From the December 2, 2020 MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."
1920, 100 Years Ago
"Motorists are becoming quite civilized in the way of driving lately and no reports have been received by by the local police for some time concerning speeders.
"Even on the cement road at night but very few cars pass each other at a greater rate of speed than 15 miles an hour which is a fine thing as this will cut down on the number of accidents by half."
The cement road most likely refers to the stretch of Lincoln Highway between DeKalb and Malta. Work had just been completed on it earlier in the fall. So people were speeding even back then.
There was already a one-mile-long seedling mile paved west of Malta which was done in 1914. Seedling miles were paved every so often along the Lincoln to show people what a joy driving on a hard road would be compared to dirt roads after it rained.
Even with the seedling mile, the rest of that stretch from DeKalb to Malta (and then on to Creston) evidently had not been paved.
--RoadSpeeder
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