Boone Trail Memorial Collection, PC.2275

Correspondence, data, clippings, photographs, and research materials of the Boone Trail Highway Re-Association and E.Gary Marshall, Executive-Director of the Association. The bulk of the collection comprises records documenting almost 150 of the 358 highway markers placed by Joseph Hampton Rich and the Boone Trail Highway and Memorial Association bewtween 1913 and 1938. The majority of the markers are in North Carolina, but the locations range from California to Massachusetts, and from Michigan to Florida. This research formed the basis of the book Rich Man: Daniel Boone, written and published by Mr. Marshall.

Other papers cover the lives of Rich and Boone, correspondence regarding Mr. Marshall's book, purchase of a memorial tablet and other collectables, and other Boone related research by Marshall.

On October 13, 1913, the Boone Trail Highway and Memorial Association was formed in North Wilksboro, NC with the aim of gaining public and legislative support for better highways in western North Carolina. The association, which was subsequently chartered by the state of North Carolina, was conceived by Joseph Hampton Rich, who became the Managing Director of the Association.

Rich was born in Davie County, NC, on July 14, 1874, and attended Wake Forest College, graduating from there in 1898. He had several careers including, teaching in public schools, preaching in churches, operating the Piedmont Printing Company in Winston-Salen, NC, and the Clerk Librarian of the State Senate of North Carolina. Rich had an interest in, and passion for roads which lead him to conceive a program for the maintenance of rural gravel roads by local students, (authorized as Boy's Road Patrol by the State Legislature in 1915) and, as noted above, to create the Boone Trail Highway and Memorial Association.

The original purpose of the Association was to promote the building of "an arterial highway to reclaim the counties of the northwestern part of the state,", but soon became promoting further routes and erecting markers commemorating Daniel Boone. These markers were arrowhead-shaped monuments of rocks and concrete typically containing a metal plaque depicting Boone sitting on a boulder. Each plaque contained a small amount of metal from 400 pounds of scrap salvaged from the USS Maine. Initially markers were placed on highways from the Yadkin Valley to Kentucky, but Rich was soon placing them all over the country and publishing the Boone Trail Herald to document the progress of the Association. Rich enrolled sponsors from local civic clubs and public schools, and the markers were placed in a visible location with public dedications involving much fanfare and patriotic fervor. Rich claimed to have placed over 350 memorial tablets in total, however the records of the Association have been lost, possibly in a fire, and no listing of the original sites is known to exist.

In 1997, a school student asked the Carroll County Historical Society about the Boone Trail Highway marker in Hillsville, Virginia. Looking for the answer eventually led E. Gary Marshall, a director of the Historical Society, to research the history of the markers and identify their locations.

1. Biographies and Research, 1913-2024

2. Highway Marker Files, 1913-2024

3. Correspondence and Miscellaneous, 1913-2024