Church parking lot during Drivin’ the Dixie on Saturday
could have been around when the Egyptian Trail was
still fairly new. (Photo by Eric Crump/HF Chronicle)
Editor’s note: Today history and auto enthusiasts are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Dixie Highway, a pioneering route for early auto traffic. Drivin’ the Dixie is a rolling auto show that retraces the route of the famous highway through the South Suburbs. This year is also the centennial of the start of Dixie Highway’s roadway cousin, the Egyptian Trail. This article by Homewood Historical Society President JIm Wright details the development of the trail and how the Dixie and the Egyptian roadways converged in Homewood.
By the second decade of the 20th century, the increasing use of the automobile for commercial, agricultural and recreational uses gave rise to demands by citizens for governments to provide better roads.
Roads at the time consisted primarily of dirt and were passable in fair weather but quickly became mired in mud after a few hours of rain. Better roads consisted of brick or macadam – a crushed rock base with a binder of tar or cement. These roads were generally found only in cities and towns and usually ended at the city limit.
Motorists were clamoring for more improved roads of macadam and even concrete.
To address these demands, grass roots “good roads” movements sprang up in many areas throughout the country and Homewood civic and business leaders recognized that improved roadways were the key to continuing growth and development in the village.
The Homewood Good Roads Committee was formed in 1912 to raise funds to improve the roadways in the village and some of those leading into town. Within weeks of its organization, the committee had received pledges from residents and businesses totaling $3,000, well on the way to its goal of raising a total of $5,000.
By 1915 the good roads movement had gained significant momentum in the state of Illinois, and counties and the state were beginning to finance some road projects.
Homewood benefited from its proximity to the city of Chicago. Chicago was the hub for many of the roads in the state, and three of the roads planned to be improved with state and county funds passed right through town. The Egyptian Trail, the Dixie Highway and Halsted Street were all routes leading south of Chicago through Homewood and these were paved with concrete between 1916 and 1920.
Almost unknown today, the Egyptian Trail was touted by the Harvey Tribune in its Oct. 15, 1915 edition as being “a distinctive Illinois project in every way for one end is at Cairo, way down in Egypt, at the extreme southern end of the state and the other end is at Chicago, the metropolis of the state in the north. The building of this great road will do more to encourage the construction of good roads and to pull our fair state out of the mud than any other one thing that can be done.”
Exaggeration perhaps, but there was little question that the Egyptian Trail was in the vanguard of “modern” roadways that would span the length and breadth of Illinois.
The Egyptian Trail was the concept of two Mattoon men who felt an improved road, following as closely as possible the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad, linking the southern reaches of the state with Chicago was a necessity. These men, Dr. Iverson A. Lumpkin and Ernest B. Tucker, set about quickly to organize an association and promote the trail to communities in the state. Lumpkin served as president of the association and Tucker served as the secretary-treasurer.
An organizational meeting was held with interested communities in Mattoon on June 15, 1915 and hundreds from across the state turned out to attend.
As a result of the meeting, a decision was made to divide the oversight of the trail into three divisions. The southern division stretched from Cairo to Centralia, the central division extended from Centralia to Paxton and the northern division reached from Paxton to downtown Chicago.
Each division had its own president and secretary-treasurer and each town the trail passed through had an appointed vice-president who was responsible for assisting in selecting the route of the trail in their area, raising funds to mark the trail and seeing to it that the roadbed was maintained in good condition.
Charles Robinson and Duane P. Cleghorn, two Kankakee County men, were elected president and secretary-treasurer of the northern division and William G. Edens of Chicago (of expressway fame), Albert M. Lambert of Harvey and editor of the Harvey Tribune and Dr. J.M. Wharton of Homewood were selected as vice-presidents for their communities.
The Egyptian Trail Association, the consortium of communities the road passed through, set out rules governing road maintenance and uniform signage. The route was marked by trail signs generally painted on telephone poles. These signs were painted at regular intervals and were meant to guide motorists along the way.
The Egyptian Trail mark was a 12-inch by 18-inch signs painted on poles six feet from the ground. In the center of the sign, a black pyramid was painted flanked by the letter “E” on its left and the letter “T” on its right, both painted in black.
