PITTSBURG, Kan. — Again in 1915, transportation within the U.S. was altering and people domestically and throughout the nation had been working to offer the highways that might 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 fashioned 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, fashioned within the early 1910s to advertise good roads, journey and commerce from Winnipeg in Canada to New Orleans, Lousiana. 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 fashionable Southeast Kansas that harken 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 onerous to imagine that it has been over three years since our final convention was held in Natchitoches, Louisiana,” mentioned Jefferson Freeway Affiliation President Roger Bell, who’s from Muskogee, Oklahoma. “A lot has occurred on the planet since then and rather a lot 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 completely different states and even Canada. In the course of the convention we will definitely take time to rejoice the previous of the Jefferson Freeway and its wealthy historical past. An necessary a part of this convention although will probably 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, non-public 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 revealed by the Jefferson Freeway Affiliation.

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

“What we’ve got to grasp is again then it wasn’t like what it’s now,” Bell mentioned. “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 effectively means again in time with the border wars and every little thing 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 the moment earlier than there was a Route 66. The Missouri route went by Harrisonville and Jasper and Carthage and down that means. They fought and fought over it, and finally 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 website in Pittsburg is what could possibly be the final storage on all the route that also has its authentic 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 most effective of our data, the Lord’s Diner is among the final remaining buildings on Jefferson Freeway that also has its authentic signage in stone,” mentioned Chris Wilson, communications supervisor for Discover Crawford County. “A variety of people, we don’t understand 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. This was 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 outdated 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 Industrial Freeway.

That occasion was reenacted on Thursday the place it passed off 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 are important within the Jefferson Freeway’s historical past.

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