"It must not be supposed, however, that no roads existed which directed the traveler to his place of destination. The earliest comers found paths and traces leading across the country which, in a measure, aided them in finding the shortest cuts from timber grove to timber grove, but were not of human origin. Before even the Indian came to hunt the wild animals, these animals, in search of water or pasturage, made their traces or paths, always choosing the best lines of travel and, so far as possible, the shortest lines of communication."
J.O. Cunningham, History of Champaign County (1905)
1. Strong's Ford / Kelley's Ford > Movie #1
2. Prather's Ford > Movies #2 & #3
3. Big Grove Ford > Movie #4
4. Adkin's Point > Movie #5
"It was for the great game animals to mark out what became known as the first thoroughfares of America. The plunging buffalo, keen of instinct, and nothing if not a utilitarian, broke great roads across the continent on the summits of the watersheds, beside which the first Indian trails were but traces through the forests."
"It is very wonderful that the buffalo's first instinct should have found the very best courses across a continent upon whose thousand rivers such great black forest were thickly strung. Yet it did, as the tripod of the white man has proved; and until the problem of aerial navigation is solved, human intercourse will move largely on paths first marked by the buffalo."
"But the greater marvel is that these early pathfinders chose routes, even in the roughest districts, which the tripod of the white man cannot improve upon."
"The buffalo, because of his sagacious selection of the most sure and most direct courses, has influenced the routes of trade and travel of the white race as much, possibly, as he influenced the course of the redmen in earlier days. There is great truth in Thomas Benton's figure when he said that the buffalo blazed the way for the railways to the Pacific."
Archer Butler Hulbert, Historic Highways of American (Volume 1): Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals (1902)
1. Strong's Ford / Kelley's Ford > Movie #1
2. Prather's Ford > Movies #2 & #3
3. Big Grove Ford > Movie #4
4. Adkin's Point > Movie #5
5. Newcomb's Ford > Movies #6 & #7