The Kampsville River Ferry

By Rickie Longfellow

Highway Archaeology and Salvage Programs

By Rickie Longfellow

In the early days when road construction uncovered evidence of ancient civilizations, archaeologists rushed to the site and worked diligently to save as many artifacts as they could before construction began.

In 1937, a provision in Nebraska'...

Highway 79, Little Dixie Highway of the Great River Road

By Rickie Longfellow

Linking Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal to the smaller cities of Louisiana, Missouri's Highway 79 runs parallel to the mighty Mississippi River. All three communities were once riverboat boomtowns; their Italianate and Victorian architecture a...

The Hastings Cutoff and Highway 80 Tragedy of the Donner Party

By Rickie Longfellow

More than 155 years ago one of the worst tragedies in American travel occurred during the westward migration. The 1840s wagon train journey to California usually began at Independence, Missouri, around the first of May. Taken into consideration were...

Ghosts of Antietam's Battlefield and the Bloody Lane

By Rickie Longfellow

The bloodiest battle of the Civil War took place on September 17, 1862, on Antietam Creek near the small town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Four hours of intense fighting took place on an old sunken road that separated two farms. A staggering 23,100 men...

Good Roads Everywhere . . . in Montana

By Steve Hachenberger, Montana resident

In the last Back in Time we told readers about Steve Hachenberger of Montana who bought and donated the original 1936 Number 25 license plates that...

Flooded Roadways

By Rickie Longfellow

Since the beginning of time, creeks, rivers and other bodies of water have flooded their banks for a variety of reasons: steady and/or torrential rains, hurricanes, melting ice and other natural occurrences. Flash floods, caused by breaking dykes and...

The Evolution of Mississippi Highways

By Rickie Longfellow

In 1799, Mississippi Governor Winthrop Sargent signed a bill creating the First Road Act. When Mississippi became the 20th state in the Union on December 10, 1817, the roads were little more than meandering trails for the approximately 70,000 people...

The Cumberland Gap

By Rickie Longfellow

The Cumberland Gap, which measures 1,304 feet in altitude, is Nature's passage through the Cumberland Mountains between Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. One of three natural breaks in the rugged Appalachian Mountain range, it served as a gateway in...

California's Pacific Coast Highway-Highway One

By Rickie Longfellow

Highway One follows the Pacific coastline from Baja to the top of the Olympic Peninsula. The most scenic is the 139 miles from Monterey to Morro Bay near San Luis Obispo.

John L.D. Roberts, M.D., from New York founded the town of Seaside in...