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In 1919, an Army convoy drove cross-country from Washington to San Francisco
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 7y agoWith Dwight Eisenhower on board. > The heavy vehicles had damaged or destroyed 88 bridges and caused 230 road accidents. No wonder he considered creating the Interstate system to be a critical piece of infrastructure.
- baud147258 7y agoAccording to Wikipedia, they also repaired the damaged/destroyed bridges. Strange omission from the article. "The convoy broke and repaired 88 wooden bridges" [1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Motor_Convoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Motor_Convoy
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThe most remarkable part of that is that they were willing to risk breaking bridges then broke them then fixed them on their own without being sued into doing so by the municipalities that owned the bridges. It truly was a different time.
- tantalor 7y agoNot sure why you're so shocked. This was standard practice back in the day for measuring & testing bridge capacity; you'd build the bridge then drive a bunch of heavy trucks over it until it breaks, then rebuild the bridge. That's just how things were done. Reference: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/11/26 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/11/26
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoI said it was remarkable though upon reflection I guess that was mostly sarcasm. I guess I mostly wanted to call attention to the fact that that's how things were done back then and that things <gasp> actually got done.
- mikelockz 7y agoSounds like modern day software development.
- DenisM 7y agoMVB. Minimally Viable Bridge.
- dragonwriter 7y agoIt was a propaganda effort to get funding for road building. (That's what it means when they say the idea was “to develop a through route from coast to coast for motor transport”.) Breaking bridges helped demonstrate the need. Fixing bridges avoided lasting negative feelings towards the demonstration that could backfire politically.
- pjmorris 7y agoThat, together with his 1944 tour of the German autobahn. EDIT: 1945, as observed down-thread.
- mikeash 7y agoPretty sure that was 1945.
- duxup 7y agoWell I think it should be clear that they were already thinking about it... the trip was more of a publicity stunt / experiment / illustration. They largely knew it would be a difficult messy situation, and probably was a really good illustration of the challenges that needed to be solved.
- seltzered_ 7y agoFor some time context, the first New York to San Francisco telephone call was in 1915: “Six months later, amidst the celebrations surrounding the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, on January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell, in New York City, repeated his famous statement "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you," into the telephone, which was heard by his assistant Dr. Watson in San Francisco, for a long distance call of 3,400 miles (5,500 km).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telephone_call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telepho...
- darkpuma 7y agoI wonder if that was really the first call across that line, or just the 'official first.' I know if I was one of those technicians trying to make sure everything was ready to be demoed by the biggest celebrity in American telephony, I'd probably test it myself first to make sure I wasn't wasting Bell's time working the kinks out of the system.
- saalweachter 7y agoI also assume that as you're unspooling the line across the entire United States, you are also stopping every few miles and calling back to make sure the line is working.
- neilparikh 7y agoFrom the article: > A telephone call, which for marketing purposes is claimed to be the first transcontinental telephone call, occurred on January 25, 1915, a day timed to coincide with the Panama–Pacific International Exposition celebrations. However, the transcontinental telephone line was first completed on June 17, 1914, and successfully first voice tested in July 1914. A 1998 U.S. postage stamp commemorates the completion of the line in 1914.
- SilasX 7y agoAnd for some more context, Henry George remarked in Progress and Poverty (1879) that a banker in London could submit a trade order in London and have it executed (I assume by telegraph relays) in San Francisco that same morning (SF time). "could he have realized the enormous saving of labor resulting from ... the order given by the London banker in the afternoon executed in San Francisco in the morning of the same day;" https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/george-progress-and-poverty https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/george-progress-and-pover... (Please don't turn this subthread into a discussion of land value taxation.)
- geogra4 7y agoI wonder who the first president to ride a Chinese bullet train will be and say we need one of those in the US?
- technofiend 7y agoOr any bullet train for that matter... The French and Japanese have had a friendly rivalry for decades. But both like the Chinese are willing to dedicate right of way for high speed trains. The American system's shared lines for passenger and freight traffic creates limitations the other systems do not share.
- ceejayoz 7y agoSwitzerland has shared lines, but the freight traffic is required to be able to go at the same speed as the passenger trains. They have shorter trains with more engines than you'd see in the US as a result.
- rolltiide 7y agoThe passenger trains are really fast so its not really a compromise there
- ceejayoz 7y agoRight, that's the point - a dual system can be made entirely workable. You just can't let the freight railroads set the rules like they have here in the US.
- chrisseaton 7y agoI don't know if it's just where I happen to see them (near inhabited areas), but US freight trains seem to literally move at walking pace. Ringing the bell the entire time while they do it.
- jdsully 7y ago
- duxup 7y ago"Some of the chaos was deliberately engineered mischief. One evening in Wyoming, Eisenhower convinced the soldiers that their camp was vulnerable to attack by Native American warriors." Possibly the ultimate "Oh man this guy..." moment for the soldiers ;) The guy who discharged his weapon later maybe thought "Ok fine let's play along and put an end to this..."
