HISTORIC AMERICAN HIGHWAYS^ ROSE 507 



original planlv road in North America, after the example of the 

 Eussians, the first plank road in the United States was laid, in 1846, 

 from Syracuse, N. Y., to the foot of Oneida Lake (pi. 10, fig. 1). The 

 road was completed in July of that year by a corporation known as 

 The Salina & Central Square Plank Road Co. 



These half-hearted improvements in the character of the horseways 

 failed, however, to overcome the tremendous handicap which the 

 steam railways had gained during a period of three decades. By 

 1850 the speed of the fastest trains averaged about 25 miles an hour, 

 and the railroads were carrying passengers and freight over long as 

 well as short distances. Faced with such formidable competition, the 

 Conestoga-wagon and stagecoach companies were failing everywhere, 

 and the highways often were becoming so rough, impassable, and 

 muddy that a partial load could be hauled by four horses only with 

 the greatest effort (pi. 10, fig. 2). The main highways began to fall 

 into such a state of neglect and disrepair that this period has been 

 dubbed the twilight of the dark ages of road travel in the United 

 States. 



Although the steam railroad dominated the whole system of trans- 

 portation in the eastern States, not a single locomotive had puffed its 

 way over a steel track as far as the Mississippi River prior to 1854. 

 Stretching beyond the Father of Waters as far as golden California 

 was a vast wilderness of 2,000 miles of plains, deserts, forests, and 

 mountains which only the fastest overland stagecoach relays could 

 span in 20 days. The need for fast mail communication between the 

 Pacific coast and the center of goverimient, at Washington, had been 

 growing ever since gold had been discovered in California, in 1848, at 

 Sutter's sawmill on the south fork of the American River near 

 Coloma. To speed news to the new gold region a Lightning Drome- 

 dary Express (pi. 11, fig. 1) was tried first on the route between 

 Albuquerque, N. M., and Los Angeles, Calif., in 1857, by Secretary 

 of War Jefferson Davis. The camels were expected to travel 100 

 miles without water, to feed on sagebrush, and, racing across the 

 parched desert at the rate of 10 to 15 miles an hour, to reach their 

 Pacific destination within 2 weeks from a starting point on the 

 Missouri River. The experiment failed partly because the easygoing 

 but stubborn camels, lulled into obedience by the dulcet, liquid Arabic 

 language of their drivers in Egypt and Arabia, became balky when 

 abused in a strange land by the forceful and impetuous American 

 mule handlers. 



Undismayed by the failure of the camel express and determined to 

 exhaust every possible means that promised to speed communication 

 with the Pacific coast, Californians promoted another experiment in 

 rapid mail transportation. At this time there was doubt that the 



