PITTSBURG, Kan. — Again in 1915, transportation within the U.S. was altering and people domestically and throughout the nation had been working to supply the highways that would carry American journey and commerce from the horse and wagon to the trendy automobiles and vehicles.

The federal freeway system had not been envisioned but and even state highways had been scarce.

Selling good roads within the U.S. was left to people. Associations had been shaped to encourage communities to enhance their streets, and encourage counties and states to construct all-weather roads to attach these cities.

The Jefferson Freeway Affiliation was a kind of teams, shaped within the early 1910s to advertise good roads, journey and commerce from Winnipeg in Canada to New Orleans, Louisiana. A part of what was the Jefferson Freeway is now U.S. Freeway 69 in Southeast Kansas.

A reconstituted Jefferson Freeway Affiliation met this previous week in Pittsburg to rejoice these efforts greater than 100 years in the past and the locations that also exist in trendy Southeast Kansas that hearken again to that point.

Usually the group meets yearly in a neighborhood alongside the 1,600-mile route, however this was the primary time the group has gotten collectively since 2019.

“It’s actually arduous to imagine that it has been over three years since our final convention was held in Natchitoches, Louisiana,” stated Jefferson Freeway Affiliation President Roger Bell, who’s from Muskogee, Oklahoma. “A lot has occurred on the earth since then and so much has occurred alongside the Jefferson Freeway Route. There appears to be an ever rising enthusiasm for the freeway’s historical past and its tourism potential.

“Simply within the final month I’ve had detailed conversations with tourism officers and events from a number of totally different states and even Canada. Throughout the convention we will definitely take time to rejoice the previous of the Jefferson Freeway and its wealthy historical past. An vital a part of this convention although might be to realize momentum for our future.”

Pittsburg and the Jefferson

The Jefferson Freeway solely existed from 1915, when a conference in New Orleans set the bottom guidelines till 1926 when the federal authorities established the federal freeway system and numbered highways that crossed state traces.

Earlier than the numbered highways, the U.S. had named highways such because the Jefferson Freeway that crossed the nation from north to south and the Lincoln Freeway which crossed the U.S. from east to west, and plenty of extra.

These two well-known highways crossed in a small city named Colo, Iowa.

When creating the Jefferson Freeway, personal promoters inspired the development of all-weather roads to make journey simpler, and communities and states lobbied to be included on the maps and tour guides printed by the Jefferson Freeway Affiliation.

They held a conference in Louisiana in November 1915 to resolve what cities the route would undergo.

“What we have now to grasp is again then it wasn’t like what it’s now,” Bell stated. “It was a conference. It was preventing. It was nearly like a political contest to realize the route. Missouri and Kansas sometimes and traditionally haven’t gotten alongside very properly approach again in time with the border wars and the whole lot else and in 1915 they had been preventing for the route.

“What they did was they arrange cardinal factors. Certainly one of them was Joplin so the route needed to undergo Joplin and it needed to undergo Kansas Metropolis. The Kansas route meandered round and it got here by Pittsburg and a neighborhood to not removed from right here referred to as Opolis and into Joplin as a result of it needed to meet that requirement, then it got here again out of Joplin and went on what we all know because the Route 66 space at this time earlier than there was a Route 66. The Missouri route went by Harrisonville and Jasper and Carthage and down that approach. They fought and fought over it, and ultimately all of the maps confirmed you had two routes to go from Kansas Metropolis to Joplin.”

Websites acknowledged

Pittsburg had three websites acknowledged with particular Jefferson Freeway historic indicators, and a fourth was added Saturday on the 2022 conference’s last day when Pittsburg officers and conference attendees devoted an indication at 816 N. Broadway marking a constructing that was the Jefferson Freeway Cafe within the Jefferson Freeway period.

One other web site in Pittsburg is what may very well be the final storage on your entire route that also has its unique Jefferson Freeway signal.

The phrases Jefferson Freeway Storage can nonetheless be seen in stone on the facade of a brick constructing at 408 N. Locust.

“To the perfect of our information, the Lord’s Diner is among the final remaining buildings on Jefferson Freeway that also has its unique signage in stone,” stated Chris Wilson, communications supervisor for Discover Crawford County. “A variety of people, we don’t notice it, we drive by and take it without any consideration. Typically we drive round and see the names and see the years and we don’t actually take into consideration what it was once. This was once a storage again within the day.

Different Jefferson Freeway historic markers are positioned in Lincoln Park to mark the Lincoln Park Vacationer Camp that used to function there and on the previous Pittsburg Foundry and Machine Firm, now operated because the Enjoyable Zone Depot at 104 N. Locust.

The conference additionally included the reenactment of a 1923 occasion the place the crossroads of three highways was marked in Franklin, simply north of Pittsburg.

The 1923 ceremony marked the dedication of the Jefferson Freeway, Ozark Trails Freeway and Business Freeway.

That occasion was reenacted on Thursday the place it occurred 99 years in the past at what’s now the Miners Corridor Museum.

The conference included a bus tour that took attendees north to Fort Scott and to a variety of websites between Pittsburg, Fort Scott and Girard which might be important within the Jefferson Freeway’s historical past.

The assembly concluded on Saturday with basic automotive parade on Broadway in Pittsburg to Frontenac, Franklin and Arma.