Highway History

Other Articles

• Some Road Songs Updated 10/15/08

• Highway History Bibliography Updated 10/21/08

• Transportation's Role Leading the Way in Transforming the Nation's Capital 

• A Maximum of Good Results: Martin Dodge and the Good Roads Trains

• The Environmental First Lady by Kathleen A. Bergeron
  • Lady Bird Johnson's I-95 Landscape-Landmark Tour
    
    

• How Many Interstate Programs Were There?

• FHWA Training Programs: Through the Years

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Excess Condemnation

• Kill The Bill: Why the U.S. House of Representatives Rejected the Interstate System in 1955

• Original Intent: Purpose of the Interstate System 1954-1956

• Along the Interstates: Seeing the Roadside

• Backbone: Creation Of The National Highway System

  • National Highway System: Imagining The Future
    
    
• Happy 40th Anniversary: National System of Interstate and Defense Highways
• Happy 30th Anniversary: National System of Interstate and Defense Highways
  
  

• Moving The Goods: As The Interstate Era Begins

  • Excerpt from "First Progress Report of the Highway Cost Allocation Study"
  • Figures and Tables from "First Progress Report of the Highway Cost Allocation Study"
    
    

• Interstate System Conditions and Performance

• Origins Of The Interstate Maintenance Program

• "Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy": The Fight Against Federal-Aid

• The Greatest Decade 1956-1966 Part 1 Essential to the National Interest

  • AASHO Road Test
  • Bertram D. Tallamy
  • The Golden Fleece Why Was The $27 Billion Estimate So Wrong?
  • Ike's Grand Plan
  • Right of Passage: The Controversy Over Vertical Clearance on the Interstate System
  • Shields and Signs
    
    

• The Greatest Decade 1956-1966 Part 2 The Battle of Its Life

  • The Best Counter to Critics
  • The Man Who Saved the Interstate System
  • Section 4(F)
  • The Size of the Job
  • What Comes After 1972?
    
    

• An Engineer's Thoughts on the Interstate System

• Thomas H. MacDonald on Toll Roads

• Designating the Urban Interstates

  • Design Standards 1944
  • Naming the Interstate System
  • Our Cities Their Role in the National Economy
  • Urban Design Principles
    
    

• The Second Battle of New Orleans

  • The Rambler's History of New Orleans
    
    

• Back in Time

  • The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike
  • The Big Walker and East River Mountain Tunnels
  • Building Roads
  • California's Desert Highway S-2
  • California's Pacific Coast Highway-Highway One
  • The Cumberland Gap
  • The Evolution of Mississippi Highways
  • Flooded Roadways
  • Ghosts of Antietam's Battlefield and the Bloody Lane
  • The Hastings Cutoff and Highway 80 Tragedy of the Donner Party
  • Highway 79, Little Dixie Highway of the Great River Road
  • Highway Archaeology and Salvage Programs
  • The Kampsville River Ferry
  • The Lincoln Highway
  • Lower Valley Pike Scenic Byway
  • Maine's Carriage Roads
  • Montana Resident Donates Charles Henry Davis' 1936 Montana License Plates 
  • The National Road
  • Michigan DOT Celebrates Transportation Centennial Year
  • Native American Heritage Month Sacagawea-A Shoshone Woman's Impact on the Lewis and Clark Expedition
  • North Carolina's U.S. Highway 52
  • The Object Lesson Road
  • Ohio Celebrates Bicentennial-1803-2003
  • Ohio's Harvey Firestone and the Transcontinental Motor Convoy
  • Ohio's Historic Blaine Hill Bridge
  • Ohio's Vanishing Covered Bridges
  • The Ohio Division Celebrates Black History Month
  • Plank Roads
  • Route "66" The Mother Road
  • South Dakota's Black Hills to the Badlands Road History
  • Transportation in America's Postal System
  • Wagons West
  • Zane's Trace
    
    

• In Memory of Ronald Reagan

• Where was the First Walk/Don't Walk Sign Installed? You Will Not Find the Answer Here

  • Addendum: The Barnes Dance
    
    

• The FHWA Highway Administration Salutes Silver Medal Winners in National History Day Competition

