A Tripoint and a Highpoint in One Fell Swoop

Laramie County, Wyoming
Weld County, Colorado
Kimball County, Nebraska
July 7, 2013

Old Texas Trail marker in Pine Bluffs

Getting There

Here I am barreling down Interstate 80 soon to cross the Wyoming-Nebraska border like I have done a dozen times before. I continued going straight the dozen times before, but for this trip on the freeway I have planned my own detour. Twelve miles south of I-80 are two places on the geographer's bucket list, and I am now taking the time and effort to find those places before I continue heading east on the freeway.

I exited the freeway at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, drove through town, found a historical marker for the Old Texas Trail, and now headed south on Laramie County Road 164 towards Colorado. As I started to feel like I was getting close to Colorado, I looked for the telltale signs of the state boundary line between Wyoming and Colorado. There were no signs welcoming me to Colorado (and no signs behind me welcoming others to Wyoming), but I knew I entered Colorado when things underneath me changed. I traveled from Laramie County Road 164 to Weld County Road 105, and the road transformed from pavement to a dirt / gravel mixture. A change in road maintenance is a sure sign of going from one governmental jurisdiction to another.

Remembering Luther Latham, A Man Worthy of a Highway

Mathiston, Mississippi
August 6, 2016

memorial: something (such as a monument or ceremony) that honors a person who has died or serves as a reminder of an event in which many people died.
(Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary)

On my way home to Texas from Kentucky, I was traveling along the Natchez Trace Parkway and making small detours to find Natchez Trace monuments placed by the Mississippi Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 20th century. I found one placed in Mathiston along US Route 82, but what caught my eye was the marble sign next to it. It simply read:

Luther Latham

Memorial Highway

Senator

Webster County

1928 — 1931