Inside this issue:

Destination

Park Rapids

1

Before US 69

There Was…?

2

One Million

Mystery

3

Jefferson and the

Mother Road

5

Member Registration Form

10

JJJEFFERSONEFFERSONEFFERSON HHHIGHWAYIGHWAYIGHWAY DDDECLARATIONECLARATIONECLARATION

The Newsletter of the Jefferson Highway Association

An Invitation to the 2014 JHA Conference

in Park Rapids, MN By Lu Ann Hurd-Lof, Akeley, MN

www.JeffersonHighway.org

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4 AUTUMN 2013

The tour also will include a stop at the Menahga Area Historical Museum, which includes a Jefferson Highway display. In fact, when the “Palm to Pine” highway was

completed, Menahga adopted its slogan of “Gateway to the Pines.” The museum also has a collection of documents, photographs and memorabilia that tell the story of the influx of Scandinavian and Finnish immigrants that occurred beginning in 1885. Menahga and the neighboring community of Wolf Lake are still known for the large number of Finnish descendants who live

and work there. The 88-mile Lake Country Scenic Byway is designated along the 67 miles of Minnesota State Highway 34 from Detroit Lakes to Park Rapids and Walker and the 21 miles of US Highway 71 between Park Rapids and Itasca State Park. The route traverses 3 counties (Becker, Hubbard and Cass) and reflects the transition from pine forest, through northern hardwoods, to the edge of the prairie. As the name indicates and as you would expect in the Land of 10,000 lakes, hundreds of lakes, rivers and streams beautify the landscape.

(Park Rapids in 2014, Continued on page 4)

T he Lake Country Scenic Byway looks forward to hosting the Jefferson Highway

Association International Conference May 30-31, 2014 in Park Rapids, MN. A tour of Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi River is already being planned. For many years, the park’s naturalists have given a talk on the park’s historic connection to the Jefferson Highway. Park staff have collected a treasure trove of interesting documents and photographs recording the days when the Jefferson Highway brought visitors to the park. The Lake Country Scenic Byway has placed a historic marker on US Highway 71, telling the Jefferson Highway story. In this area, Highway 71 closely follows the same alignment as the Jefferson Highway. Notes left at the historic marker tell us a surprising number of people are fulfilling their bucket list wish of traveling Highway 71 from New Orleans to the Canadian border and are learning about the Jefferson Highway for the first time.

Mississippi River Headwaters Photo courtesy Lu Ann Hurd-Lof

Page 2

[Editor’s note: The author has kindly allowed re-publication here of this article, a slightly longer version of which first appeared in Preservation Oklahoma News. She has also just published a novel, Journey to an Untamed Land, that draws on early Indian Territory history and frequently references the Osage Trace. For more information about the book or to order a copy, go to okieheritage.com.]

F ew roads in Oklahoma can claim as much history as U.S. 69, which runs in a southwesterly direction from Miami to Durant. This stretch of road reaches back to the days when the

Osages were the dominant people in the region. It has gone by many names in its two hundred years or more of existence—the Osage Trace, the Texas Road, the Military Road, the East Shawnee Cattle Trail, and the Jefferson Highway.

As early as the 1780s, the Osages had begun to settle in the Three Forks region near Muskogee. Their principal trade partners were the Chouteau brothers at St. Louis. The Osages traveled

overland from the Three Forks to Missouri along a trail that became known as the Osage Trace. This trail, which followed the natural contours of the land, became the basis for the many roads that followed.

With the establishment of Fort Smith, Fort Gibson, and Fort Scott, the old trail was employed as a military road connecting several of these posts. It was along the military roads that many of the Five Tribes made the final leg of their tearful trail into their new homeland, Indian Territory. Set aside for Indians only, Indian Territory for many years was a place for pioneers simply to “pass through” on their way to settling the West. In the 1830s and 1840s the Osage Trace was crowded with settlers heading out from St. Louis to Texas. The trail became known as the Texas Road.

According to Grant Foreman, the foremost authority on Indian Territory history, “One branch [of the Texas Road] came from Baxter Springs, Kansas, and followed the Verdigris and Grand Rivers to Fort Gibson. The other branch came from Saint Louis through Springfield

and Maysville to Salina, and joined the other. The Texas Road proceeded southwest from Fort Gibson past Honey Springs and crossed Canadian River just below where is now Eufaula.” From there, the road continued on a southwesterly route to cross the Red River at Colbert’s Ferry.

During the Civil War, several battles were fought in Indian Territory for control of the Texas Road, including the Battle of Honey Springs. During the decade of the cattle drives, the Texas Road became the East Shawnee Cattle Trail, and hundreds of cattle were driven up from Texas to the railheads in Kansas.

