Dessemona Oil Field, Texas. August 5, 1919. A long way from Ogallala, but part of the oil age.
The Motor Transport Convoy left North Platte and slogged for 16.5 hours through quicksand and sand until they reached Ogallala. Bridges were damaged and trucks had to be recovered.
Traveling was proving much more difficult now that the convoy was in the West. And all this on something that was regarded as a "highway".
Ogallala is the county seat for Keith County, Nebraska, and is a small town. It's also a fork in the road, being the spot where travelers can turn northwest towards Scottsbluff or keep on towards Cheyenne, or potentially Julesburg Colorado. Interestingly at the time, the Lincoln highway ran north of the South Platte in this area, where it remains in use as U.S. Highway 30. Interstate 80, the road that basically replaced it more or less along the same route, runs south of the South Platte. The North and South Platte come together just east of North Platte, Nebraska, where the convoy started out on this day a century ago.
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