Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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DR JUNE MCCARROLL



June Hill was born in 1867 and raised in the Adirondack Mountains. When she came of age she went off to school and learned to be a nurse. Back then women had two career choices. They could be teachers, or they could be nurses. June married a lunger name of Robertson and in 1904 the happy couple moved to Indio, California in order to take advantage of the salubrious health benefits that an arid climate offered to lungers. The old man went up the flume in 1914 and a couple of years later June married a rooster named McCarroll, who was the local agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad. By then June had become a doctor, and was the only doctor to be found in that whole wide area. She was the town doctor, and the doctor for the railroad, and the doctor for five Indian tribes between the Salton Sea and Palm Springs. She was a busy girl zooming around all over the desert in her Model T Ford trying to attend to the needs of widely scattered sick people. One day in 1917 she was zooming along Hwy 99 in Indio and got run off into the ditch by a big truck. It was the last straw for her. Driving around from place to place was mayhem. Everyone thought they owned the road and could drive right down the middle of it like they used to do with horses and wagons. Traffic control was a problem that called for an orderly mind. Dr McCarroll bought some white paint and painted a line right down the middle of the highway. She told everyone to stay on the right side of that line as they went about their business and it worked fine. It was a simple solution to the problem and traffic delineation began to catch on elsewhere. In 1934 the California Highway Commission adopted her idea and put into use statewide. It only took 17 years for them to see the wisdom of it. Now her idea is in use worldwide. The photo shows the monument erected to Dr June McCarroll beside Indio Blvd where she painted the first line.

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Photos

DR JUNE MCCARROLL
The monument is located on the south side of Indio Blvd at the corner of Flower Street.