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FHWA By Day

A Look at the History of the Federal Highway Administration
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April 7
1957 "The Chief," Thomas H. MacDonald, dies following a heart attack in College Station, Texas. According to State Highway Engineer Dewitt C. Greer, MacDonald "walked over to the cigar counter after a very pleasant dinner with his family and friends and bought a cigar, sat down on a comfortable divan and passed away." MacDonald was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suitland, MD, by the side of his first wife, who died in 1935. In a tribute, his friend Pyke Johnson of the Automotive Safety Foundation, describes MacDonald as "a statesman who built an enduring monument to himself not so much in roads and bridges as in the lives of people." Johnson concluded, "Few knew him. But those few knew him as one of the men of history, who with their associates, have profoundly affected the course of modern life."
1977 William M. Cox, a native of Madisonville, KY, is sworn in as Federal Highway Administrator by Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams.
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