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Date
7-21-2020
Abstract
The first good road associations in Kansas with an interest in interstate travel were organized in 1910–1914. Construction of roads in rural Kansas was seen as a benefit to farmers and ranchers and to towns trying to attract visitors as automobiles and cross-country trips became more common. Initially, most of these efforts were implemented by counties and other local entities, with volunteers making substantial contributions. Most of these early routes were marked by colored bands painted on telegraph and telephone poles. Thus, they were sometimes known by names such as the Red Line Road or Golden Belt Road. These two roads ran from Kansas City to Denver but followed different routes across most of Kansas. To promote the Red Line Road, boosters in Glasco and Plainville organized sports teams to barnstorm across Kansas and eastern Colorado, painting bands on poles as they went. The teams scheduled games in towns along the route to earn money to pay their expenses. This monograph presents an overview of early road construction in Kansas and the efforts of the Glasco basketball team and Plainville baseball team in promoting the Red Line Road in 1915.
Keywords
early highways, Kansas highway history, Red Line Road, Midland Trail, Glasco Kansas, Plainville Kansas, Red Liners, Red Line basketball, Red Line baseball, Golden Belt Road, Rock Island Highway, Meridian Highway, Old Santa Fe Trail, New Santa Fe Trail, US Highway 24, US Highway 36, US Highway 40, US Highway 50, US Highway 56, US Highway 81.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Rights
© The Author (s)
Recommended Citation
Eberle, Mark E., "Promoting Good Roads: Basketball and Baseball on the Red Line Road in 1915" (2020). Monographs. 22.
DOI: 10.58809/NUSL5093
Available at:
https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/22
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