Yellow brick road
The actual road is believed to be one in Peekskill, New York, where L. Frank Baum attended Peekskill Military Academy. According to a local legend, the Yellow Brick Road was derived from a road paved with yellow bricks near Holland, Michigan, where Baum spent summers. Ithaca, New York, also makes a claim for being Frank Baum's inspiration. He opened a road tour of his musical, The Maid of Arran, in Ithaca, and he met his future wife Maud Gage Baum while she was attending Cornell University. At the time, yellow bricks paved local roads. Yellow brick roads can also be found in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Albany, New York; Rossville (Baltimore County), Maryland; Montclair, New Jersey (Parkhurst Place and Afterglow Way); Bronxville, New York (on Prescott and Valley roads); Chicago, Illinois; Liberal, Kansas; Sedan, Kansas and Chittenango, New York, as well as a school in Abington, Pennsylvania, and abroad in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Kyrock, Kentucky
In 1918, the town was incorporated into a town that was built by the Kentucky Rock Asphalt Company, which the town’s name, Kyrock, is derived from. During the company’s heyday in the 1920s, the company mined, processed, and shipped hundreds of tons of rock asphalt, by way of both the Nolin and Green Rivers. This was done to eventually pave roadways in areas where they were not previously served by minor or major roadways at the time. The company itself began operations in 1917 after a merger between two companies involved in rock mining and paving. Eight new quarries and a processing facility, which ended up becoming a vital part of the county’s history, opened at the site that would become part of the town, which was incorporated in 1918. The material generated by the company, made of silica sand, was the first material ever laid for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The asphalt rock from Kyrock was also used to pave the streets of major cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Havana, Cuba.