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Albert Pike Highway |
Each of the groupings, National Trails and Single- and Two-State Trails, contains a list of all the trails in that category. Click on the name of a trail to access information about it specifically. The following is an example of what is found on an individual trail page:
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Albert Pike Highway |
Here is an image of the trail marker, along with the trail's endpoints, a list of cities on its route, and the US highways that took over the route. The marker image represents either the pattern that would have been painted on a telephone pole or a sign that would have been posted on the route. There was no agency overseeing the posting of these routes throughout the country, and individual trail organizations hired people to "blaze the trails" for them, so the markers probably were not as uniform as these images suggest. Different sources occasionally show slightly different marker designs for the same trail. Some trail listings have an image saying that the image is not yet available. I plan to add more markers soon, though I have not seen examples of markers for some.
The cities chosen for the list are either relatively large cities or places at which the trail makes a significant turn, or places included to illustrate the path between two larger cities when two or more optional paths might be available. Transcontinental trails usually only have major cities in their listings, but the one- or two-state trails usually include most county seats and major crossroads on the route. If no cities are listed besides the endpoints, that means I do not have any further information about the trail.
Some trails have more than one branch, and the cities along the branch(es) are listed below the cities on the main line. Each branch is color-coded, and cities at which the trail forks are listed in the color of the departing branch. See the page for the Bankhead Highway for an example.
Under Corresponding US Highways is a listing of major highways that currently follow the route of the old trail (or highways that did before being decommissioned or rerouted to an Interstate). I chose to limit this to US highways because the fact that the trail route was chosen for a US highway indicates that the route had some importance, and I list US highways rather than Interstates because Interstates often were built several miles away from the route of an old auto trail to avoid the cities on the route. When state highways provide an important link along the route of a trail now composed mostly of US highways, though, I do list the state highway numbers here in parentheses. Not all of this information has been put in place yet.
Eventually I hope to include a simplified map of the trail, showing the general path it took from one endpoint to the other.