Sunday, February 20, 2011

Flint Postcards: Elms Motel



5 comments:

  1. Anybody know where US 10 in Flint is? I've lived here 37 years and never heard of it!

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  2. Chris Bessert has a great website that discusses the complete history of Michigan Highways. Here is the link which begins with US 10. It'a a long read, but it's all in there. US 23 is a related read.

    http://www.michiganhighways.org/listings/MichHwys10-19.html

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  3. From Wiki:

    “The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of interconnected paved roads, rather than a single highway. It was constructed and expanded from 1915 to 1927.

    .....The Eastern Division connected Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with Miami, Florida, running via Saginaw and Detroit in Michigan; Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati in Ohio; Lexington in Kentucky; Knoxville and Chattanooga in Tennessee; Atlanta and Savannah in Georgia; and Jacksonville and West Palm Beach in Florida.

    .....In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the highway followed former U.S. Route 2, now replaced by Interstate 75. It crossed the Straits of Mackinac and then used U.S. Route 23 and old U.S. Route 10 to Detroit.”

    So as noted above US-10 was Saginaw Street from downtown Flint to Detroit and existed prior to the planning for the Dixie Highway. It joined US-23 in downtown for travel to points north along US-23/US-10. (US-23 south of downtown was Fenton Road.) This downtown through traffic, however, eventually became a problem and circa 1916 the local Flint business leaders desired to build a bypass. This relocation work would also include the Pere Marquette rail lines.

    The railroad survey was performed by George A. Meade (1867-1944). His relocation departed the Pere Marquette line in Grand Blanc, ran north through Burton Township 1/4 mile east of Western Road, turns to the northwest just north of Davison Road and rejoins the original rail line just south of Carpenter Road.

    The road survey was performed by Charles A. Branch (1892-?), and the southern portion of his survey parallels Meade’s route but along the existing road – Western Road. His route also turns to the northwest just north of Davison Road, recovers to a north direction at Pierson Road, and eventually rejoins US-23/US-10 some six miles later near Dodge Road.

    Thus Western Road became Dort Highway (US-10).

    (Sorry for the lengthy post Gordo but this was as simple as I could make it. You knew I’d be all over this question, didn’t you?)

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  4. Great post. Great info. The heritage of this great state needs to be kept alive by fine people like yourself. Thanks for this. keep posting. ;-)

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.