Day Trips

Little remains of bygone highway culture

Day Trips
Photo by Gerald E. McLeod

The Ozark Trail cut a scenic path across the Texas Panhandle in the early days of the automobile, before federal highways reached the hinterlands. If Route 66 was the "Mother Road," then the early auto trail out of Arkansas must be the "Father Road."

The spiderweb of primitive roads called the Ozark Trail, which stretched between St. Louis and El Paso, all led to the resorts in the Ozarks. Little hard evidence remains of the publicity campaign, other than concrete obelisks in Lake Arthur, N.M.; Stroud and Langston, Okla.; and Farwell, Dimmitt, Wellington, and Tulia, Texas.

The Ozark Trails Association was a highway promotion group invented in 1913 by an Arkansas resort owner. The idea was for municipalities along the routes to promote and maintain the road locally in exchange for being included on the association's maps.

The communities benefited by having tourists buying gasoline, food, lodging, and supplies on their way to or from the resorts. Twenty-one towns built the tall, tapered concrete shafts. On the sides were painted the distances to other towns on the trail.

By 1926, named highways, like the Bankhead Highway, Lincoln Highway, and the coast-to-coast Old Spanish Trail, were replaced by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads with a numbering system. The northern portion of the Ozark Trail across the Texas Panhandle through Amarillo became part of the legendary Route 66.

1,129th in a series. Collect them all. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips," is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

Support the Chronicle  

READ MORE
More Day Trips
Day Trips: Gruene Hall, Gruene
Day Trips: Gruene Hall, Gruene
Historic dance hall celebrates its 50th anniversary with a year of special events

Gerald E. McLeod, June 13, 2025

Day Trips: Ottine Mineral Springs, Gonzales
Day Trips: Ottine Mineral Springs, Gonzales
“Taking the waters” comes to Ottine

Gerald E. McLeod, June 6, 2025

KEYWORDS FOR THIS STORY

Ozark Trail, Route 66, Ozark Trails Association, Texas Panhandle

MORE IN THE ARCHIVES
One click gets you all the newsletters listed below

Breaking news, arts coverage, and daily events

Keep up with happenings around town

Kevin Curtin's bimonthly cannabis musings

Austin's queerest news and events

Eric Goodman's Austin FC column, other soccer news

Information is power. Support the free press, so we can support Austin.   Support the Chronicle