Transportation
10
For more than 500 years, the paths now followed by nearby I-44 and historic Route 66 served American Indians for trade and travel. In the 1830s, Cherokee traveling the Trail of Tears used this corridor when Waynesville was only a small village, and the town grew because it lay close to early transportation routes. After a telegraph line connecting Saint Louis, Missouri, to Fort Smith, Arkansas, was built, the route became known as the Wire Road. During the Civil War, it was the main route through the Ozarks, carrying troops to skirmishes and camps in the region. In 1926, it became part of Route 66, the highway linking Chicago, Illinois, to southern California.
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Waynesville, Missouri · United States