- mcguire 7y agoAnd Eisenhower chasing down the messenger to the War Department: "Crapcrapcrap, this is getting out of hand!"
- lucas_membrane 7y agoEisenhower had been at West Point a few years before, in 1912 when the Carlisle Indians football team, many of whom considered the game a rematch of the real Indian wars, beat the cadets to a pulp.
- anonu 7y agoThat article was good. Good length, informative, interesting. Most articles these days try to be excessively wordy and long - and end up with too much filler. Also, good color on how someone's early experiences help shape their future. In this case Eisenhower got his highway system 37 years later with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Basically it took another World War to get this going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
- dmix 7y agoYou don’t like 3 self indulgent paragraphs of what the author was thinking and doing before the actual story starts and before every new heading? Hey me neither Journalists trying to be writers where they insert themselves into the story and who can actually pull it off are rare. And some have pulled it off successfully (which is why these people keep trying it). But so many journalists/bloggers are convinced they fit this category because they went to school for English literature, despite having little of their own literary success or a unique personality worthy of a story itself, and think they should do it for some random big story on a C list news platform. /rant
- anonu 7y agoInteresting rant. I suppose that's one of the many reasons I dislike modern journalism (this New Journalism subjective style of writing ) and I appreciate you putting it into perspective. For some reason the famous article "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" came to mind: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has... But, a quick read through indicates that the author doesn't reference himself until 10 paragraphs down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Journalism
- dmix 7y agoThey teach New Journalism at most English courses in western universities. Which isn’t a bad thing but it’s something that writers seem to cling to because it was cool at one point. It’s easy to get caught up in the advanced (or artistic) stuff before you mastered the basics. Inverted pyramids get lost in that noise https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism...
- dmix 7y ago> The auto lobby hoped a transcontinental convoy would grease the wheels for increases in highway appropriations and drive profits for the sign-making industry. Neat, just like how gov projects still get done today.
- joncrane 7y agoTo me one of the most sobering experience of my life was visiting Hoover Dam. Yes, they needed a consortium of companies because no one company was big enough, they built a railroad, a town, the concrete is still curing, yadda yadda yadda. But for me the biggest moment was at the end of the filmstrip, they said "the government contract was delivered early and under budget." I nearly fell out of my seat. No way that ever happens today. Not only the Accentures, GD, Northrup Grummans of the world, but even the little guys like the ones I used to work for all use up every dollar available on the contract. If the contract is worth $291 million, then dammit you bill the government $291 million and not a dollar less! If anything you're figuring out how to do a contract mod to squeeze them for more money. It's amazing that, together, multiple of the largest construction companies in the United States, not only got the job done in record time, but left money on the table. I'd like to think it might happen again because that's the type of thing that makes me proud to be an American.
- markdown 7y agoEarly vs late stage capitalism.
- dmix 7y agoWhat does the government completing projects under budget in 1919 vs today have to do with capitalism? Capitalism is still capitalism, really the only thing that changed between 1919 and today is the size and scale of administrative state (and subsequently far more lobbying groups to exploit it). The entire economy is way less capitalist than back in 1919. Unless that’s what you mean by “late state capitalism”?
- saalweachter 7y ago
- driverdan 7y agoFor those interested here's Lincoln Highway Assoc. map of the route: https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/ https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/ I plan on driving it by next year.
- briffle 7y agoThat sounds awesome.. One of my future road trips is to follow Highway 20 from the Oregon Coast to Boston (the longest highway in the US)
- davidw 7y agoStop by and say hi here in Bend! Also: if you're not simply interested in following the route just to say you have, 26 east is much more interesting than 20 east of Bend.
- ubertakter 7y agoSounds like a fun trip. I only knew what you were talking about because I've been from Tooele to Dugway in Utah. Based on what I can recall, it seems likely that the route through there didn't really change, it was just finished and paved.
- synack 7y agoI highly recommend the book "The Big Roads" by Earl Swift if you're interested in this kind of thing.
- irrational 7y agoI just got back from a 2000+ mile road trip. I'm so thankful highway conditions have improved over the past 100 years.
- trothamel 7y agoProbably relevant is "Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip", by Ken Burns - the story of the first drive across the United States, in 1903. It's streaming on Amazon Prime at the moment: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B002P3IM3C/ref=atv_dl_rdr https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B002P3IM3C/ref=atv_dl...
- barking 7y agoIf you've watched Ken Burns documentary series* (it's on netflix) about The West, the comical anecdote about a faked attack by the clearly irrelevant natives isn't so funny any more. *I had to give up after a few episodes, it was too depressing.
- joncrane 7y agoI mapped the route and if you followed Google Maps, your route would be very similar to the one they took in 1919.
- spodek 7y agoNot sure this community's views on Louis CK, but he had an insightful bit on cross-country travel then and now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4