MVPA 2015 Bankhead Highway (BH’15) Convoy, Washington, DC to San Diego, CA

The mission of this trip is to retrace the approximate route taken by the US Army in their 1920 Transcontinental Motor Convoy, traveling from Washington, DC to San Diego, CA along the Bankhead Highway. There will be daily static shows at each stop to educate the public on the importance of their military vehicles and its military service life. This is also a “Thank You” to all military Veterans, active duty armed forces personnel and their families for their service to our Country.

Consisting of about 65 military vehicles and travelling at top speeds of 35 mph will be traveling from Washington to San Diego starting on Sept 19th 2015 - approximately 3,300 miles - and will take 29 days to complete.

Many early auto trails had multiple routes, but the Bankhead Highway had several. It was originally designated the Bankhead Highway, and carried travelers from Washington, DC

 to San Diego, California. After the Lincoln Highway, it was the second largest highway project undertaken in the early twentieth century. it was the first true interstate highway in the United States.

The monument has engravings on four surfaces:
 North: ZERO MILESTONE
 East: STARTING POINT OF SECOND TRANSCONTINENTAL MOTOR CONVOY OVER THE BANKHEAD HIGHWAY, JUNE 14, 1920
South: POINT FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF DISTANCES FROM WASHINGTON ON HIGHWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES
West: STARTING POINT OF FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL MOTOR CONVOY OVER THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, JULY 7, 1919


Capacity issues eventually doomed the famous highway. Two-lane roads were not designed to handle the increased traffic in postwar America of the 1940's and 50's. With the passage of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, drivers quickly opted for the wider, safer, and faster new interstates, which generally bypassed the downtowns once served by the Bankhead. The economies of these downtowns, until then so dependent on the traffic over the old highway, fell rapidly into decline.

In an effort to standardize and simplify the identification of the nation’s major highways, the federal administration in 1926 officially discarded word names such as Bankhead, Dixie, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc., in favor of numbers.

As a result, the Bankhead Highway’s new official federal designation became Texas Highway 1, but was also assigned U.S. Highway 67 between Texarkana and Dallas and U.S. Highway 80 from Dallas westward.

 It was, however, several years before local usage abandoned the Bankhead name. In Georgia the Bankhead Highway name is still attached to much of its original route through the state.

The 1920 Motor Transport Corps convoy left Washington, D.C. on 14 June 1920 and followed the Bankhead Highway to San Diego, California, where it arrived on 2 October. A smaller expedition than the first, the second convoy consisted of 50 vehicles, 32 officers, and 160 enlisted men under Col John F. Franklin. A rate of 45–60 miles per day was initially estimated, commensurate with that of the first convoy.

The convoy's trip proceeded smoothly as far as Atlanta. However, as it moved west into Tennessee, its progress slowed. Detours became necessary due to flooding and the crossing of the "black gumbo" of the Mississippi River proved very problematic. Despite high hopes, the Southern United States proved to be the worst part of the trip. The convoy encountered almost impassable sands between Maricopa and Wellton, Arizona.

http://www.mvpa.org/

https://www.facebook.com/MVPAConvoy

http://blog.kaiserwillys.com/2015-mvpa-bankhead-highway-cross-country-convoy


The current Zero Milestone monument was conceived by Good Roads Movement advocate Dr. S. M. Johnson, formally proposed on June 7, 1919. He was inspired by ancient Rome's Golden Milestone located in the Forum.

On July 7, 1919, a temporary marker for the Zero Milestone was dedicated on the Ellipse south of the White House during ceremonies launching the Army's first attempt to send a convoy of military vehicles across the country to San Francisco, California.

The Transcontinental Motor Convoys were early 20th century vehicle convoys, including three US Army truck trains, that crossed the United States (one was coast-to-coast) to the west coast. The 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco used the incomplete Lincoln Highway.

The convoy broke and repaired 88 wooden bridges:(14 in Wyoming), and "practically" all roadways were unpaved from Illinois through Nevada.

http://www.americanroads.us/autotrails/bankheadhighway.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Motor_Convoy