10/12/2024
🟡 🟡 🟡 COMING TOMORROW 🟡 🟡 🟡
You will never again get this opportunity to experience a symbol of our heroic military history and salute freedom!
Background Information:
It has been dubbed, "the longest 4th of July Parade in the Country!"
Take advantage of this opportunity to see and pay honor to the vehicles which helped America win two World Wars, saving the world's democracies, and, in later generations, continuing our fight to preserve democracy. Bring a flag to wave and give a hearty salute as they pass by!
On Sunday morning, October 13th, a Military Vehicle Convoy made up of 40 vintage vehicles from WWI to recently-retired vehicles will slowly make its way through Miami County while on its month-long journey to retrace the 1915 Historic Jefferson Highway, one of the first North-South automobile highways through America stretching from New Orleans in the South to Winnipeg, Canada in the North.
The convoy leaves Olathe at 8:00 and will enter Paola from the north on Hedge Lane Road, turning West onto Baptist Dr. then south on Silver St./Old KC Road where it will make its way to Osawatomie's John Brown Park by 9:00. The convoy will stop at Paola's Middle School where student Ruby Brewer previously spearheaded the placement of a Jefferson Highway sign.
Additional background for those who are interested:
As more information about the Jefferson Highway, it stretched 2500 miles from New Orleans to Winnipeg through the heart of the Louisiana Purchase (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana) and is named for the President who procured this land from France in 1803. With the advent of affordable automobiles in the early 1900's, it became clear citizens would travel previously unthinkable miles. Community leaders along the proposed route quickly realized cities located on automobile highways, just like cities with railroads decades earlier, would flourish.
We have Paola's Paul Russell to thank for leading Miami County's successful efforts in securing the official route that would traverse the county as there was fierce competition from other Kansas counties. As evidence of the economic prosperity it created om Paola, just three years later, 1918, the Jefferson Highway Garage was established catering to travelers as did the Jackson Hotel built in 1921 and Wallace Park's tourist camp established in 1922.