Following the Civil War, these railroads began to forge into Indian Territory. The first was the Missouri-Kansas & Texas (KATY). The route chosen for this first rail line followed closely that of the Osage Trace, crossing the rivers at the fords established along the Texas Road. The railroad

(Route 69, Continued on page 7)

The Drive is Fine on Route 69 By Jonita Mullins , Muskogee, OK

Today's Oktaha Road into Summit, OK, was once U.S. 69 and the Texas Road.

Photo courtesy Glenn Smith

Page 3

L ast January JHA board member David Stearns spotted some photos on Facebook of several Jefferson Highway signs of vintage design depicting palm and pine trees. The photos had

been posted by Leslie Baumert of McAlester, OK (now a JHA member), whom David contacted by phone. After hearing Leslie’s account about the signs, David got in touch with me, believing that they might be the subject of an intriguing story for use in this newsletter. I agreed and set out to uncover more about the signs.

From Leslie I learned the following: She has three signs, all new, which were found in January, 1979, behind a wall of a McAlester business undergoing some remodeling. The business was the

Million Ford Mercury dealership, located at 2nd

Street between Chickasaw and Cherokee Avenues and owned by her father, Bradley Million (who also happened to be mayor of McAlester then) and his brother, Paul T. Million, Jr. The signs are now jointly owned by the families of the two brothers.

The discovery of the signs was noted in the state newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, but no one came forward then with an explanation of why they would be at that site. The building, which is still standing and has been remodeled for offices, clearly does date back to the era of the Jefferson Highway, as can be seen in a photo from the 1970s provided by Leslie. Moreover, the building and its gas pumps were situated on the route of the Jefferson Highway, even though the highway had to make a one-block jog out of obvious alignment for that to happen. With a little bit of digging, Leslie and I soon uncovered a plausible linkage of the signs

to this business site.

Looking through early issues of the original Jefferson Highway Declaration, I found ads in 1918 and 1920 issues for two successive car dealerships indicated at “2nd and Cherokee,” so presumably that was continuously the site of a car dealership from then until the Millions sold their business in 1997 and the new owner relocated two years later on the U.S. 69 bypass east of the city. Then, reasoning that the original owner of those three signs likely was a JHA local representative or officer as well as an owner or employee of whatever car dealership was there at the time, I continued looking through early issues of the magazine for the identification of JHA activists from McAlester. Three names surfaced: two JHA directors, R.W. Dick and J.D. Jones, and the president of the Oklahoma JHA, Paul Nesbitt.

For her part, Leslie went to work tracing the line of dealerships at 2nd and Cherokee prior to the ownership of her father and uncle. The first step was easy: sometime in the 1970s, the two brothers had bought the business from their father, Paul T. Million, Sr., who, together with a partner who died in 1940, had purchased the Moss Patterson Motor Co. at that location in 1929. At the time of that sale, Moss Patterson was sole owner, but still pushing her inquiry, Leslie established that Patterson had begun in 1921 with a partner, whom he then bought out in 1926.

(Mystery of a Million, Continued on page 4)

A Mystery Solved By Lyell Henry, Iowa City, IA

Million dealership in the 1970s. Photo courtesy Leslie Baumert

Page 4

Headquarters for the Jefferson Highway Conference will be in Park Rapids, a community known for its family resorts and hospitality, as a destination for activities from fishing and hunting to arts and cultural events, and for its downtown with the extra wide Main Street (one block from the route of the Jefferson Highway). We hope you plan to attend the conference in May. Please feel free to explore via the following websites: www.lakecountryscenicbyway.com www.parkrapids.com www.parkrapidsdowntown.com, www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/itasca/index.html www.menahgamuseum.com.

(Park Rapids in 2014, Continued from page 1)

That partner, Leslie then learned, was none other than J.D. Jones, JHA director for Oklahoma. She also discovered that in 1919 Jones had built the structure housing the business. (And here’s

another tidbit Leslie turned up: according to several sources in McAlester, in the early 1920s Jones was also a member of the state highway commission, which, if so, might cast some light on why the Jefferson Highway took that peculiar one-block jog that just happened to bring it past Jones’ business.)

So here was the key fact that our investigation had yielded: in 1921, J.D. Jones both became a JHA director and began a five-year stint as co-owner of an automobile dealership at 2nd and Cherokee. And from that fact, it’s an easy next step to suppose that, at his place of business during those five years, he not only sold cars but very likely also carried out his responsibilities as a JHA director. One of those responsibilities, of course, was getting Jefferson Highway trail signs posted in Oklahoma, and that would explain why highway signs would be stored at the Million dealership. How or why three of them happened to be sealed in a wall is a different mystery, however, and that one would surely be a lot tougher to solve.

