Our good friend Willy-Nilly planned the early roads. Not just in Douglas County, but everywhere.
Sometimes the askew and swirling roads make sense because topography dictated the path.
Many times, roads followed an ancient path which became a wagon road.
In not a few places, Uncle Joe cut a path to his cabin, and cousin Max dragged it out with a team.
These earthen scars became Joe’s Road and part of our current road system.
The Land Grant College Act signed into law by Abraham Lincoln required planned roads and schools in exchange for Federal dollars.
By extension our square mile grid of roads followed.
However, this bit of folk history did not become good roads without a lot of kicking and screaming.
Interesting is the way bicycle enthusiasts started the march toward a usable road system.
The League of American Wheelmen formed after policemen began arresting, harassing, and jailing bicyclists.
The push for good roads came after the invention of the ‘safety bicycle’ in 1885, and pneumatic tires in 1888.
The peddle and chain drive of the ‘safety bicycle’ made riding a bike practical.
Replacing steel wheels with pneumatic tires on spoked wheels made riding a bike inviting.
Over a million modern bicycles found their way onto the roads by 1890.
Stirring these things together produced the ‘Good Roads’ promotional campaign of the League of American Wheelmen.
They made bibs which hung around horse necks declaring ‘Horses Want Good Roads.’
Outside of cities, a coherent system of roads or highways did not exist, so the bike enthusiasts formed into Good Roads Associations.
In Washington, Railroad Man Sam Hill called businessmen and leaders to Spokane in 1900.
Declaring he is for ‘Good Roads,’ they formed the Washington Good Roads Association.
Intent on pushing the counties and state into providing an adequate road system, they went to work.
Records show how in 1904 less than one percent of the roads in Washington were marked and paved.
Part of the problem came from the way the State of Washington handled road building.
Property owners could either pay for roads through poll and property taxes or work off the obligation with their own labor.
Politicians believed us individually responsible instead of seeing the economic and social benefit of roads.
In Eastern Washington, roads came as the result of farmers pulling half-sawn logs behind a team to grade trails.
When the County Commissioners built roads, they graded existing tracks without connecting them.
One year into Douglas County history, residents petitioned the County Supervisors
to build the trail down Corbaley Canyon into a usable road to the Ferry on the Columbia.
Little else happened until the need for planned roads started pushing the right buttons.
With the advent of the automobile, the push for roads rose in pitch to a crescendo.
Cow paths became mud pits when wet and especially in the spring.
Horses continued to slog along in the mud pulling the high and narrow wagon wheels through the slop.
Cars sank up to their axles and dug deeper.
In 1912, J.W. Parmley, a businessman in Ipswich, South Dakota became irritated with
the way his new car could not ford creeks and became stuck in the mud.
He took a dramatic giant step when he brought businessmen together and spread his organization out from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound.
They did what Federal, State, and Local governments failed to do.
The Yellowstone Trail Association laid out the first national highway for automobile travel.
After the Walla-Walla Honor Prisoners hacked out the road down to join up with Corbaley Canyon in 1915, Parmely inspected the Sunset Highway through Waterville.
In 1925 they routed the Yellowstone Trail through Douglas County down to the Columbia River bridge and crossed to Wenatchee.
And Willy-Nilly joined the unemployed in the soup line!
