Stretching out over three miles and including 46 trucks, 11 passenger cars, nine motorcycles, a Maxwell caterpiller tractor, two ambulance trailers, four kitchen trailers, a pontoon trailer, a mobile searchlight and a huge recovery vehicle called a MILITOR, the 1919 military convoy made its way across the United States from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. On Saturday, a convoy of similar vehicles drove through Pine Bluffs, part of the 90th anniversary reenactment of the Transcontinental Motor Convoy.
Just as happened in 1919, the community of Americans gathered along the 2009 route to show support of the military convoy. Dinners, refreshments and overnight accommodations were provided the reenacters who connected with waves and smiles as they traveled through Nebraska and Wyoming this past weekend.
The original convoy was driven by 37 officers and 258 enlisted men, the most famous of which was a young Army officer, Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The road they took was the Lincoln Memorial Highway.
Traveling in the reenactment were members of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association. While not including near the number of people or vehicles as the first journey, the convoy averaged about 50 vehicles and 85 people. They expect to reach their destination on July 8.
The route in 2009 follows the original as closely as possible, crossing 11 states. Now mostly paved, the Lincoln Highway was hardly the smooth span it is known as today. In 1913 a dream was born in a nation with roads which had no real direction, no road maps, no road signs. Carl Fisher had the idea to build a road across the nation. A direct route from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco was set and construction began.
The MVPA Web site gives details on the trip.
Between 1913 and 1919 few improvements were made to the road. The military decided to show the value of a national highway system by taking the first ever motor transport convoy across the country. In addition to showing the need for the highway, the military had several other objectives: to put their equipment through as grueling a trial as could be devised; to study how the varying road conditions affected each branch of the service; it was a transcontinental recruiting drive for the Army; and unwritten but just as crucial, to say "thanks to the American people for their support during the recently concluded World War I.
Information from the Eisenhower Presidential Library indicates road conditions varied from surfaces of concrete or asphalt, with road markers, way-side rests and commercial activities along the route, to a "modern road" in Western Nebraska consisting of two tire tracks through sandy hills. In Nevada, they found the road nearly impassible by anything with wheels. The passage through Sierra Nevada relied on old wagon trials and "glorified goat paths."
They also found bridges were not equipped to handle the heavy vehicles, falling through 100 of the structures, which had to be rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers as the convoy progressed. Over 230 accidents were recorded including vehicles being stuck in mud or quicksand, running off the road or over embankments, or overturning.
Despite the hardships of the trip the convoy set a world record pace for the time. The convoy averaged 59 miles per day moving at about six miles per hour, over a distance of 3,251 miles, and arrived only five days behind schedule.
