Before numbered highways in the United States, named roads helped motorists navigate from town to town and county to county. In 1912, a small band of men including J.W. Parmley of Ipswitch, South Dakota, envisioned a road from Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, to Puget Sound, Washington, and called it the Yellowstone Trail. Seeking good roads for travel, they formed the Yellowstone Trail Association in October 1912, and it remained active until 1930. The association did not build roads, but lobbied for good roads at every level of government, provided instructions to local people for road construction and maintenance, promoted cross-country tourist traffic, marked the route with signs, and provided maps that encouraged use of the automobile for more than local travel. The Yellowstone Trail began in South Dakota and quickly expanded east to St. Paul, Minnesota, and west to Yellowstone Park in Montana; by 1914 it extended to the Idaho border and east to Chicago, and by 1917 the entire route was firmly established from coast to coast. In Wisconsin, the trail ran 406 miles from Kenosha to Hudson through 18 counties. From the east it entered Chippewa County along what is now County Highway X into Stanley, continued through Cadott, went west to Lake Wissota, then turned onto what is now County Highway J west to Chippewa Falls along Park Avenue and County Highway J south to Eau Claire. With the construction of new highways and the advent of a federal numbering system, this transcontinental road faded in the 1930s. A new Yellowstone Trail Association was formed in 2003 to increase public knowledge about the trail and promote heritage tourism, and motorists can again experience this storied piece of American history.