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Thursday, March 5, 2015

"Autotrails" Map of 1924


Rand McNally & Co.'s Commercial Atlas Of America. Fifty-Fifth Edition, AutoTrails Map, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Northern Michigan, 1924
from David Rumsey Map Collection via oldmapsonline.org

Back when extensive travel by car was in its infancy, Rand McNally, among other publishers, developed and published maps for use by car travelers.  This zoomed view of the Fox Valley section of the Wisconsin map shows that even back then, there was a State Road 114.  Notice Hwy 15 to the west of town, which eventually morphed into US 41.  In 1926 with the debut of the U.S. Highway system, all of Hwy 15 north of Milwaukee was replaced by the new US 41 designation, all the way into Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  In later years, the Hwy 15 designation would be used again, most recently in a 15 mile stretch west of Appleton at US 41 to the south of New London, near the southern end of the "New London Bypass."   The "1" in the black box refers to the highway's designation as the "Yellowstone Trail" highway.  (Don't ask me how that fits.) 


We first visited Hwy 15 in a blog post from 2013:  http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2013/05/highway-15-opening.html

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