A Drive down Memory Lane: The Named State and Federal Highways of Michigan by Le Roy Barnett

Abstract

132 Michigan Historical Review straight through. Although published by the University of Michigan Press, it is not analytical or academic in tone or content. P. J. Harrigan University ofWaterloo Le Roy Barnett. A Drive Down Memory Ta?e: The Named State and Federal Highways of Michigan. Allegan Forest, Mich.: Priscilla Press, 2004. Pp. 288. Appendices. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Maps. Cloth, $29.95. A Drive Down Memory Lane is a different kind of local history and transportation study. In this work Le Roy Barnett examines the rich variety of named public highways that have been or continue to be part of Michigan's network of roads. He includes about 250 of these memorial or named roadways. As the system of public highways grew early in the twentieth century, it became popular to apply amoniker to these thoroughfares. The banner year was 1917 when authorities named eleven roads. It would not be until the mid-1920s that the federal government developed a national numbering system with even numbers designating east-west arteries and odd numbers identifying north-south routes. The tradition before the use of cipher designations, though, was for named traces, trails, or roads, ranging from the Lancaster Pike in Pennsylvania to the Oregon and Santa Fe trails in the West. But even with the advent of numbered roads, Michigan officials still named highways, or at least portions of them. InWayne County, for example, contemporary motorists know the Walter P. Chrysler Freeway and the Edsel Ford and John C. Lodge expressways. In fact, these three highways illustrate a popular and long-lasting practice in naming roads: more than half of these highways honored people, most commonly politicians and businessmen. Each of Barnett's thumbnail sketches offers a surprising amount of information. In addition to a succinct history of the named road, there is a map that shows the general location and frequendy the designated sign. Prior to numbering, special logos might appear at the roadside, perhaps placed on a tree, a post, or a telephone pole. For example, the Dixie Highway used a bold "D.H.", the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan selected an interlocking OIM with "WAY" added at the bottom (reminiscent of a railroad logo), and the Tecumseh Trail employed a stylized, albeit historically incorrect, silhouette of this Shawnee chief. Barnett varies his coverage somewhat, pointing out interesting and significant aspects of a particular named road. In the case of the Blossom Highway, located in Book Reviews 133 Calhoun County, the vignette describes the strange proposal made by C. W. Post, the health-food king, who suggested not only planting cherry trees every sixty feet to enhance the road's overall beauty but also having the annual crop harvested and sold to defer maintenance costs. Barnett has created a delightful work. The research appears to be solid (there is no documentation) and the writing is clear and crisp. He has added a fascinating "Postscript" that discusses "highways envisioned but not born" (pp. 247-52) and three appendices: a listing of named highways organized by county, named highways by route number, and named highways by year of founding. Perhaps scholars elsewhere will adopt Barnett's imaginative approach to the history of named public roads. H. Roger Grant Clemson University Dave Dempsey. On the Brink: The Great Takes in the 21st Century. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004. Pp. 304. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Paper, $24.95. Dave Dempsey's On the Brink broadly surveys the relationship between people and the Great Lakes over the centuries. The prologue tells a hard-hitting, fanciful tale set fifty years in the future depicting conditions at Port Huron and the fate of Lake St. Clair, awarning about the possible effects of the continuing deterioration of lake waters. Next, Dempsey summarizes human-lake relationships from ancient Native Peoples, explorers, missionaries, and fur traders, to early setders. Then he turns to the general decline of the fish population and the damage caused by development based on careless exploitation of natural resources. A review of conservation efforts designed to save some of the beauty of the Great Lakes for the public follows. The thoughdess degradation and pollution of the lakes first alarmed the public when the Great Lakes cities...