Unlike the busy highways of today, the Auto Routes of the 1910s-1940s ALWAYS passed through the downtowns of every town on the route. These auto trails were billed as important economic development drivers, and if a town wanted to be on the route, they'd often pay to get an alignment routed through town.
The OST (and later the SH 3 and the US 90) passed through Liberty TX, located between the larger cities of Beaumont and Houston. Businesses in Liberty such as the Ott Hotel sprang up to take advantage of the travelers who might need a room for the night or a meal.
The OST passed directly in front of the 1931 Liberty County courthouse, and travelers would have welcomed the change to picnic on its lawn under its trees, and maybe go inside to use the public restrooms inside, which were few and far between in the early days of highway travel.
The SH 3 was one of the earliest highways in Texas, being one of the original 26 state highways that were designated in 1917.
From Wikipedia: (
visit link)
"SH 3 was one of the original twenty six state highways proposed in 1917, overlaid on top of the Southern National Highway. From 1919, the routing mostly followed present day U.S. Highway 90 from Orange to Houston and San Antonio through to Del Rio."
The SH3/OST passed through Liberty, a small town between Beaumont and Houston. The OST was co-designated with the SH 3 until 1926, when the Auto Trails and some major state highways were reclassified as federal highways. This part of the OST/SH 3 was designated US 90, and gradually both the OST and SH 3 names faded. By 1938 the designation of this road as SH 3 was completely dropped. See: (
visit link)
"[page 12] The Texas Highway Commission affirmed the importance of the Old Spanish Trail in 1921, when it identified most of SH 3 as part of the Federal Aid Highway System. (Refer to Figure 46 previous Section I.4.)
The Commission also reiterated the 1917 identity of SH 3 as beginning near Orange and ending in Del Rio. Elements of the highway in the System between those two points included stretches between Orange, Beaumont, Nome, Devers, Liberty, Crosby, Houston, Sugarland, Richmond, East Bernard, Eagle Lake, Columbus, Weimar, Flatonia, and Waelder. The route of SH 3 within the Federal Aid Highway System resumed in Gonzales and went to Seguin, Schertz, San Antonio, Castroville, Hondo, Sabinal, Uvalde, Brackettville, and Del Rio."