Map of the Meridian Road : showing every city, town, village and hamlet throughout its entire length / issued under joint auspices of the Meridian Road Association, National Highways Association ; John C. Mulford Cartographer

"Proposed by the Meridian Road Association and also advocated by the National Highways Association."The National Highways Association (NHA) was established in 1911 to promote the development of an improved national road network in the United States. Under the slogan “Good roads for everyone!” the NHA advocated the building and permanent maintenance by the federal government of a system of 50,000 miles (some 80,500 kilometers) of highways. This map, issued by the NHA in 1915, shows the proposed Meridian Route, running from the U.S.–Canada border in North Dakota to Galveston, Texas, and the U.S.–Mexico border at Laredo. The proposed route would pass through the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. To increase the commercial and political appeal of the highway, the map purportedly shows “every city, town, village and hamlet throughout its entire length.” Besides issuing brochures and circulars aimed at convincing citizens of the need for a national road system, the NHA was a prolific producer of maps. Cartographic work was done at an office in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, where approximately 40 people were employed on the property of Charles Henry Davis (1865–1951), president and cofounder of the NHA. Davis believed that these maps would be helpful to a national highways commission that he hoped would be established and that they would assist the states in integrating their roads into a national system. Congress never embraced the plan put forward by the NHA, but the organization and its maps helped to promote the cause of a national road network. WDLColor1:5,000,00