Alexa McDowell
AKAY Consulting - Boone, IA

Introduction
 Timeline
 Setting the Stage
 Mason City “Metropolis of Northern Iowa”
 Booster Extraordinaire
 The Final Mile

Timeline
 1905 An estimated 1,650 autos in Iowa

Setting the Stage
 The Good Roads Movement
 Gardner Cowles, publisher of the Des
Moines Register

Setting the Stage - the Interstate Trail in Iowa
 1911 Interstate Trail organized
 1913 By-laws adopted
 1915 Route extended north from Des Moines to St. Paul, MN
 500 miles of marked highway from Lamoni through Osceola, Indianola, Des Moines, Nevada,
Iowa Falls, Mason City, and Northwood

“
The officers and trustees were without exception men of integrity and high standing in their local communities, who recognized the development of good roads as a proper community service and gladly devoted their time without pay in working for the good roads movement, and co-operated on the ground with state and county authorities in the work of actually completing the building of a dependable road.
”

W.A. Hopkins Lamoni
W.A. Hopkins, morticianturned-banker, organized the
State Savings Bank of Lamoni.
At the first hint of an organized effort to get Iowa out of the mud, Hopkins became a Good Roads booster, leading to the organization of the Interstate Trail.

Timeline - 1915
 An estimated 145,000 automobiles in Iowa

Timeline - 1915
 Jefferson Highway Association organized in New Orleans
 E.T. Meredith was elected the first president and quickly established the publication, the Jefferson Highway
Declaration.

E.T. Meredith - Des Moines
“When the Jefferson Highway was conceived, it seemed to be the fancy of dreamers.”

The Case for the Jefferson Highway
 Destined to be popular vacation route due to the diversity of climate and topography
 Nearly 1/3 of proposed JH already organized, including the Interstate Trail in Iowa

The Route in Iowa
 Interstate Trail became the backbone for the JH route in Iowa
 500 miles of “well-organized, well-marked highway”

Mason City “Metropolis of Northern Iowa”

 Mason City population in 1919 of 26,000
 Two cement plants
 Mason City Brick & Tile Company
 10 miles to resort area of Clear Lake

Mason City and the Auto
 1903 Joshua Melson owned the city’s first car
 1907 Two car dealerships in business
 1910 Colby Motor Co. established
 1915 15 car dealerships in business
 1920 19 car dealerships in business

Mason City Chamber of Commerce
 Streets and Highways committee
 Marketing support
 Tourist Information Bureau
 Business development

“… it is estimated that an average tourist party spends $50.00 in a city like Mason
City. It is an established fact that tourists travel over marked highways that come through Mason City.”

Booster Extraordinaire

Hugh H. Shepard
 Mason City born & raised
 Attorney, abstractor, businessman, land owner, developer
 Community activist
 Hobby was “Good Roads”

“Service is the rent you pay for the position you occupy in the community.”

Timeline - 1920
 An estimated 411,000 cars and 30,000 trucks in Iowa

Timeline - 1920
 25 miles of paving on Iowa’s primary roads
 Only Oklahoma and South Dakota had a smaller percentage of total road mileage surfaced than did Iowa

Timeline - 1921
 69 miles of paving on Iowa’s primary roads

Timeline - 1921
 Jefferson Highway named the crosscontinent military road “from the gulf to the lakes” making it the primary north to south roadway in the nation

Timeline - 1922
 330 miles of paving on Iowa’s primary roads

Timeline - 1925
 502 miles of paving on Iowa’s primary roads

Timeline - 1925
 Start of Iowa’s first gas tax of 2 cents per gallon to help support local and state road projects
 All of the JH in Iowa had been built to finished grade or was under contract for construction except less than 1 mile in
Warren County

Timeline - 1928
 61 Iowa counties had issued bonds for primary road projects
 1,500 miles of paved roads
 $100 million state bond issued

Timeline - 1930
 State line celebration