Tag: auto trails
-
Vintage map of the Dandy Trail, a 1920s pleasure drive around Indianapolis
I found a circa 1925 map of the Dandy Trail, a 1920s pleasure loop around Indianapolis.
-
US 36 and the Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway in western Indiana
A brief history of a little-known early Auto Trail, the Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway
-
Old-road archaeology: finding the old infrastructure on Indiana’s Dixie Highway
For most of history, roads had to wind, rise, and fall with the terrain. Straight, flat roads meant cutting into the earth, and that was either too costly or simply impossible. Through the 20th century, constantly improving technology changed that. Good thing, too, because as people increasingly relied on motor transport, narrow, winding roads became…
-
Driving the Dixie Highway from Indianapolis to Paoli in Indiana
The introduction to my tour of the Dixie Highway in southern Indiana.
-
Abandoned Fall Creek Road
My recent Dandy Trail tour took me down a part of Fall Creek Road, which rolls and curves through a long portion of northeast Indianapolis. I drive this road often, as it is on one of the routes I follow to pick up and drop off my sons at their mother’s. It’s a lovely drive…
-
Driving the Dandy Trail, part 1
When I found the 1921 map of the Dandy Trail, a 1920s country driving loop around Indianapolis, I knew I’d want to drive it myself. So I traced the route on a modern city map and found that most of the route still exists, and where it doesn’t, easy detours return you to the trail…
-
Making a beeline down Indiana’s Dixie Highway
If you’re not too persnickety, the easiest way to drive the Dixie Highway’s western mainline in Indiana is just to follow US 136. You will miss a few old alignments in so doing, but your cruising will be eased by needing only to follow the marked highway. If you’ve read this blog at all, you…
-
Driving Indiana’s Dixie Highway
The Dixie Highway was a 1910s and 1920s network of roads that connected the Midwest to the South, running from Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan to Miami, Florida. In a day where good roads were not a given, the Dixie was formed to pave the way, literally, to bring tourists to the South. To learn more, please…
-
Captured: Perfect gravel road
This country road may seem like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but it is about 100 feet away from busy US 36, two miles west of Rockville, Indiana. As I took this photograph, the rumble of cars and trucks on the nearby highway blotted out nature’s sounds. Yet when I look at this photograph…