Southern Nevada's Arrowhead Trail Was Once a Big Deal

   Tucked away in Southern Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park is a metal sign in the shape of the state of Nevada that commemorates something called the “Arrowhead Trail, 1914-1924.”

   The sign points out that the trail was the first all-weather highway to run between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City via Las Vegas, and that it was the result of a grass roots effort by various chambers of commerce, led by the Las Vegas chamber, to create better access to their communities.

   The sign credits Charles H. Bigelow, a Southern California businessman and former racecar driver for helping create and promote the road and mentions that he drove it several times in a twin-six Packard he named “Cactus Kate.”

   According to Utah historian Edward Leo Lyman, writing in the Summer 1999 issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly, the Las Vegans wanted a highway through their town, which been founded only 9 years earlier, and partnered with Bigelow, who was described as a well known “desert pilot.”

   Bigelow quickly discovered that driving to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas was about 80 miles shorter than the more traveled route, which was to drive to Tonopah and through Ely before reaching Salt Lake City.

   He then met with officials in Salt Lake City and Southern California to gain their support and, in 1914, organized the Arrowhead Trails Association.

   The effort gained steam when it was enthusiastically embraced by the Automobile Club of Southern California, which had a goal of developing better roads to link communities throughout the country.

   Lyman said the club hired drivers in “scout cars” to report conditions on known roads as well as to travel onto uncharted areas in order to recommend where new routes might be located.

   On September 25, 1916, the Arrowhead Trail Association sponsored a convoy of cars to travel from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas—along with a Los Angeles Times reporter—to prove the route was viable.

   After reaching Las Vegas, the party continued east through spectacular red sandstone valleys and canyons, which they named the “Valley of Fire,” before arriving in the town of St. Thomas (now under Lake Mead most years).

   “At Bunkerville, the group held a road promotion meeting and was treated to a melon and fruit feast across the Virgin River at Mesquite,” Lyman noted.

   Members of the caravan, who conducted rallies of support in various community along the way, reached Salt Lake City in about four days, traveling some 800 miles.

   Following the end of World War I, the road’s promoters shifted into high gear. For example, a January 25, 1917 issue of Motor Age noted, “no one can truly say he knows the West until he has traveled it (Arrowhead Trail).”

   Communities along the way volunteered to improve the road in their area, including filling chuckholes, racking loose rocks out of the road and building crude rock bridges over streams. Some towns began beautification programs to clean up their appearances.

   Bigelow was a tireless promoter of the route, often traveling on it alone while carrying gas, tires, water and other supplies, and stopping to assist any motorist in trouble.

   Part of his pitch was to focus on the beauty of the route as it passed through Valley of Fire as well as by the future Zion, Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks National Parks in Utah.

   In 1923, the Nevada State Legislature approved $50,000 to pave the route through most of Clark County. The new, smoother all-year road was such a hit that Utah and California soon followed in paving their roads that linked to the route.

   By the mid-1920s, however, the federal government had passed legislation creating a federal highway system and the days of the public-private partnership roads, such as the Lincoln Highway and Arrowhead Trail, were over. In 1926, the Arrowhead Trail name was officially changed to U.S. Route 91 and later parts of it were incorporated into Interstate 15.

   A guidebook about the road published in the early 1930s by the Automobile Club of Southern California noted that near Las Vegas the motorist would suddenly be “ushered into the realms of desert environment, of sage-brush and sand, grease-wood and gray-brown stretches of monotonous aspect.”

   The pamphlet, however, continued: “For the most part, all is silence, and the sense of brooding mystery—as a lion will wait behind the bars of a cage, his tawny head sunk between his paws, and his yellow eyes dreaming of African wildernesses.”