My dad once told me about the first self-propelled automobile he ever saw. He couldn’t remember exactly when but he was just a little kid who was born in 1910. The car amazed him and his numerous little brothers as the car chugged past their house on Goat Ridge Road in Leflore County, Oklahoma. The boys were so impressed they tried to preserve the tire imprints in the sandy road, but you know how sand is. The tire tread marks were soon gone. And dad said it was a long time before another car ever came by.

Car’s improvements meant more and more of them were hitting the roads and streets of America. By 1914 the “contraptions” were running all over the place and it was said they were capable of high speeds, such as 40 MPH. That was pretty fast as the nation counted 40,000 people were now being killed on our roads annually by the sudden appearance of these “machines.”

Along that time Allen paved its first road. Broadway. The cement was poured on the main drag about 1918 starting on Broadway at Commerce Street and the wide road ran to Richmond Avenue with its curbs and sidewalks. The road divided there and ran in a boulevard style all the way East to County Line Road. Its center media was a park-like scene with grass and trees.

Ruby Yount once told me that people drove over here from far and wide to drive on the smooth pavement just to see what it felt like. The street was said to be illuminated by streetlights powered by the new steam powered electric plant that sat on the corner of Richmond and Lee Street. Saturday nights were noisy on the boulevard with all the Model T Fords and other pleasure riders going back and forth on the popular street. A housing boom along the boulevard made Broadway the “Silk Stocking Row” of Allen and people sought to build house there.

Meanwhile, cars were starting to clog our big cities streets and what with the large number of electric streetcars, horse-drawn vehicles, trucks and all kinds and varieties of automobiles chugging around there were thousands of wrecks and something had to give. So it was on August 14, 1914 that a sharp fellow named James Hoge of Cleveland, Ohio invented the traffic light. It was just a red and green light box. Contained 4 sides with 8 bulbs. Hoge took electricity from the nearby trolley lines to power the new-fangled lights. The traffic director’s platform out in the middle of the intersection and its officer operated the lights and used his whistle. Later the lights were enhanced with a yellow caution light.

People came from all over to see the new lights and “Gee Whizzed” about what a good job the lights did in restoring order to Cleveland’s main streets. Pretty soon the idea of traffic lights had the things sprouting up all over America. Little towns rushed to install them too and the signals were their credentials for being a modern growing city. Some were installed to enhance traffic fines and they worked good for that, too. I remember well when Stonewall installed their first two traffic lights in about 1950. They worked fine and while they may not have been needed, they did provide some needed revenue and gave Police Officer Tommy Crow new purpose in his life.

I don’t think Allen ever had any traffic lights but there has been a time or two when I wished there was one down on the corner by the Bank and Grocery Store when I was trying to get across the street. And if HWY-1 gets any more traffic on it we might have to put one up down there by the Quick-Pic so we can get out on the main highway. Just a thought.

Have a good week and be sure and go to church Sunday. No stop lights there.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net