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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

Tales Of A Pathfinder


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A. L. Westgard’s "Tales of a Pathfinder" (1920) is a must read for roadies. It is available for free on the web at Archive.org in a variety of forms. (Search on westgard.) I regret that I have never troubled to read it before, because he describes many old road sites I have visited, including Cisco, Utah, Frenchman’s, Nevada, Price Canyon, Utah, Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, and many more across the country that I haven’t visited…yet.

 

He describes parts of the Yellowstone Trail, the Old National Trails, the National Road, the Old Spanish Trail, etc, etc…..and my new favorite, the National Parks Highway.

 

Forum members know this, but visitors may not: Westgard was the premier pathfinder of the early auto trails era. He and his wife had more auto adventures in a year than most of us enjoy in a lifetime. By the time he wrote this book (1920), he considered path finding to be over, and it was, but his descriptions are golden.

 

For me this is one of those little treasures that makes your travel tick start to twitch. And thanks to the good folks who are making these gems available free, we can all enjoy it.

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Dave,

 

Thanks for posting the link, I am going to try and read that. I agree it is nice that people are scanning these books and making them available. I am trying to compile a small library of the old travel books but some are not available or just out of my reach price wise so the electronic versions are a great remedy.

 

Anyone read or reading other interesting vintage travel books?

 

Jason

 

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Anyone read or reading other interesting vintage travel books?

Not exactly... but I have had By Motor to the Golden Gate awaiting my attention for awhile.

 

Dave, I'm stumped by Archives.org. I see no "book" type links and searching for “Tales of a Pathfinder“ gets me some sponsored car related links. An "A. L. Westgard" isn't any better. Help. :huh:

 

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Not exactly... but I have had By Motor to the Golden Gate awaiting my attention for awhile.

 

Dave, I'm stumped by Archives.org. I see no "book" type links and searching for “Tales of a Pathfinder“ gets me some sponsored car related links. An "A. L. Westgard" isn't any better. Help. :huh:

 

Denny,

 

My bad. It is Archive.org, not Archives.org. I have corrected the original post, thanks to your come back. And BTW, you should become familiar with Archive.org as it has tons of movies and text resources of interest.

 

Happy reading!

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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By Motor to the Golden Gate is excellent reading. We take so much for granted with our roads of today - reading books like By Motor, and others of that period, are enlightening to say the least. If you think of the transcontinental road trips of the early 1900's in the context of man going to the moon, you begin to appreciate what those drivers and travelers went thru.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

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