Good Roads: Building the "Old Spanish Trail"
In 1897 the Mississippi Legislature passed a law empowering a county board of supervisors to elect a county road commissioner to oversee improvement of public roads. But since the legislators did not require the appointment of such a commissioner, the law had little effect. On May 8, 1897, referring to this powerless law, the editor of the Biloxi Herald opined, “A proposed road law or a dog tax has a paralyzing effect on the average legislator, and he always approaches them by a circuitous route which sometimes lands him in close proximity but never clearly up to scratch.”