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HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY
tering all main highways—north, south, west, and east—through Salt Lake City, making it the hub of western travel.33 The Victory Highway was the "spoke" that came t h r o u g h Uintah County. The Victory Highway was p r o m o t e d about 1919 by Salt Lake and n o r t h e r n California interests to provide a straight line of travel from St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver t h r o u g h Salt Lake City to Reno and San Francisco. It would be the shortest route between Washington, D . C , and San Francisco, crossing the center of the United States. The First World War had just ended, so the name "Victory Highway" was chosen for the route. A San Francisco man, Ben Blow, was named project manager and went over the entire route from San Francisco to the Atlantic Coast to organize local people in towns and cities to boost and promote the route. Victory Highway later became the first transcontinental highway to receive a U.S. highway n u m b e r for its entire length from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast—U.S. Highway 40. With the a n n o u n c e m e n t of the new Victory Highway came opposition from within the state. Opposing it were the Utah State Highway Commission, the Associated Clubs of Southern Utah, and the towns of Price, Richfield, other southern Utah towns, and Grand Junction, Colorado. The route would decrease tourist trade on the Midland Trail, which came from Denver via Grand Junction and Price. Opponents also feared that the new route would take away the post office star route from Price to the Uinta Basin, as mail and express freight would go directly into the Uinta Basin via Heber and Daniel's Canyon. This is exactly what happened. Salt Lake City very much wanted this highway and waged a campaign against southern Utah for its construction. However, due to the strength of the opposition, U.S. 40 t h r o u g h the Uinta Basin was n o t paved until the Midland Trail was completed to Grand junction. As soon as that route was completed, civic clubs of Vernal immediately began to promote paving the road through the basin to the Colorado state line. A race was instituted to see which state would complete its work first— Colorado or Utah. U.S. 40 was already paved from coast to coast with the exception of eastern Utah and western Colorado; however, Vernal's Main Street, which was a part of the highway, was paved as early at 1899.34 A hundred cars drove into Salt Lake City in a caravan,
