Importance of The King Road Drag
D. Ward King was widely admired in his day. Tributes came from everywhere. With the exception of the railroads, the better roads his invention brought about benefitted nearly everyone in a highly visible and totally obvious way. The "before and after" contrast was dramatic. In fact, the widespread use of the King Road Drag came along near the time Henry Ford started mass producing automobiles. Solid roads meant people could use their clackety Model T automobiles, especially on the roads between cities. Solid rural roads also made possible reliable rural mail delivery, which did much to promote commerce in the United States between city based businesses and the rural population. For instance, it allowed Sears and Roebuck to start sending out its catalogues to small towns and farms and thereby vastly increase the size of its customer base.
As a sign of how much Maitland revered his memory, there was a "gigantic maple tree" that was "situated on the lawn in a commanding position", which came to be designated the "King Memorial Tree." Years later, the Maitland-Skidmore Road was constructed through the lawn of the King farm. Its builders made a "jog" in the road around it to "preserve it as a memorial to the pioneer who cherished it from its infancy". Seventy years after Ward's death, "state scientists" were struggling to keep it alive after a particularly bad drought year. A history of Maitland said that "There are few trees in the state so admired and known." The Maitland, Missouri article on Wikipedia mentions itself as the home of D. Ward King.
Technology has long since left the horse-drawn King Road Drag far behind. The King Road Drag made possible the use of the motor vehicle and, ironically, the motor vehicle doomed the King Road Drag, at least in its horse-drawn form. The motor-powered road grader quickly rendered its horse-drawn predecessor obsolete. However, without the road improvements brought about by the King Road Drag in its day and the subsequent advent of the automobile, American life would be different today in ways that cannot be easily imagined. For instance, how many people living today never would have been born, if bad roads and poor transportation had prevented so much as one set of their ancestors from meeting or even meeting later than they did? With that thought in mind, how many people living in America and elsewhere unsuspectingly owe their very existence to David Ward King and his King Road Drag?
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