(Mystery of a Million, Continued from page 3)

From The Daily Oklahoman, Jan. 31, 1979. Photo courtesy Leslie Baumert

Page 5

T he 2013 Route 66 International Festival was held in Joplin, Missouri, August 1-3, and the Jefferson Highway Association had an enthusiastic presence at the event. Because Route 66

follows the JH from Carthage, MO to Miami, OK with only some minor differences between the routes, the JHA board of directors had determined that JHA should be at this festival. The JHA was able to get a booth for free from the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau, thanks to our

non-profit status, and a special thanks should go, too, to the bureau’s director, Patrick Tuttle, who helped coordinate with the JHA to facilitate our participation. He also reported after the festival that “roadies” from 14 countries and 25 states attended the festival. Attendance on Saturday he estimated at more than 8,000 people. JHA participants in this festival were JHA President Theresa Russell, board member David C. Stearns, and members Michele Hansford and Frank and Maria Justus. Theresa was able to get an invitation to participate on August 2 in the Route 66 Alliance meeting, which featured an open discussion of the route’s economic and development impact and a panel discussion about heritage tours. Her participation showed the Route 66 Alliance that the JHA was serious about working with members of the Route 66 associations, and it also gave us useful exposure to their key decision-makers. Dan Rice, President of the California Route 66

Association, revealed a genuine interest in working with the JHA as we expand the organization. Dan knows all the key contacts along Route 66 and is working on some wonderful projects specifically dealing with heritage tours. I happened to run into him while at the Boots Court in Carthage late Saturday night and spent several hours there getting the grand tour and his insight into all things Route 66. The JHA table was set up at the Christman’s Event Center, which was the indoor location for all vendors, exhibitors, and promoters. Theresa and I attended the opening ceremony, ribbon cutting, and dedication of the Route 66 mural in Joplin, MO. After the event, and to our surprise, Theresa and I were greeted by a cameraman and reporter, Jeremiah Cook, from KSN, the NBC affiliate in Joplin. [Note: Jeremiah, a new JHA member, has since left KSN.] JHA board member Glenn Smith had arranged for them to meet us there to do an interview about the Jefferson Highway. So I was drafted to do the interview with KSN, which can be seen if you click on the link below. http://www.fourstateshomepage.com/story/historic-jefferson-highway/d/story/kbvol9J7PEuTxw5zBDhR_A The interview was shown on the local NBC news channel KSN that same night and I received some good feedback about it the next day from those who stopped by our JHA booth at the festival. Theresa, Michelle, and I staffed the booth the first day, giving out marketing materials

(Jefferson Meets Mother Road, Continued on page 6)

The Jefferson Highway Meets Route 66 By David Stearns, Olathe, KS

Frank and Maria Justus at the JHA Table

Photo courtesy David Stearns

Page 6

and talking with visitors about the Jefferson Highway in Missouri and Kansas. Everyone who came by the booth took some of our JHA information, and most also indicated they had never heard of the Jefferson Highway and wanted to know more. That evening I attended the “Kicking it on Kansas 66” in Galena, KS, which included a car show, live music, other events, and food on Main St. I took many photos, including some of the new Route 66 mural that was unveiled in Galena earlier in the day. Route 66 and the JH run right down Main St. I also took some photos of the old business district, including some of the Four Women on the Route snack bar at an old Kan-O-Tex service station that is now restored. Outside the building there will be several vehicles, including the mining boom truck that inspired the character "Tow Mater" in Radiator Springs in the movie “Cars.” For trademark reasons, Four Women are calling their boom truck "Tow Tater." Tow Tater still runs and can be hired to appear at special

events. Overall, the first day of the festival was very eye opening, and we made some key connections with Route 66ers. Saturday began again at the Christman’s event center. I manned the booth alone for the majority of the day until Frank and Maria Justus arrived to help out in mid-afternoon. Saturday brought increased traffic by our booth as compared with Friday’s count. I had a lot of good discussions about the Jefferson Highway with visitors and gave out most of our marketing materials by the end of the day. We sold JH magnets and JH lapel pins, were able to spark some interest from other state Route 66 associations, especially those of Kansas,

Missouri, Oklahoma and California, and enrolled a new member, Barbara Maxwell, of Tulsa, OK. I also met Ron Hart with the Route 66 Chamber of Commerce located in Carthage, MO, and went around to every booth handing out JHA materials. The festival ended with the Jefferson Highway Association gaining all kinds of contacts,

prospective members, and insights about working with the Route 66 associations. Everyone I

encountered was very interested in learning about the JHA and finding out more—a big win-win

for the entire JHA organization. Seeds were planted that I believe will eventually blossom and

help the JHA grow. I strongly recommend that the JHA and its members be alert to attending

other local festivals as a means of expanding and promoting the Jefferson Highway Association.

