U.S. 1: Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida
The story of U.S. 1 begins in 1925 with creation of the U.S. numbered highway system (see "From Names to Numbers" at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/numbers.cfm). During the early years...
General
Legacy ID
21
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Office of Information Press Service
Released for Publication, Sunday, January 2, 1927
Complete U.S. Highway System Now Designated and Approved
Final location of the United States System of Highways consisting of approximately 80,000 miles of the most important roads in the country was made known to-day by...
E. W. James on designating the Federal-aid system and developing the U.S. numbered highway plan
Frederick W. Cron, an engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) from 1928 to 1969, was also a highway historian. While working on an article about the numbering of America's main highways, he contacted a former BPR coworker and friend, E. W. James. The following is Mr. James'...
From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System
by Richard F. Weingroff
Information Liaison Specialist
Federal Highway Administration
(The following material provided the basis for an article of the same name in AASHTO Quarterly, Spring 1997.)
On Sunday, August 30, 1925, AAA President...
Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway
by Richard F. Weingroff
The plan to designate a transcontinental highway to honor the President of the Confederate States of America was conceived in 1913. Today, remnants of that highway periodically generate controversy. The following is presented to...
Chronology of the Life of Charles Henry Davis
On August 5, 1939, the Bureau of Public Roads Library logged in a copy of the following chronology of the life of Charles Henry Davis. The following reprint includes the original text. No explanation was provided for the gap from 1914 to 1927.
Charles (Henry) Davis
...
Alexis de Tocqueville on Transportation in America
by
Richard F. Weingroff
Introduction
Alexis de Tocqueville is best known for Democracy in America, which he wrote after spending 10 months of 1831 and 1832 in the United States on a mission from France to study American prisons (then...
Lady Bird Johnson's I-95 Landscape-Landmark Tour - Highway History - FHWA
by
Richard F. Weingroff
If It's Beautifying They Want
In the 1964 presidential campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated his Republican rival, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in a landslide victory. From the perspective of the 21st century,...
A Moment in Time: Project Chicago
By Richard F. Weingroff
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29, he launched construction of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, as it was called. Officials in the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) and...