I picked up a county map after E-911 came in with a lot of names I didn’t recognize.
Dallas County’s map today gives a bunch of familiar roads some unfamiliar tags, and though some of them seem logical – like Airport Road or Jones Creek Road – others seem to have just fallen out of the clear, blue sky.
For example, I live on the corner of Broken Bow Road and Truman Road, and I now have a house number. When I moved here I had no mailbox number and no other address, other than my box at the post office. I had to have packages delivered to the newspaper office.
So, in my book 911 is a great improvement.
Previously, every county road number included the digits or letters of the paved highway it intersected with. The 911 system is tied to landmarks, common names and local suggestions. It’s not hard to figure where Moon Valley Road leads or where Spring Grove Road starts. Dogtown Lane, though, is a mystery. It’s miles from Dogtown (March), and just runs to a house, not F Highway.
A few seem misnamed for Dallas County – roads like Durango Lane and Tumbleweed Trail – but I like the ring of several, such as Longhorn Road, Flintlock Lane, Hoot Owl Trail, Jugtown Road and Muleshoe Lane.
As we’ve become accustomed to these new designations, it is easier to give directions to anywhere in the county, especially for we folks who have never had what the department store clerks insist we give every time we write a check – a physical address. Funny how they’re not satisfied with “a half-mile west of the new bank” or “the first place past Bill Price’s.”
Local folks might find such informal directions more than adequate, but strangers seem to demand a little more precision. It’s even worse if the directions are to a place far off the pavement. Try telling a stranger how to find Bethel Cemetery (first you have to get them to Hico Ford).
With the new map it’s a snap. All he has to do is take H south to Falling Rock Road, take it east to Darter Road, then turn left on Hico Road, cross the river and turn right on Wollard Road, then turn right on Bethel Road, which goes right by it.
Otherwise, he’d have to watch for the late Jim Felin’s silo and be sure to turn left on the first road before he passed it. That might’ve worked once upon a time, but these days you can’t count on a stranger knowing the difference between a silo and a tombstone.
Giving directions has always been an art, and my Grandpa Daly was among the most accomplished. In giving directions to his Springfield sign shop, he told folks it was easy to find, “Just turn east off Grant Street at the house with the white dog in the front yard.”
He knew they’d think, “What if the dog ain’t there?”
And he didn’t bother to tell them it was a cast iron hound. They found that out shortly before they found his shop.
These days, I suppose, the 911 folks would’ve been compelled to rename that street Iron Dog Road.
All such levity aside, 911 is a huge asset for emergency responders — a lifesaving asset. I suppose GPS technology comes in handy, too.
I wouldn’t know. I don’t have it. I still tell people going fromUS 65 to Elkland to turn right on AA after crossing the Pomme de Terre, swing north around the Goss Schoolhouse corner (now a fire station), then take a right at the top of the hill by the big white barn(where the honey stand is now); keep going east until you hit highway 38 at the old schoolhouse and you’re there.
A former feature writer for Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, Jim Hamilton is a retired newspaper editor/publisher. Hamilton was reared on a small dairy farm in Dallas County, Mo. Contact Jim at [email protected].
