history and stories, simply because too few people know about the YT and would not be interested in following the route without some knowledge about what it was like in 1920. Note that the Mobridge (SD) Tribune has published a guide to the YT(using our detailed maps) in the Dakotas and part of Minnesota as a give-a-way. Also, we (the Ridges) are working with American Road to produce a similar tourist give-a-way for Wisconsin. It will have those modern maps of the old route. The developing economic situation my kill the idea, though. Regardless, some sort of Wisconsin Guide with the kind of maps you are looking for will appear on our web site within a year. Keep up the ideas and we will see what we can do. Money? Well our own efforts for the YT are aimed at finding a way to having our research and publishing expenses reimbursed through sales or whatever. We have no expectation of making money. And cooperative efforts for the common good are acceptable! Now what? John Ridge