Roaring 20's were good for Trucking

With the end of WWI, trucks had convincingly proved that they were not an alternative to the horse, but invaluable in the distribution of material during the conflict. In fact, many attributed the final victory resulted from the use of trucks, more than any other single factor. Clearly, trucks were here to stay.

Trucks became mainstays in many vocations such as logging, where their power--even with unsophisticated four and six-cylinder engines and lack of braking or chassis refinement, could out perform horses and offered much greater flexibility.

Trucks also made major inroads in municipal and utility fleets for hauling and service tasks. Aiding their acceptance was the transfer of 20,000 military trucks to the states for road maintenance purposes. Also their relative speed and pumping power made them popular with fire fighting applications.

Returning servicemen who had seen duty with the army engineers were quick to apply trucks to the construction industry during the building boom of the 20's.

Trucks also made significant inroads into the distribution of goods, mostly in straight trucks of up to eleven tons nominal capacity, though many were severely overloaded with such cargo as sacked goods and paper rolls.

Long distance trucking was not getting the same start even with the demonstration trips by truck manufacturers to promote their product. Some effort was made to promote the possibility of coast-to-coast trucking. One of the most notable was the War Department First Transcontinental Army Convoy that departed Washington, DC, July 7, 1919, to determine weather a truck convoy could make it as far as the west coast.

The convoy comprised of 300 enlisted men and officers, and 65 trucks and other vehicles. And because of the primitive roads of the time, five 7 1/2 ton AC Macks were loaded with timber to shore up bridges and make road repairs on the way.

The convoy followed the route of the Lincoln Highway, whish had been planned prior to the war as part od the 1916 Federal Road Act. In command was Col. Charles W. McClure, assisted by a young Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower---who decades later as president, signed legislation that would create the Interstate Highway System.

It took two months not without many ordeals, to complete the trip, ending with a celebration in San Francisco. This did help to kick off the population to insist on the federal funding of a highway system throughout the country. It would be easier to ask for and very difficult to accomplish. Many hurdles would have to be surmounted, with highway marking, funding problems, states rights and so on. Truck Safely out There.

Retired Truckers Remember

All retired truck drivers remember the hard rubber tires of the good old days. It was widely believed that they were necessary to handle the weight carried by trucks. That made it difficult for tire manufacturing companies to have their products excepted by the trucking industry.

The Good Year Co. designed the rubber pneumatic cord tire in 1912, but didn't introduce it until 1916 to the truck manufacturers. To prove their tire to the general public and to the trucking industry and truck drivers, they formed Wingfoot Express. They fitted a 5 ton Packard truck with Good Year 38-by-7 steering axle tires and 44-by-10 drive axle tires for a trip from Akron, Ohio to Boston.

The first trip took 19 days, due to very bad weather and terrible roads. The return trip was much better, taking only 5 days, much faster than the trains of the time. After much marketing fanfare, the Wingfoot Express was making the round trip on a regular 5 day schedule. They were hauling their own products therefore marking the beginning of interstate transport of merchandise by a private carrier.

Truck drivers will tell you, one of the great needs of trucking at the time, was a highway system. The roads were bad or did not exist depending on which state you were trying to travel through. Many roads, if paved, would suddenly end at county or state lines because on territorial rights and funding.

President Woodrow Wilson signed a Congressional created Federal Aid Road Act in 1916. This gave the Federal Government power to establish Post Offices and Post Roads. The aim was to create an interstate highway system and allowed Federal funding of 50 % of the cost. This aided the states and counties but fell short, because of tax base population.

Even earlier, however, a group of visionaries, led by automotive pioneer Carl G. Fisher, began talking about a coast-to-coast highway. In 1911 he had built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and created one of the world's most famous auto races.

It didn't take him long to promote and raise $4 million from his fellow automobile manufacturers, toward construction of a new road. On July 1, 1913, The Lincoln Highway Assn. was officially begun. This was intended to spur public interest and pressure public officials to continue building the the highway. The first seedling one mile strip of concrete road was built in Malta, IL. In 1914.

Few others were built and after the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act, the assn. turned over three years of extensive studies and recommendations to the federal and state road builders. It had charted the beat route from New York to San Francisco and laid the groundwork for construction of US30. Truck Safely out There.