(Jefferson Meets Mother Road, Continued from page 5)

Michele Hansford and Theresa Russell at the JHA Table

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surveyors and engineers could not improve upon the instincts of the Indian and the pioneer in choosing the best route. With the advent of the automobile, a “good roads” movement began in 1914, and civic and municipal organizations began working to pave the hard-packed “Indian road.” Coinciding with this movement was the campaign to create the Jefferson Highway. Oklahoma did its part in building this new highway, which followed the route of the Texas Road. David Fink, then JHA vice president, reported in 1916 that he and his family had traveled on the Jefferson from Muskogee to Joplin (149 miles) in “just seven hours.”

In 1925, highway commissioners from eleven states in the Mississippi Valley met at Kansas City to work on plans to bring state roads into a numbered federal highway system. The Jefferson Highway, one of the best developed at that time, was incorporated nearly entirely into the new system and

assigned various highway numbers. The Oklahoma portion of the Jefferson was originally designated U.S. 73 but by the mid-1930s was renumbered as U.S. 69. If Route 66 is the “mother road” and the Lincoln Highway is the “father road,” then perhaps Route 69 could be called a granddaddy of roads, in view of its rich history. Certainly towns along Route 69 in Oklahoma should undertake to preserve, promote, and celebrate it and its predecessor, the Jefferson Highway, just as ardently as others do those other historic highways.

(Route 69, Continued from page 2)

Cottage-style gas station on old U.S. 69 in Muskogee, OK. Photos courtesy of Glenn Smith

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U sually this newsletter carries a department entitled “What Some Members Have Been Doing,” but that won’t be found in this issue, because nothing was submitted

to us for use there. We suspect that many members are doing JH-related things that would be of interest to other members, and we’d like to take notice of them here, but that won’t happen unless those activities are reported to us. So, here is a request: PLEASE let us hear about your activities connected with the Jefferson Highway! That will give us interesting copy for the newsletter, and perhaps your submissions will eventually make “What Some Members Have Been Doing” into a major part of each issue, which we believe it should be. But we’re completely in the hands of members for that to happen, so we hope that our request will prompt some members to follow through now. Thank you.

A Request from the

Newsletter Committee

H ello, Jefferson Highway Association members. What have you been doing this summer? Recording segments of the Jefferson Highway? Or another historic

highway? Board member David Stearns and I were joined by several members (and we signed up a couple more) at the Route 66 International Festival in Joplin MO in August. It is just amazing what the Route 66ers have done. I know we can do great things also! David has an article in this issue of the newsletter with more details but just let me say, it was Great Fun! And educational, too, of course. Which reminds me of a serious matter: Membership. What can we do to increase the membership of the Jefferson Highway Association? We need to get out and participate, research, and contribute to the Jefferson Highway Association. Need help? Need ideas to research? Contact one of your board members. They can help get you started on just about any project. We are working on a professional map and brochure for the Association. Hopefully, we will have plans in the works soon. I envision a 4-fold, glossy brochure with a good map showing cities along the routes through all eight states and Canada. This won’t be a “driving” or “navigation” map with details such as “turn left on this road then right on the next” or exact mileage from point to point but it will give us a good idea of where the road went and through which cities. As you know, the path of the Jefferson changed many times between 1915 and 1929. Do you have any route location information you want to share? If so, send your information to us. Lastly, I want to put out a call for help. Anyone live in or near New Orleans, or have relatives there? The 2015 conference is our bicentennial meeting in New Orleans. We need a conference planner. Right now we have no one in the area to get things going. Contact one of your board members if you can help. OK, one more thing. Keep up with goings-on along the Jefferson Highway by “liking” us on Facebook and visiting the webpage. Thank you for your continued interest in the Jefferson Highway! Have a wonderful Fall and enjoy the cooler weather. at Theresa@jeffersonhighway.org.

