An illustration of the influence exerted by transcontinental path-finding tours is demonstrated by the recent formation of the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway Association, which was organized during the recent tri-State road convention held at Phoenix, Ariz., for the purpose of selecting a route and promoting the construction of a trunk highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Gov. Sloan of Arizona showed his interest in the efforts to improve highway conditions by calling together the good roads enthusiasts of California, New Mexico, and Arizona at the request of the Arizona Good Roads Association to discuss the most feasible routes and to make plans for securing appropriations for their early construction. In a report President T. G. Norris of the Arizona Good Roads Association says that the convention was well attended by prominent citizens from Los Angeles and San Diego, Cal.; Albuquerque, N. M.; Yuma and Phoenix, Arizona, and from several other cities along the proposed route.
President Norris also states that the route originally surveyed and charted by the representative of the Touring Club of America in the Fall of 1910 from Raton, N. M., through Santa Fé, Albuquerque, Carthage, San Antonio, Cocora [Socorro], and Magdalena. N. M.; Salomville [Solomonville], Globe, Roosevelt, to Phoenix, was adopted, and that the route west from Phoenix to Los Angeles, passing through Yuma, Arizona; Mammoth, Cal., west to Mecca, through Beaumont, Redlands Junction, and Colton to Los Angeles, forming a part of the “Old Trails Highway” included in the pathfinding trip of Thomas W. Wilby, special agent of the Office of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture, last Fall, was adopted for the western section.