National Parks Highway
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| Slogan: You Sing "America", Why Not See It? | |
| Route information | |
| Length: | 5,600 mi (9,000 km) Based on 1920 dedication tour |
| Existed: | 1916 / 1920 – present |
| Location | |
| States: | California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah |
| Highway system | |
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Auto Trails
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The National Park to Park Highway was an auto trail in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s, plotted by A. L. Westgard. It followed a large loop through the West, connecting twelve National Parks:
There is a PBS documentary about this subject: http://pavingtheway.tv/
In 1914, Secretary of the Interior Lane entered into an agreement with the Office of Public Roads to develop road access to Glacier, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. When Stephen T. Mather became involved with the National Parks, he invited the Office of Public Roads Engineer T. Warren Allen to speak at the 1915 Berkeley National Parks Conference. Mather had concerns over letting the Office of Public Roads develop highway systems within the National Parks. While Allen's approach to public roads saw no difference between National Forests and National Parks, his involvement was an early indication of the public interest in driving.
It was the following year that Mather joined the campaign for the Park to Park Highway. The National Park-to-Park Highway Association was formed in 1916 and began promoting roads and roadway improvements in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain states. Other Highway Associations had been supporting a variety of routes linking the scenic wonders of the western National Parks. In 1915, a Denver group of motorists took off on a 500 miles (800 km) journey from Rocky Mountain National Park to Yellowstone. The Wonderland Trail Association was already promoting the next segment of the journey from Yellowstone to Glacier and then westward to Mount Rainier.
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Wikipedia