Map of the Great Plains Road : showing every city, town, village and hamlet throughout its entire length / issued under joint auspicies of the National Highways Association, Great Plains Road Association ; John C. Mulford, Chief cartographer, E.E. Jenkins, cartographer

Shows tentative locations for part of a system of 100,000 miles of national highways. "Proposed by the Great Plains Road Association and also advocated by the National Highway Association." "November 1915."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 Great Plains Road, proposed by the Great Plains Road Association and endorsed by the NHA. The projected route runs from the U.S.–Canada border in Portal, North Dakota, to Brownsville, Texas, on the U.S.–Mexico border, a distance of 2,350 miles (3,782 kilometers). The notes and table at the bottom indicate the numbers of states, counties, and cities of different sizes traversed by the route and the population expected to be served. 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.Color1:5,000,00