The Snow Chi Minh Trail: Don’t Blame Lady Bird Johnson
Wyomingites and travelers to our state, including long-haul truckers, are well acquainted with the legendary stretch of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction. Many of us have our own white-knuckle memories of that road or know of someone who was caught in whiteout conditions and blizzards. This 77-mile stretch of I-80 is notorious for fierce winter winds that whip up the snow and blow it across the highway, creating treacherous conditions for drivers. The highway opened on October 3, 1970, and it only took four days before it closed the first time. The locals predicted this would happen. And they were right. That first winter, Wyomingites and tractor-trailer operators began referring to the road as the “Snow Chi Minh Trail”—infamously named after the Vietnam War’s Ho Chi Minh Trail. It didn’t take long for the Snow Chi Minh Trail name to stick for good. And it didn’t take too many fall and winter trips from Green River to Laramie in my parents’ 1969 Ford Galaxy 500 to gain a first-hand “appreciation” of that stretch of highway.
I have been asked many times what prompted me to write a book about the Snow Chi Minh Trail. Like many Wyomingites, I grew up hearing the story about Lady Bird Johnson being responsible for the location of the highway. As the story goes, she flew over the area and told the federal highway builders to locate the new highway closer to the mountains where motorists could take in the scenic views (my research would dispel this story, as discussed below). For one of my college geography courses, I conducted research on highway planning and came across a newspaper article about the debate over the proposed location of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins. The debate between the federal government and state officials lasted for several years and was finally settled in summer 1959, when the federal Bureau of Public Roads and the Wyoming Highway Commission approved the proposed shorter route through Arlington and Elk Mountain. This meant bypassing the established U.S. 30 route through Bosler, Rock River, Medicine Bow, Hanna, and Coyote Springs. When I learned that the location of the new highway was selected in 1959, a light bulb turned on. I thought to myself, Lady Bird Johnson was not the First Lady in 1959; she wasn’t even the Second Lady yet. How could she possibly be the one to blame for the location of I-80? That led me to research the origin of the Lady Bird myth, and the story grew from there.
It turns out that the highway’s location ultimately was the result of feedback the Wyoming Highway Department gathered from motorists who were interviewed as part of a series of origin and destination studies. The highway department set up temporary roadside stops where motorists were asked to answer several questions, including where their trip originated and what their destination was. They also were queried if they planned to stop at any of the small towns along U.S. 30. It turns out that nearly 90 percent of all the motorists surveyed said that they had no plans to use any services such as filling stations, cafés, or motels in those towns. The largest percentage of highway users had no intention of stopping for any reason in any town along the stretch between Laramie and Walcott Junction. When asked if they would prefer a route approximately 19 miles shorter than the existing U.S 30 route, those same drivers overwhelmingly said yes.
Lady Bird Johnson became the nation’s Second Lady on January 20, 1961, when her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, was sworn in as vice president. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Lady Bird became First Lady—more than four years after the approval of the location of I-80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction. So how did Lady Bird Johnson come to be connected to this stretch of highway? The story has it that she wanted the highway to be in a more scenic area. This myth is steeped in the so-called Lady Bird Laws, which dealt with highway beautification. The myth is the result of several unrelated events that occurred when the new stretch of road was being developed. As for the first contributing event, the federal government happened to implement the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 just prior to construction beginning on the Laramie to Walcott project.
Lady Bird Johnson’s efforts to create more scenic highways were not a new concept in the 1960s. Beautification efforts are as old as highway projects themselves. In the U.S., documented highway beautification can be traced back to 1909. The federal Office of Public Roads issued a bulletin on roadside development and set the rationale for such efforts with the following statement: “No matter how smooth and well-constructed the traveled road may be, if the roadsides are not cared for, the highway as a whole will not give a good impression.”1 This bulletin even calls for the removal of rubbish—a main component of the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, also known as “Lady Bird’s Bill.” The nation’s first transcontinental route, the Lincoln Highway, included plans for beautification efforts in 1913, during the planning phase. The Laramie Republican described in a 1913 article how school children will plant trees along the road on Arbor Day, and in doing so will make the highway “attractive in appearances as well as useful.”2
Highway beautification even played into the interstate planning process in the 1950s. A highway mileage-extension and construction-funding bill included an attachment to regulate billboard legislation along new highways. U.S. Senator Frank Barrett (R-WY) found himself in the middle of this billboard debate. The outdoor advertising debate of 1957 showed just how the politician–constituent relationship works. In a March 20 letter from Carl Steiger to Barrett, the constituent wrote: “I sincerely hope you will vigorously support legislation to protect the roadsides of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highway from being cluttered with billboards…”3 Barrett responded: “I certainly agree with you in everything you have to say…”4 Mrs. Tom Painter of Evanston wrote to Barrett urging him to vote against the legislation on grounds that, “The Federal Government is over-stepping its bounds when they try to tell me what I may or may not have on my own private property.”5 Senator Barrett replied: “I certainly agree with your position in this matter…”6 This particular bill never came to a vote, so we don’t know how Barrett really felt about billboards.
Lady Bird Johnson’s efforts to influence road-side beauty culminated in the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. The purpose of this act was not to dictate road location. Rather, it was to maintain or create beauty alongside highways. The legislation was adopted to (1) control outdoor advertising by regulating billboard placement; (2) screen or remove junkyards along roads; (3) promote aesthetic highway design features and structures; and (4) encourage landscaping along highways and interchanges.
