The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on
utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in the early days of the
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarde ...
.
Auto trails were usually marked and sometimes maintained by organizations of private individuals. Some, such as the
Lincoln Highway, maintained by the Lincoln Highway Association, were well-known and well-organized, while others were the work of fly-by-night promoters, to the point that anyone with enough paint and the will to do so could set up a trail. Trails were not usually linked to road improvements, although counties and
states often prioritized road improvements because they were on trails.
In the mid-to-late 1920s, the auto trails were essentially replaced with the
United States Numbered Highway System
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...
. The Canadian provinces had also begun implementing similar numbering schemes.
List of auto trails
See also
*
List of historic auto trails in Iowa
*
List of U.S. Routes
*
U.S. Highway association
References
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{{Reflist
External links
North American Auto Trails*Richard F. Weingroff