Last edited Thu May 15, 2014, 09:28 PM - Edit history (2)

Talk to people who came of age in the 1920s and 1930s, they WALKED everywhere. This includes people who lived in cities and out in the sticks. County seats east of Colorado, New Mexico, The Dakotas, and Western Texas, were designed so you could WALK to the county seat from anywhere in the county AND back home in a day. This is true of the Counties of Western Washington, Western Oregon and the Counties around San Francisco and Sacramento California.



Please note, even most Dakota Counties tend to be within a days walk, just larger then the Counties in States Further east. States with Counties much to far to make such a day trip are in New Mexico, Arizona, Extreme Northern California, Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Southern Idaho, Southern Oregon, Central and Western Wyoming and the Western Panhandle of Texas. The rest of the Western States tended to have larger counties then in the East, but not the super large counties of the States Mentioned in the previous sentence.

Maine and Southern Florida appear to be an exception to the above rule, but both have large counties only in areas not really settled till the late 1800s.

I bring this up, for until after WWII, most people WALKED to work, WALKED to where they went to School, Walked to Church, Walked to where they went shopping etc. This was as true of people in Rural Areas as in Urban areas. My own Grandfather thought nothing of walking in his 80s, from his daughter's home in the middle of Butler County PA, through Allegheny County (and the City of Pittsburgh) to my father's home in the middle Washington county. He had done similar walks from the 1890s till he died in the 1960s. No one used a bicycle, that was for the upper middle class, the working classes all walked. Bicycles were replaced as the Toy of the Upper Middle Class by the Automobile, but mostly after WWI.

Most Americans did not own a car till after WWII. By 1954 most car sales were to people replacing an older model for a newer model, as oppose to most cars being sold to first time auto buyers (prior to 1954, more car sales were to new owners of automobiles as oppose to replacing an automobile). This is the result of Sub-urbanization, something that had been going on since the 1920s.

Side note: Opposition to Automobiles were the highest in Rural America prior to WWI, the noise of the Cars frighten the animals. After WWI, the rural market became the prime market for automobiles as more and more farmers embraced them as a way to get to town (and as trucks replaced horse drawn wagons as the main means to get crops to markets). In urban areas between the war, walking and taking the Streetcars was supreme, the automobile only being embraced by the upper middle class in urban areas. Trucks did replace horse drawn wagons between the wars, but some horse drawn wagons survived till WWII.

Now the Suburbs embraced the Automobile big time between the wars, but mostly as the Upper Middle Class moved out to the Suburbs. Thus the suburbs had more automobiles per capita then urban and rural areas, through given the small size of suburbs in the inner war period, a very small market for cars compared to the Urban and Rural Markets.

Thus even as late as the late 1940s most people WALKED to work, school, church and to go shopping. Bicycles were just not used, foot power was the preferred means of transportation.

It's that way in all of New England. The equivalent in Maine and the rest of New England would be the ability to walk to the town center and back in a day and that's true in most of New England. Even parts of Aroostook county (the big one at top of the state) where people live this is true. The western part of far northern Maine has few people in it because it's predominantly owned by lumber companies, thus there's little need for creating an infrastructure for walking to governmental centers.

Counties are how the Court system is set up, and thus why the rule to walk to and from the County Seat. Land Titles (deeds) are kept in such court houses, thus they are important. In the Mid West County Seats tend to be the largest City/Town in the county. They may be towns and cities closer, but my point was the FURTHEST one would have to walk is to the county seat. Thus in most of the US, counties are rarely wider then 20 miles, north-south, east-west. Most people can walk 20 miles in a day with ease.

In the rest of the country counties have far more authority. In New England, not so much. Nearly every government function is at the town/city level. The courts are both in county seats and in district locations, which is a way of saying population centers rather than just the county seat.

Thus the important functional walking distance is to the town/city center rather than the county seat.