At the time of the passing of the law, it so happens that the First Lady was in Wyoming, which is the second key piece to the Lady Bird myth. That the act contained the word “beautification” in its title, and that the new route along the foothills of the Medicine Bow Mountains and Elk Mountain was in an arguably more scenic area, and that the First Lady was in Wyoming prior to beginning construction on this section of new highway, seemed like a sure recipe to link her to the Snow Chi Minh Trail. A study of her daily journal, however, reveals that Mrs. Johnson did not fly over the contested area, as was rumored.7 During what is known as her “Western Trip” of 1964, she flew from Billings, Montana, to Jackson on August 14 where she spent time in Grand Teton National Park. From there, she went to Salt Lake City for a short stay. On August 17, she was back in western Wyoming where she was guest of honor at a buffalo roast on the lawn of the Sweetwater County Courthouse in Green River to celebrate the opening of the newly constructed Flaming Gorge Dam. She found herself in Grand Teton National Park once again in fall 1965 for a joint meeting of the American Forestry Association and the National Council of State Garden Clubs. Regardless of her two trips to Wyoming in 1964 and 1965, the fact that these trips occurred several years after the route was officially approved by both the Bureau of Public Roads and the Wyoming Highway Commission is reason enough to dispel the myth.
Soon after the opening of I-80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction, the problem of billboards already was being reported. Articles began to appear in local papers, and letters were being sent to Wyoming Governor Stan Hathaway, the highway department, and highway commissioners. Wyoming Highway Commission Chairman Gus Fleischli, Jr., instructed the highway department’s public information office to contact landowners along this section of I-80.8 The list included 37 addresses between Laramie and Walcott Junction to be contacted, and these landowners were instructed to control outdoor advertising on their property. The letter asked them to voluntarily “consider the possibility of denying requests from sign companies to erect billboards.”9 The highway commission agreed that, “This will entail some sacrifice and loss of revenue, but in consideration of the new vistas opened by this highway, and the very favorable impression that this action will create with the motoring public, we hope you will feel as we do that it is a worthy endeavor.”10
Interstate travelers joined Wyomingites in this view of protecting Wyoming’s open spaces. In 1968, the University of Wyoming conducted a survey of traveler attitudes toward billboard advertising. Though many travelers unfamiliar with Wyoming saw the value of billboards to aid in selecting a motel to spend the night, they also saw the impact these signs had on the scenery. Respondents included a traveler from Illinois who said, “There shouldn’t be so many [signs] that scenery is spoiled.” A California motorist noted that billboards “should be restricted so that [they don’t] mar the beauty of the scenery.”11 A homemaker from Grighton, Michigan, wrote, “The West is so lovely – must it be covered up with billboards?”12 Others did, however, see billboards differently, including one respondent who said, “Some signs are quite cute and break up the monotony of a long trip, especially with small children.13 In time, the eyes seeing billboards as distractions won out, and outdoor advertising slowly began to disappear from the landscape. Few new billboards were erected in their place.
Today, on the Laramie to Walcott stretch of I-80, when the weather is fair, the sun is shining, and the roads are dry, instead of seeing billboard after billboard, motorists gaze upon spectacular views where the rugged high plains and vast open range rise to meet the forested foothills of the Medicine Bow Mountains. You can thank Lady Bird Johnson for her role in helping to create scenic highways, but don’t blame Lady Bird for the location of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction—that notorious section of road well-known to many white-knuckle drivers as the Snow Chi Minh Trail.
Editor's note: Special thanks to the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, whose support helped make the publication of this article possible.
Photos Courtesy of John Waggener and the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming
Footnotes
1. America’s Highways: 1776–1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program. 1977. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, p. 367. https://archive.org/details/americashighways00unit/page/n9/mode/2up
2. Chaplin, W.E., ed. “Planting Trees on Great Highway” Laramie, Wyoming: The Laramie Republican (Semi-Weekly Edition), December 27, 1913, col. 1, p. 3. https://wyomingnewspapers.org
3. Steiger, Carl. Letter to Frank Barrett. March 20, 1957. Box 19, Folder 3. Frank A. Barrett Papers, 1920–1981. Laramie, Wyoming: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
4. Barrett, Frank. Letter to Carl Steiger. March 25, 1957. Box 19, Folder 3. Frank A. Barrett Papers, 1920–1981. Laramie, Wyoming: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
5. Painter, Mrs. Thomas. Letter to Frank Barrett. April 18, 1957. Box 19, Folder 3. Frank A. Barrett Papers, 1920–1981. Laramie, Wyoming: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
6. Barrett, Frank. Letter to Mrs. Thomas Painter. April 30, 1957. Box 19, Folder 3. Frank A. Barrett Papers, 1920–1981. Laramie, Wyoming: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
7. Cline, Barbara. Email to the author. June 16, 2008. Austin, Texas: Lady Bird Johnson Papers, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.
8. Wyoming Highway Commission Records. Meeting minutes [minutes are organized by year]. October 29, 1970. Cheyenne, Wyoming: Wyoming State Archives.
9. Fleischli, Gus, Jr. Letter to landowners. November 20, 1970. Box 15, Highways – 1970 Folder, Stanley K. Hathaway Papers, 1924–2005. Cheyenne, Wyoming: Wyoming State Archives.
10. Ibid.
11. Blood, Dwight M., Rajender, G.R., Moncur, James, and Curle, Edwin J. “Traveler Attitudes – Toward Highway Billboard Advertising: A Survey of Selected Wyoming Motel Patrons [Appendix B].” Report prepared by the Division of Business and Economic Research, College of Commerce and Industry, University of Wyoming, for the Wyoming State Highway Department. January 1969. Box 2, State of Wyoming. Wyoming Highway Department Records, 1921–1986. Laramie, Wyoming: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.