Sometimes an item has more questions than answers. This “picture” was found in the Tavistock Men’s Club Hall in a standard-issue black wooden frame with a handwritten “circa 1917” note on the back. It was only when the frame was removed that we realized the “picture” was a “postcard”.

And then the questions started.

What’s the missing link? There had been a roadway from Shakespeare to Woodstock since the 1850’s.

Who has heard the terms “North Highway” and “South Highway”? This was new.

It says “1 mile of the road has already been built through the village of Tavistock”. Do they really mean “paved”? The first paving was in 1923. How does that stack up with 1917?

When did the Tavistock Chamber of Commerce begin? This is quite clearly a promotion piece for the Chamber. Why didn’t they use John Lemp, one of Tavistock’s eminent businessmen, to produce the postcard? Lemp began work in Tavistock in 1905.

Why is the picture not printed straight on the page?

Why is the back upside down from the front?

So many questions.

The digitized Tavistock Gazette newspapers had the answers to all the important questions. A search for “missing link” produced the following results.

Gazette 1925-01-22: Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce
The following were a few suggestions handed out at the meeting.  Encourage the Provincial HIghway movement by sending delegates to the South Easthope Council and other interested bodies with a view towards putting down a permanent pavement between our town and Shakespeare thereby connecting up the missing link between the north and south highways.   

That was fact.  This part is still guesswork.  It was presumed that this picture was a sign or a poster that someone had painted and then photographed for the postcard.  Very likely so and very likely used by the delegates mentioned above.

FYI, unrelated but interesting, elsewhere in the article it says that "The matter of changing the name of Woodstock Street to Main Street was left in abeyance owing to the large expenditure therewith".  

Gazette 1931-04-23: Twelfth Line East Zorra Will Be Provincial Highway
The much longed for, wanted and anticipated announcement was made last week by Premier Henry according to an announcement in last Thursday's Sentinel-Review, Woodstock. ...This Oxford County road, together with a few miles in Perth, from Tavistock north, connects No. 7 and 8 Highways with No. 2 , at Woodstock, and in recent years has carried an increasingly heavy volume of motor traffic.  “We will keep it open in the winter, hereafter” the minister said.  He did not intimate when the road would be paved. ... The seventeen miles had been dubbed “the missing link”.

Thanks to the digitized Gazettes we can all be Sherlock Holmes.