Quartermaster Corps vehicle tests at Marfa, TX

Holt tractor pulling wagon train thru Pinto Canyon

1917

NARA165-WW-315A-019

Source of Photograph: National Archives, RG-165, Motor Vehicles - Tractors - In Use

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This was called the Road to No Where.

It became rather famous in 1917 as an Army Testing route

for trucks that the Army might want to buy or 'steal'.

The Quartermaster General was stuck in March of 1917 when Congress went home

without passing the appropriation bill needed for him to buy trucks for supplying the troops stationed along the Mexican/American border in Texas

after we pulled our Punitive Expedition out of Mexico.

So he invited the manufacturers of trucks to bring them down to Marfa, TX to demonstrate how well or not so well they performed.

The companies did bring their best and that is how the Quartermaster Corps

was able to feed and equip our troops in the border region.