The Meridian Highway: From Canada to Mexico

The man who drew this route through Pierce County was a banker. Woods Cones (1858-1938), the county's most prominent good-roads booster and an automobile enthusiast, outlined it in 1911 along an existing road from Norfolk to Hadar, the 2001 National Register nomination says, naming John Nicholson of Kansas as the road's originator. The 81-foot steel pony truss over the North Fork of the Elkhorn is a Warren truss by the Canton Bridge Company, its 1915 work in the charge of county commissioner N. M. Nelson, and eleven concrete culverts with markers date from 1920.

What the plaque says

The Meridian Highway: From Canada to Mexico The Meridian Road was organized in 1911 by a group of "good roads" boosters. Proposed as a direct north-south automobile route through the central United States, its name was derived from the Sixth Principal Meridian. In 1912 the route was largely established through six states, connecting Winnipeg, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The Meridian Road, later renamed the Meridian Highway, eventually extended to Mexico and became U.S. Highway 81. In northern Nebraska, the road connected Norfolk, Hadar, Pierce, Wausa, and Crofton, crossing the Missouri River at Yankton, South Dakota. The route of the highway was relocated in 1939, eventually bypassing all of the smaller communities from Norfolk to Yankton. This marker stands on a segment of the original highway laid out in the fall of 1911, which followed section line roads north and west to Pierce. It includes a steel truss bridge built in 1915 and im- provements such as concrete culverts and graveled roadbed dating to the 1920s. This segment has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is preserved and maintained by Pierce County. Nebraska Department of Roads Pierce County Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• St. John's Lutheran Church — 3.7 mi
• Old Willow Creek Bridge — 3.8 mi
• Gilman Park — 3.8 mi
• St. Paul's Lutheran Church — 8.2 mi