world. The primeval forest, untouched and unburned 

 towers on both sddes of the road. The contrast is tre- 

 mendous. And in the midst of it all the road passes 

 into Cook County. The roads in St. Louis and Lake 

 counties are good, but they are old roads made over 

 and the location is none of the best. They are hilly 

 and lack daily care. Nevertheless they are good as 

 roads go and far above the average of the state. But 

 the road in Cook County is superb. Laid out since the 

 discovery of the art of modern highway building, it is 

 without heavy grades, broad, straight, with a perfect 

 gravel surface and enough patrolmen to keep it so. 

 The culverts, too, are graded over so that they are 

 passed without notice. They do not stand up a sheer 

 six inches above the surface as they do on so many of 

 the otherwise good roads. The forest breaks away here 

 and there and exposes a beautiful vista to the lake. 

 Trout streams with such names as Beaver Creek, Bap- 

 tism River, and Cross River tumble down from the in- 

 land hills in roaring falls and pass under the road to 

 the lake. 



There are lots of things that Cook County, with its 

 vast undeveloped territory and scant population, does 

 not have, but a good road is not one of them. There is 

 not another county in the state, no matter how wealthy 

 or how densely populated, that can show an equal 

 length of road as well built, as well kept and as attrac- 

 tive as the road from the Cook county line to Port Ar- 

 thur. 



21 