• The Trailblazers

• Introducing the Rambler, Semi-Retired
  • Ask The Rambler
    • Martin Van Buren and the Railroads
    • Interstates in Hawaii: ARE WE CRAZY???
    • Was I-76 Numbered to Honor Philadelphia for Independence Day, 1776?
    • What Is The Longest Road in the United States?
    • When did the Federal Government begin collecting the gas tax?
    • Why Do People Like to Drive for Pleasure?
      • History of Scenic Road Programs
    • Why Does I-70 End in Cove Fort, Utah?
    • Why Does The Interstate System Include Toll Facilities?
    • Why is the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge Name after Woodrow Wilson?
  • The Bicycle Revolution
  • Don't Blame the Future
  • How the Highway Beautification Act Became a Law
  • I-85 The Boom Belt
  • Innovative Financing Tip for Communities at Their Wit's End
    • The Rambler's Innovative Financing Tips #2, #3, and #4
  • John Steinbeck vs Charles Kuralt
  • Literary Stagecoaching: Famous Victims
  • Maryland's Bank Road
  • The Rambler's History of New Orleans
  • The Rambler Takes a Walk - a Virtual Tour of Pennsylvania Avenue
    • Completion of the Pennsylvania Avenue Streetscape and Security Improvements Project
  • The Sand-Clay Roads of South Carolina
  • Two Bay Area Bridges - The Golden Gate and San Fransisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
    
    

• Firing Thomas H. MacDonald--Twice

• Ted Holmes on Thomas MacDonald and Herbert Fairbank

• Alexis de Tocqueville on Transportation in America

• President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Role in Highway Safety
  • Photo Gallery
    
    

• The National Old Trails Road - Part 1: The Quest for a National Road

  • Motor Routes to the California Expositions by A. L. Westgard
  • The National Old Trails Road Photo Gallery
    
    

• The National Old Trails Road - Part 2: See America First in 1915

  • National Old Trails Part 2 Photo Gallery
    
    

• Blue Star Memorial Highways

  • Dogwood Planted Along Roadsides
    
    

• Portrait of a General: General Roy Stone

  • Good Roads Work for the New Century General Roy Stone
  • General Roy Stone Photo Gallery
  • Gettysburg National Military Park Virtual Tour
    
    

• A Highway for the North, a Highway for the South

  • The Lincoln Highway
  • Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway
    
    
• From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System
  • E. W. James on designating the Federal-aid system and developing the U.S. numbered highway plan
  • U.S. 2 Houlton, Maine, to Everett, Washington
  • U.S. 6 The Grand Army of the Republic Highway
  • U.S. 11 Rouses Point, New York, to New Orleans, Louisiana
    • Bureau of Public Roads Memorandum
    • U.S. 11 and I-81 Location Difficulties in Virginia
  • U.S. 12 Michigan to Washington
  • U.S. 14 Chicago, Illinois, to Yellowstone National Park
  • U.S. 20, Coast to Coast
  • U.S. 22 The William Penn Highway
  • U.S. 29 Maryland to Florida
  • U.S. 52 Charleston, South Carolina, to Portal, North Dakota
  • U.S. 80 The Dixie Overland Highway
    • 1931 Bureau of Public Roads News Release about U.S. 80
  • U.S. 82 
  • U.S. 93 Reaching For The Border
  • U.S. 95 and Idaho's North and South Highway 
  • U.S. 202 Maine to Delaware
  • U.S. 231--Indiana to Florida How a Highway Grew
  • U.S. 666: "Beast of a Highway"?
  • Map of the Transcontinental Trails of the USA, 1923 (0.9 mb)
    
    

• Zero Milestone - Washington, DC

  • Zero Milestone Photo Gallery
  • Dr. S. M. Johnson - A "Dreamer of Dreams"
    • Dr. S. M. Johnson Gallery
    • Arlington Memorial Bridge Gallery
    • Along Lee Highway Gallery
      
      

• Rex Whitton--the Man from Missouri

  • Rex Whitton Photo Gallery
    
    

• Good Roads Everywhere: Charles Henry Davis and the National Highways Association

  • Chronology of the Life of Charles Henry Davis
  • Charles Henry Davis Photo Gallery
    
    

• On The Right Side of the Road

• The Pikes Peak Ocean To Ocean Highway - The Appian Way Of America

  • Pikes Peak Ocean To Ocean Highway Map Gallery
    
    

• FHWA By Day
  A Look at the History of the Federal Highway Administration