The President’s Report for October 2013

Theresa Russell

City of McAlester McAlester, OK Dick Rutherford Park Rapids, MN Brendan Anderson White Bear Lake, MN Cecil Stewart Ames, IA T. Lee Horne, III Franklin, LA Maxine & Don McNeece Menahga, MN Jeri Heldt Menahga, MN Rod Nordberg Park Rapids, MN Bobby & Jane Ballard Joplin, MO Robert Woolfitt Norfolk, VA John Woolfitt Casa Grande, AZ Brad Nickson Tulsa, OK Wilbur & Anita Rust Sheffield, IA Jeremiah Cook Joplin, MO Barbara Maxwell Tulsa, OK City of Jasper Chamber of Commerce Jasper, MO Leslie Baumert Edmond, OK

If your membership renews during the months of July, August, September or October you should have received a renewal application in the mail. Thanks to everyone who has returned the completed application and $20.00 yearly dues.

If you are one of the few who have not renewed, please do so today. We need

your continued support if we are going to be successful in promoting the .

Renew Your Membership Online!

Members and prospective members can now join or renew their annual memberships on line. Just go to the JHA website at www.jeffersonhighway.org and click on the “Join the JHA” tab. Once on the new member page click on the “Buy Now” button and you will be redirected to the PayPal site where you can pay using your PayPal account or your credit card.

Welcome New JHA Members!

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Member Registration

Please fill out a separate sheet for each member of the household and return to: Jefferson Highway Association c/o Scott V. Berka-Treasurer P.O. Box 294 Colo, IA 50056

Please Print Date____________________ Annual membership is from date of enrollment. ( ) New Member ( ) Renewal Name ____________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________ City ______________________________ State _________ Zip/Postal Code ________ Home Phone (_____) _______________ Work Phone (_____) _______________ Fax (_____) _______________ E-mail address __________________________________ ______ I am enclosing annual membership dues of $20.00 per household I am interested in: _____Sociability Run _____Route marking & Governmental route recognition _____Historical Research _____Helping produce the monthly newsletter _____Marketing & Tourism _____Merchandising & Trademark protection _____Maintaining JHA Facebook _____Other ____________________________________________________________ _____I have historic photographs, postcards, tourism booklets, news articles or other information relating to the Jefferson Highway and would like to share them.

Page 10

Stuff You Should Know

The Jefferson Highway

was conceived in 1915,

only two years after the

origin of the Lincoln

Highway, and was in-

tended to be the north-

south equivalent of that

first great east-west

transcontinental high-

way. Billed as running

“From Pine to Palm,” the

Jefferson Highway began

in Winnipeg, Manitoba,

Canada, and ran through

Minnesota, Iowa, Mis-

souri, Kansas (variant

routes in the latter two

states), Oklahoma,

Texas, and Louisiana,

reaching an end in New

Orleans. A later route

variant added Arkansas

to the states traversed by

the highway.

Questions, Comments, Ideas, Letters to the Ed? Contact Us. Jefferson Highway Declaration 209 Main Street Colo, IA 50056 Phone 641-377-2248 or Toll Free 877-234-2656 Fax 641-377-2238 www.jeffersonhighway.org Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/Jefferson-Highway/129069972974 Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/80163577@N07/

JHA Officers President Theresa Russell, Little Rock, AR Theresa@jeffersonhighway.org Vice President David McDowell, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada clio1@mts.net Secretary Melissa Phillips, Butler, MO thos7black@yahoo.com Treasurer Scott Berka, Colo, IA colocity@netins.net

Other Members of JHA Board of Directors Carol Ahlgren Crystal, MN ahlgren.carol@gmail.com Glenn Smith Muskogee, OK gsmith@emptychair.net David Stearns Olathe, KS jeffersonhighway_ks@hotmail.com

Newsletter Editorial Committee Lyell Henry, Chair Iowa City, IA disorg@mchsi.com Mike Kelly Colo, IA Paul Walker Wilton, IA

JHA Mission Statement The Jefferson Highway Association is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and

scientific purposes and shall work for and promote the preservation of the Jefferson High-way in the United States of America and Canada.

The Jefferson Highway Association (JHA) shall identify, preserve, interpret and improve ac-cess to the Jefferson Highway and its associated sites.

The JHA shall pursue the appropriate measures to prevent further deterioration, destruction or alteration of the remaining sections of the Jefferson Highway.

The JHA shall publicize and seek public awareness of its goals and activities for preserving, promoting and developing the Jefferson Highway.

The JHA shall facilitate research about the Jefferson Highway, and maintain a web site and publish a newsletter for articles and news of activity relevant to the JHA.

The JHA shall work with local communities and businesses to promote the Jefferson High-way as a tourism destination.

The JHA shall be exclusively charitable and educational within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. (The JHA shall be a not-for-profit organization and as it matures, the JHA shall seek official 501(c)(3) status.

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