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The
Yellowstone Trail
Stanley
Before
there were numbered highways in the United States there
were names attached to roads to help motorists navigate
from town to town or from county to county. In 1912 no one
thought in terms of an inter-state highway. However, a small
band of men including J.W. Parmley of Ipswitch, South Dakota
envisioned a road from Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts to Puget
Sound, Washington and called it the Yellowstone Trail. They
wanted good roads to travel on and formed the Yellowstone
Trail Association in October of 1912 remaining active until
1930.
The
Yellowstone Trail Association did not build roads. It lobbied
for "good roads" in every level of government
and provided instructions to local people for the construction
and maintenance of roads. They promoted cross-country tourist
traffic, marked the route with signs and provided maps raising
the interest in using the automobile for other than local
travel.
The
Yellowstone Trail began in South Dakota and quickly expanded
east to St. Paul, Minnesota and west to Yellowstone Park
in Montana. By 1914 it extended to the Idaho border and
east to Chicago. By 1917, the entire route was firmly established
coast to coast.
The
Yellowstone Trail passed 406 miles through Wisconsin from
Kenosha to Hudson covering 18 counties. From the east the
road entered Chippewa County along what is now County Highway
X into Stanley past this very site, onward through Cadott,
westward to Lake Wissota. The road then turned onto what
is now County Highway J west to Chippewa Falls along Park
Avenue. The Yellowstone Trail continued its cross county
route along Park Avenue and County Highway J south to Eau
Claire.
With
the construction of new highways and the advent of a federal
numbering system, this transcontinental road finally faded
in the 1930s.
A
new Yellowstone Trail Association has now been formed in
2003 to increase public knowledge about the Trail and to
promote heritage tourism. Thanks in part to a small group
of visionaries in central Wisconsin and in cooperation with
the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, motorists can now once
again experience this storied piece of American history.
Chippewa
County Historical Society
Historic Sign #12
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