Skip to contentU.S. Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration
Home > About FHWA > Highway History > FHWA By Day

FHWA By Day

A Look at the History of the Federal Highway Administration
Table of Contents - Previous Day - Next Day
September 6
1910 In a letter to BPR, Thomas H. MacDonald of the Iowa State Highway Commission complains that after being appointed a BPR Special Agent to collect and provide information on State roads, at a salary of $1 a year, his appointment had been unexpectedly revoked. On September 9, Director Logan Page replies, "I regret very much that this has happened, but am today having you reappointed as Special Agent at $1.00 per annum."
1926 Ceremonies mark the opening of the Cameron Pass Highway westerly out of Fort Collins, CO, over the Continental Divide. The central 6-mile link was a BPR project for the Forest Service. The survey had been carried out during the summer of 1922, with S. A. Wallace of BPR's Denver office as chief of party.
1949 Extension of the Shirley Memorial Highway--a 17-mile, four-lane expressway--opens from a point south of the Pentagon highway network to Woodbridge, VA. The highway is named for the Virginia Highway Commissioner Henry G. Shirley, who died on July 16, 1941, just a few weeks after giving the "go ahead" for work on the expressway. (See September 10, 1941.)
Photo: Bridges
Bridges carrying ritary intersection over the Shirley Highway in 1943 near Parkfairfax, VA.
1960 BPR's new transistorized card-sorter machine, the first of its type to be made available to the Federal Government, goes into operation. With it, the Data Processing Division will maintain financial and statistical data on more than 15,000 active Federal-aid highway projects in about 3,000 counties, DC, and PR.
previous next

Return to FHWA By Day