Making the journey the destination
YELLOWSTONE TRAIL And the Birth of Travel Tourism. n 1912, a group of small town businessmen in South Dakota undertook an ambitious project to create a useful automobile route, the Yellowstone Trail, across America. The end result was a 3,754 mile long amalgamation of roads that became hailed as “A Good Road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound”. This was at a time when roads weren’t marked, and roads were known by their names. There were few maps and slippery mud was the usual road surface.
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In 1912 the Yellowstone Trail began as a 25-mile stretch of road from Aberdeen to Ipswitch, SD. The initial reason was simply to make a better road. Soon business leaders from farther and farther away recognized the opportunity, and the Yellowstone Trail Association – headquartered in Minneapolis, MN - was formed that very same year. By 1917 the Yellowstone Trail had grown to become the main auto route for those traveling from the East Coast to Yellowstone National Park and the Pacific Northwest. While the Association did not build roads, it did lobby local governments in towns along the Trail to help promote the fledgling automobile tourism industry by building and maintaining “good roads.” Trail towns paid the Association a small fee or “assessment” to help cover advertising expenses and upkeep of the Trail. The assessments paid for tourism promotion along the length of the Trail, producing maps and folders to guide the traveler. It became a leader in stimulating tourist travel to the Northwest and motivating good roads across America.
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five businesses that still carry out the very same services they provided to their customers all those years ago. These merchants are the South Milwaukee Arcade Bowling Alley, the former U-R Next Barber Shop on 10th and Milwaukee, Bobbie’s Saloon (one of South Milwaukee’s most historic buildings, it was listed as a “soft drink parlor” during the Prohibition years), Grant Park Garage, and Bucyrus–Erie. Gaze down the road once traveled by so many, so long ago, and you can almost hear the sounds of the “Flivvers” and “Tin-Lizzies” as they sputter past in those heady, early days of automotive travel in America.
1930 the Yellowstone Trail Association closed its doors.
Today, almost the entire route of the Yellowstone Trail is on slower, less traveled roads. Some sections of the Trail, especially in the West, have remained little changed and are a delight to visit.
Today, visitors can find trailmarkers (if you know where to look), and many of the old buildings, along the Yellowstone Trail…with some even still in use. For example, in South Milwaukee there are
For information about traveling today’s Yellowstone Trail in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas, contact the Aberdeen CVB, 800645-3851.
Many towns along the Yellowstone Trail had a representative known as a “Trailman”, whose duties included providing information to travelers and supervising the marking of the Trail with its distinctive yellow circle and arrow signs, yellow painted rocks or painted bands on utility poles. In the 1919 Yellowstone Trail route folder, Trailmen were described as being “…businessmen of standing in their communities, and will always be glad to welcome tourists and serve them in any reasonable manner.” When the Depression came, many towns could no longer afford to pay their “assessments”, and in
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