DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, and this one's a road story through and through. Back in 1913, a man named William Hope Harvey of Arkansas had a notion. He wanted better roads — specifically, roads good enough to reach his Ozark mountain retreat.
So he founded the Ozark Trails Association, and what started as one man's wish for a smoother drive grew into something that stretched across half a dozen states. Members came from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri — thousands of them — gathering at annual meetings to talk roads, promote tourism, and make the case to anybody who'd listen that the highways of America needed serious attention. Now, the southern route of the Ozark Trail didn't skirt around Texas.
It cut right across the panhandle, rolling through Collingsworth, Childress, Hall, Briscoe, Swisher, Castro, and Parmer counties. That's a long stretch of high plains country, and the association meant to mark every mile of it. In 1920, members from those Texas counties and two New Mexico counties got together, voted, and decided to follow the national group's lead — they'd place reinforced concrete signposts along the route in their counties.
The man who drove that effort forward was James E. Swepston of Tulia. He led the push, and in recognition of that work, he was elected president of the national association at its 1920 annual meeting.
Right about eighty-five feet northwest of this marker, there's a concrete obelisk that Swepston and his fellow members planted in Tulia. It was built to tell travelers the distance from Tulia to various towns along the trail. The association that put it there disbanded in 1924, part of a whole era of private highway associations that had stepped up to sponsor automobile routes before the federal government took over, began numbering highways, and started marking them itself after World War I.
The obelisk outlasted the organization. In 2000, the Texas Historical Commission designated it a State Archeological Landmark. It still stands there — a concrete column on the panhandle flatlands, marking a road that thousands of people once fought to build, placed by a man from Tulia who believed the way forward was worth paving.
What the marker says
Founded in 1913 to mark and promote an automobile route across several states, the Ozark Trails Association was the brainchild of William Hope Harvey of Arkansas, who wanted to improve roads to his Ozark mountain retreat. Thousands of members from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri attended annual meetings of the association, which also sought to promote tourism and educate the public to the need for better highways and roads. The southern route of the Ozark Trail extended across the Texas panhandle through Collingsworth, Childress, Hall, Briscoe, Swisher, Castro and Parmer counties. In 1920, members from these Texas counties and two New Mexico counties met and voted to follow the lead of the national group in placing reinforced concrete signposts along the route in their counties. James E. Swepston of Tulia led this effort and was elected president of the national association at its 1920 annual meeting. The concrete obelisk placed in Tulia (85 feet northwest) originally denoted the distance from Tulia to various towns on the trail. It retains its identity as a local landmark, and in 2000, the Texas Historical Commission designated the Ozark Trail marker as a State Archeological Landmark. The obelisk also is a reminder of the Ozark Trails Association (disbanded in 1924), one of many private highway associations to sponsor automobile routes before the federal government began numbering and marking such highways after World War I. (2001)