Page:A Guide to the Preparation of County Road Histories.pdf/34

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  1. A road history should be written as a straightforward chronological narrative, with brief, occasional digressions to cover special topics.
  2. Each road history ought to be equipped with at least two detachable maps. One of these should be a current county road map; the other one should be a specially constructed map showing the early road network and related important historical sites. The scale of both maps should be the same and the latter map should be sufficiently transparent to be used as an overlay on the former.

The final, most important consideration is that all of the above combine to produce an end product such as to enable the layman, be he amateur historian or casual reader, to readily follow the narrative using the enclosed road maps. All else goes for naught if this should be lost sight of in writing a road history.

The reader should, with a minimum of difficulty, be able to understand the development of the early road system from a careful reading of the narrative. Ideally, he will also be able to use these road descriptions and the maps to drive over most of this system and see for himself the ingenuity and wisdom of the early road builders.

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