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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 204/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida
sections were nothing more than a narrow wagon trail with ruts in
deep sand. A few of the motorists complained about Spanish moss
hanging from the oak trees which struck them in the face as they
proceeded in their open automobiles. There was considerable sand
along the section from Madison toward Lake City, and the auto­
mobiles had difficulty in maintaining their schedule of 16-20 miles
an hour. Some excitement was provided when the cars reached
Lake City and Cadillac No. 29 was disqualified because of a
fistfight involving its driver and another entrant. The tour reached
Jacksonville on October 26, and the trophy was won by a Maxwell
team of three cars from New York City. The last section of the tour
from Live Oak to Jacksonville was regarded as one of the most
difficult since a schedule of 20 miles per hour had been set, and the
drivers found stretches of no road but rather “only a trail across
the flat sandy ground.”27
As more and more automobile visitors—“tin-can tourists”—
came into the state and more and more Floridians acquired
automobiles better roads were demanded. The Florida State Road
Department was created in 1915, and important federal assistance
was provided for highway construction in the Federal Aid Road
Act of 1916. In 1917 state legislation was passed authorizing the
use of convict labor for highway construction. Then in 1919 the
State of Florida acquired large quantities of surplus World War I
equipment to be used for highway construction. Major funding for
highway construction was provided by the federal government in
the Federal Highway Act of 1921.28
U.S. 90 extending west from Jacksonville to Pensacola and
beyond was the first major undertaking in the state under the
provisions of the Federal Highway Act of 1921. The section from
Jacksonville to Lake City was the first concrete highway in

27Hew York Times October 26, 1911, p. 12, October 27, 1911, p. 15.
“Baynard Kendrick, Florida Trails to Turnpikes (Tallahassee,
1964), pp. 8-19.

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