Motor Trucks in the Wild West

Mack Trucks in action during the U.S. Army’s 1919 cross-country motor convoy experiment. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

“>Given its size and industrial output, at some point the United States would have had no choice but to invest in and build a national highway system. But the actual story of how the Interstate Highway System came to be is amazing because it largely revolves around the unique experiences of an American hero named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

After graduating from West Point in 1916, “Ike” requested an overseas assignment during the First World War, but was posted instead to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and missed out on the chance for a career-enhancing combat command. But he was a capable, organized officer. And World War I was the first conflict to see the use of motorized transport, which played a decisive role in staving off a German victory at various points during the fighting.

After the Armistice, the War Department decided to study how trucks could be used to move a convoy of troops and equipment across the continental United States in the event of an invasion of the West Coast. Command of the convoy of trucks fell to young Major Eisenhower, with orders to set out from Washington, D.C. and proceed in as expeditiously a manner as possible to Oakland, California.

The convoy was impressive for the time. According to the Wikipedia entry on the event, it consisted of 81 total vehicles and trailers, including 34 heavy cargo trucks, four light delivery trucks, two mobile machine shops, a mobile blacksmith shop, one wrecker, and an “Artillery Wheeled Tractor” capable of towing nine trucks at once.

There were also two spare parts wagons, two water tanks, one gasoline tank, one searchlight with electrical power plant truck, four kitchen trailers, eight touring cars, a reconnaissance car, two staff observation cars, …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/truck-tech/story/2017/05/motor-trucks-in-the-wild-west.aspx