In 1919, the Duluth, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce sponsored the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway as a memorial to the recent passing of the former president. An early interstate highway, the route stretched 4,000 miles between Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon. A little over 750 miles of the Roosevelt Highway spanned Montana, none of it paved. The Roosevelt Highway Association warned motorists in 1921 that the route between Glasgow and Malta was a partly improved dirt road that was almost impassable because of gumbo in wet weather. Despite that, hundreds of adventurous automobile tourists undertook the difficult road to visit Glacier National Park and other attractions along the way. They had their cars serviced in local garages and stayed in hotels and campgrounds along the way, enriching businesses in the small towns along the Montana High Line. One promoter wrote that the Roosevelt Highway "opens to the tourist the door of the treasure-box of beauties and grandeur and varied scenery of the North continent as no other highway does." In 1926, the Bureau of Public Roads re-designated the route as U.S. Highway 2. For some, though, it will always be the Roosevelt Highway.
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