The Paxton Record described the background of the signs as being “a special yellow, or really more of an orange color.” The vagueness in description can be attributed to the name of the official background color chosen by the association, which was “Big Four Yellow,” manufactured by Lowe Brothers Paint Company of Dayton, Ohio. Though the name implied a yellow color, the actual color shown on company paint chips was unmistakably orange.
In south Cook County, painter Joe Tienstra of Homewood was awarded the bid for completing these pole markings and busied himself during the fall of 1915 with this project.
The association also called for the placement of signs marking dangerous curves, turns, intersections and rail crossings. The signs worded “Egyptian Trail – Danger – Sound Klaxon” were placed 300 feet ahead of any danger zone. The Klaxon Company, early manufacturers of automobile horns, sponsored the signage and likely benefitted from the “advertisements” on the warning signs.
The Cook County trail vice-presidents took their charge to provide for a good, hard road seriously and were instrumental in convincing the county board the route should be fully paved in concrete. While stretches of the route in the county had been paved prior to the trail’s organization, the Egyptian Trail from Chicago through Homewood was completely paved in concrete by the fall of 1917.
The Egyptian Trail originated at Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago and traveled south on Michigan Avenue to Garfield Boulevard, then west to Halsted Street.
The trail continued south on Halsted Street through the city to Harvey where it turned southwest onto Park Avenue and traveled this route through Hazel Crest to Homewood. In Homewood the route was originally planned to proceed south on Park Avenue to Maria (183rd) Street then west to the Matteson Road (Western Avenue).
Early on, however, trail communities were eager to have increased traffic pass through their business districts, which helped boost the profits of local merchants. As the proposed route for Homewood would have skirted the downtown, organizers aligned the Egyptian Trail with the Dixie Highway for 1 ½ miles through downtown Homewood south to Illinois Street (Flossmoor Road).
The trail then proceeded west for one-half mile to Western Avenue then south to Matteson. From Matteson, a number of existing roads were utilized to Peotone, Kankakee and further points south on the way to Cairo. The total trail route covered almost 400 miles!
Unlike its more celebrated cousins – the Lincoln and the Dixie Highways – the Egyptian Trail was not the subject of grand marketing tours, dedication parades and the like. Trail officials were hardworking Illinoisans who simply “rolled up their sleeves” and went to work with little fanfare. Their ethic proved a success as the trail was virtually completely marked by the end of 1915, and most roads selected to comprise the trail were “in shape” by the summer of 1916.
The Egyptian Trail was well traveled during its heyday and lived up to the accolades bestowed on it by the Harvey Tribune. The trail route was such a success that by 1928 construction of a four-lane parallel roadway, Governors Highway, was started north of Kankakee to accommodate increased traffic volumes. This section of highway was initially designated Illinois 49 and, from 1942-1972, was then designated as U.S. Route 54.
Colorfully named auto trails and highways lost favor with highway officials nationally and in Illinois in the 1920’s. On Nov. 11, 1926 the American Association of State Highway Officials formally adopted a plan for numbering major through routes across the country. The days of the named highways officially came to an end and the Egyptian Trail is numbered U.S. Route 45 for much of the way from Kankakee to Effingham and U.S. 51 from Centralia to Cairo.
In the early 1930’s, an effort was made to revive the Egyptian name for tourism purposes and this time organizers established the Egyptian Highway Association. The Egyptian Highway, though still commonly referred to as the Egyptian Trail, followed the same path as the original Egyptian Trail route except that south of Salem, the highway followed Illinois Route 37 through Mt. Vernon, West Frankfort, Marion and Mound City before reaching Cairo.
In 1933, the Egyptian Highway Association published material that marketed the route as the “shortest, safest and fastest” way to Chicago and the “Century of Progress” World’s Fair. Following the end of the fair in 1934, public interest in the Egyptian Highway waned just as it did for its predecessor the Egyptian Trail and both names faded into obscurity.
Although there are only a few areas where original road alignments bear the name of the Egyptian Trail in the state, the impact and foresight of the trail organizers has been longstanding.
The Egyptian Trail route served as the basic template for Interstate 57 through the state. I-57, fully completed in December 1971, runs from just north of Cairo through the heart of “Little Egypt” in southern Illinois, to the south side of Chicago, still that “great metropolis of the north.”
Though almost forgotten today, with a greater appreciation of its history and impact, the Egyptian Trail may receive some well deserved recognition in the future.
Historical images courtesy of Homewood Historical Society