Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1916 — QUEER ADVERTISING FOR A NEW HIGHWAY [ARTICLE]

QUEER ADVERTISING FOR A NEW HIGHWAY

Col. Charles W. Thatcher Travels With Burros Hitched to Dilapidated Old Wagon. i ' v y^T : ---in* If attracting attention is going to do anything toward better roads the method employed by Col. Charles W. Thatcher, of Virginia, will get results. Himself and his burros and his queer little spring wagon have attracted attention in many states and when he struck Rensselaer at about noon today, Wednesday, it was not long until his wagon was surrounded by many curious persons. The driver has much the appearance of the “Arkansaw Traveler.” He gives no exterior indication of the fund of knowledge that he has amassed and when he started to lecture on good roads and to tell the people of his queer method of traveling he surprised those who heard him quite beyond expression. / His little wagon is loaded down with all manner of queer things. Buffalo skulls, deer antlers, the skeletons of wild animals, old tin cans, automobile signs'and a lot of other things, wired and tied together. None things were__placed on the wagon by himself but were put on"by persons along the route he has traveled. They furnish only one purpose, that of .novelty. Col. Thatcher cheerfully submitted to an interview by the reporter. He is making his trips for the Washington Highway Association, of which he is the chief engineer. He is not speeding over the country"in an automobile trying to construct an over-night route, but is going only as.fast as his burrows can take him and then going over the route again and again. He has traveled from Boston to New York and thence to Chicago and Seattle, Wash., and back again. He is now on his way from Chicago to Florida. He goes from here to Monticello, thence to Logansport, Marion, Muncie, Richmond, Hamilton and Cincinnati and thence through Kentucky and across the famous Cumberland Gap into Tennessee and on an almost straight -line to-Fioridar -He-states that the distance is shorter by 126 miles than the Dixie highway. The route he has decided on for the Washington highway is 200 miles shorter from Chicago to Yellowstone Park than any other road. Col. Thatcher is convinced that government aid in the construction -of highways is essential in the solution of the question. He believes that the automobile tax and the federal aid should build the roads without any expense whatever to general taxation. He favors concrete roadways 20 feet wide and says they can be built for about $17,000 per mile, that they are more lasting and better than brick and also cheaper. He says that brick construction has a large element of graft in it. On Feb: 22nd Col. Thatcher is to deliver a good roads address at a meeting at Logansport and a day or two later at Peru. . He has received much publicity along the road and had a roll of newspaper clippings as large around as a stovepipe. The Chicago Tribune last September published a picture of himself and wagon and gave him an extended write-up.