Autos and the Auto Tour

NPS

The genesis of today’s auto tour route can be traced back to 1929. As automobiles grew in popularity throughout the 1920s, the federal government decided to increase funding for construction of long-distance highways in the western United States. By the end of the 1920s, the entirety of the trail, from Missouri to Oregon, was accessible using a series of highways, public roads, and service roads, except for a 70-mile section in Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains.

Wanting to upgrade the area’s wagon road, R. P. Hilleary and his team submitted a proposal in 1929 to build an automobile-accessible road along the Lolo Trail, and construction began in August 1930.

After years of construction, the Lolo Motorway opened to the public in 1935, finally providing Americans with a contiguous road along the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition.