HISTORIC AMEEICAN HIGHWAYS^ ROSE 509 



initiated soon was given a tremendous impetus by the new horseless 

 carriages which Charles E. Duryea introduced in Springfield, Mass., 

 in 1892, and Elwood Haynes drove through the streets of Kokomo, 

 Ind., in 1894. By the dawn of the twentieth century the new road 

 machines had been so improved as to warrant acceptance as the first 

 successful mechanically driven vehicles ever to be used on the wagon 

 roads. For the first time in all recorded history the problem of 

 mechanical transportation had been solved. There was introduced 

 now a radical change in the method of highway transportation. 

 Much experimentation was needed, however, before the new machines 

 were to be made foolproof and capable of traveling over long dis- 

 tances without danger of a break-down. Propelled by the newly 

 discovered internal combustion engines, the pioneer "benzine bug- 

 gies," or "horseless carriages," had many a mechanical defect to tax 

 the patience and ingenuity of their drivers and make them the 

 laughingstock of the countryside (pi. 13, fig. 1). 



Used first to transport passengers from place to place, the motor 

 vehicle soon became recognized as a practical means for transporting 

 freight. Motortrucks began to make their appearance first on the 

 city streets and later on the rural roads. In 1911 the first transcon- 

 tinental motor-vehicle tour was made by a Sauer motortruck, called 

 the Pioneer Freighter, which weighed 7 tons loaded. This primitive 

 gasoline-engine-driven truck covered the 1,500-mile distance from 

 Denver, Colo., to Los Angeles, Calif., in 66 days. The four-man 

 crew reported there was a great need for road improvement in the 

 Southwest. The diorama illustrates an actual scene on the way 

 through New Mexico (pi. 13, fig. 2) where the road was cleared of 

 obstructions with the aid of shovels and crowbars. 



As the output of the automobile plants was increased steadily by 

 improved methods of mass production, the average daily journey of 

 all motor vehicles was lengthened far beyond the 20-mile limit cus- 

 tomary in the heyday of the horse and wagon. Good roads, fostered 

 by State-aid road laws since the advent of the bicycle, had crossed 

 the boundaries of counties and, by 1916, had reached the borders of 

 some States. At the State line travelers often found their progress 

 halted by a muddy, neglected section of road, which was the product 

 of the lack of initiative on the part of the adjoining State (pi. 14, 

 fig. 1). To bridge these gaps and promote the continuous improve- 

 ment of an interstate system of through roads the Congress of the 

 United States passed the Federal-Aid Road Act on July 11, 1916. 



For some years the fast-multiplying heavy loads on solid-rubber 

 motortruck tires had created problems never raised before by wagon 

 loads on tires made of steel. The suction of the rubber tires dis- 

 integrated the water-bound stone surfaces and caused them to be 



