Meridian Highway

In 1911, a group of Kansans and Nebraskans drafted a plan for the Meridian Highway, a route paralleling the sixth principal meridian through America's heartland from Canada to Mexico. Its path followed an Indian trade route that later served as the Chisholm Trail, the cattle drive route from Texas through Indian Territory to the stockyards in Kansas. The highway was completed in 1924 with the opening of the Meridian Bridge at Yankton, South Dakota, during a time when America's love affair with cars and the open road was in full bloom. Motorists collected pennants as they traveled from town to town along the route, known as the Main Street of North America. In 1936, the Meridian Highway, U.S. 81, became known as the Pan American Highway, which today extends 17,000 miles from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the southern tip of South America.

Nebraska · United States