The following chapter is on the Iowa History Site. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STORIES OF IOWA FOR BOYS AND GIRLS CHAPTER XXVII ON THE HIGHWAY TO-DAY the California Limited whisks Iowans west for the winter, and automobiles speed comfortably along the new Iowa roads. But a trip in pioneer days was not such an easy undertaking. The first travellers in Iowa, the hunters and trappers, had only the trails of the Indian for roads. But twelve-inch Indian paths were not wide enough for a yoke of oxen, so the pioneer widened the trails. Nor was it long before roads were laid out between settlements. Year by year the surveyors drove stakes in the prairies and blazed trees in the timber to mark out the new roads. The ox teams slowly cut tracks in the matted sod, and in time Iowa became crossed and crisscrossed with a network of highways. Many of the early roads followed the ridges, for it was difficult to haul loads through the low places where there were many sloughs. This explains why the roads in eastern Iowa do not run straight east and west and north and south. In western Iowa where the land was surveyed before the settlers came the roads follow the section lines in a checkerboard pattern. As soon as possible after Iowa was opened for settlement the government established roads known as territorial or military highways. The longest military road in Iowa began at Dubuque and ran through the counties of Dubuque, Jones, Linn, Johnson, Washington, Henry, and Van Buren to the Missouri line. Debbie Clough Gerischer