Taming Big Sky Country: The History of Montana Transportation from Trails to Interstates

by Jon Axline

Overview

Drives this breathtaking did not come easy. Cruising down Montana's scenic highways, it's easy to forget that traveling from here to there once was a genuine adventure. The state's major routes evolved from ancient Native American trails into four-lane expressways in a little over a century. That story is one of difficult, groundbreaking and sometimes poor engineering decisions, as well as a desire to make a journey faster, safer and more comfortable. It all started in 1860, when John Mullan hacked a wagon road over the formidable Rocky Mountains to Fort Benton. It continued until the last section of interstate highway opened to traffic in 1988. Montana Department of Transportation historian Jon Axline charts a road trip through the colorful and inspiring history of trails, roads and superhighways in Big Sky Country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625853653
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	03/30/2015
Series:	Transportation
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jon Axline has been the historian at the Montana Department of Transportation since 1990. When not sweating over the state's historic roads and bridges, he conducts cultural resource surveys and writes the MDT's roadside historical and geological interpretive markers. He is a regular contributor to Montana The Magazine of Western History and Montana Magazine. He is also author of Conveniences Sorely Needed: Montana's Historic Highway Bridges and editor of Montana's Historical Highway Markers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction. Roads to Romance: Getting Around in Big Sky Country 9

Part I Enterprises of Incalculable Importance: Montana's Early Roads 13

The Mullan Road 14

The Montana Road 17

A Monument Above the Water: Parson's Bridge 20

The Bozeman Trail 21

The Northern Overland Route 23

Toll Roads 25

Stagecoach Etiquette 30

The Iron Horse Transforms Montana's Roads 31

Part II Getting Montana Out of the Mud 35

The Montana State Highway Commission 38

A New Direction 43

Modernizing Montana's Bridges 52

Part III The Montana Highway Department Takes The Reins 57

The Federal Aid Road Act of 1921 62

When Montana's Highways Had Names: The Trail Associations 64

The Good Roads Law 71

Part IV Transforming Montana's Highways During the Dirty Thirties 79

The Beartooth Highway 85

The New Deal 87

Howdy Everyone! Glad to See You! 91

Countdown to War 94

Part V A Time Of Unprecedented Construction: The Postwar Years 97

Preparing for Peace in a Time of War, 1942-1945 98

The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1944 101

From War to Peace, 1946-1956 104

Funding Problems 106

The National System of Interstate Highways 109

Montana's White Crosses: The Roadside Fatality Markers 111

Part VI Your Highway Dollars At Work: The Interstate Highways 113

The Golden Age of Montana's Interstate System, 1956-1966 116

A Tough Piece of Work: Interstate 15 and the Wolf Creek Canyon 123

The Interstates, 1968-1988 131

Notes 135

Bibliography 137

Index 141

About the Author 144