From the time I was 12 years old until I graduated from high school I ran a paper route in my hometown. At 14 I graduated from delivering papers on a "Flying O" bicycle with a banana seat and hi rise handlebars to a motorcycle. It was a Sears Allstate Sport 60cc made in Austria by Puch.
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| Courtesy Sheldon's EMU at cybermotorcycle.com |
Over the next 10 years I rode a string of motorbikes increasing in size until I landed on a Kawasaki Z-1. But then came kids and a career. I sold the Z-1.
After the kids graduated from high school, I went back to riding and back to Kawasaki on a Ninja 650. Since old Route 66 was nearby, I started riding and researching 'The Mother Road'.
When you research Route 66, you find Cyrus Avery.
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| Cyrus Avery |
And when you find Cyrus Avery, you find the Ozark Trail.
HERE'S THE STORY -
Before the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1925 created the United States Highway System there were “good roads committees” scattered across the country. Often these committees would band together in associations to enable travelers to follow standardized routes from state to state. These were the 'named highways'. Some were coast to coast like the Lincoln Highway and the Old Spanish Trail. Some were regional auto trails, like the Ozark Trail.
Most of these named trails were championed by a single individual. For the Ozark Trail it was William Hope Harvey, author, financial theorist and one time presidential candidate.
In 1901 Harvey built a large vacation resort near Rogers, AR, that he named "Monte Ne".
In 1914 the railroad that serviced Harvey’s resort went bankrupt and was abandoned. Harvey decided the only way to continue to get people to his resort was to promote automobile travel.
He formed and promoted the Ozark Trail which radiated out from Rogers ultimately linking cities and towns from St. Louis to Roswell, NM.
The vice president of the governing body of the Ozark Trail was Cyrus Avery, Tulsa businessman and good roads promoter. Later, as a member of the board appointed to create the Federal Highway System, he helped create Route 66 using many of the roads that were part of the Ozark Trail. Thus, Avery is referred to as the father of Route 66.
TODAY
Remnants of the Ozark Trail can still be found. Seven trail markers, 21 foot tall concrete obelisks, remain in Stroud and Langston, Oklahoma; in Dimmit, Wellington, Tulia and Tampico, Texas and in Lake Arthur, New Mexico.
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| Tulia, TX |
There are also old roadways, both paved and unpaved, old bridges and even the remains of Monte Ne.
The Ninja 650 quickly gave way to a Kawasaki Concours 14, then a Harley Davidson Street Glide and now a BMW R1200RT. Why the Ozark Trail and why on a motorcycle? I liked how Alton Brown, TV Chef, put it in his commentary in the 'Bonus Material' of the first “Feasting on Asphalt”-
“Trips like this aren’t finished. And they don’t always have a direct purpose. You just do it. You eat what you eat and that’s that.”
