The Ozark Trail was a network of locally maintained roads and highways organized by the Ozark Trails Association that predated the United States federal highway system. The roads ran from St. Louis, Missouri, to El Paso, Texas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, over a series of routes. These roads were maintained by both private citizens and local communities. In one case, however, the US government was directly involved; it built the Ozark Trail Bridge in 1925 over the South Canadian River between Newcastle, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City, as the first federal highway project built in Oklahoma.
These roads comprised the major highway system in the region until U.S. Highway 66 was built in the 1920s. In Oklahoma, portions of the section-line roads between Anadarko and Hobart are still referred to as "The Old Ozark Trail."
Obelisk markers are located at several places on the trail, including Farwell, Dimmitt, Wellington, and Tulia, Texas.
Contemporary online references of the term "Ozark Trail" for this road include:
- A blog from a nearby farm.
- A point on the trail near the confluence of 35°N 99°W / 35°N 99°W / 35; -99.
- A cemetery list that mentions the Ozark Trail as a landmark.
Famous quotes containing the word trail:
“Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter’s walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)