Highway History

General Highway History

• In Memoriam: Normal Y. Mineta

• A New Name for DOT Headquarters

• Road Trip - 1940
  • Driving Out West in 1940 (.pdf 2.1 mb)
  • Diary of Margaret Helene Goodman (.pdf 422 kb)
  
  

• The Nation's First Mega-Project: A Legislative History of the Cumberland Road, by Richard F. Weingroff

• National Bridge Inspection Standards

• Betty, Girl Engineer

• Janet P. Bonnema, Women – Bad Luck?

• Bibliography Updated 10/21/19

• In Memory of President George H. W. Bush (1924-2018) The Man Who Brought About the Post-Interstate Era

• The D.C. Freeway Revolt and the Coming of Metro

• In Memory of Anthony R. "Tony" Kane

• U.S. DOT - Recollection of The Early Years Edited by Alan Pisarski

• On the Road with President Woodrow Wilson

• A Moment in Time:
  • "President" Harry S. Truman and the Madonna of the Trail
  • The Day Logan Page Died
  • To Create a Partnership
  • Highway Safety Breakthrough
  • Safe Driving Day 1954-1955
  • Senator Al Gore Holds a Hearing
  • President Harry S. Truman’s Highway Safety Crusade
  • Project Chicago
  • President John F. Kennedy Cuts a Ribbon
  • President Ronald Reagan Launches Construction of Westway
  • The Traffic Jam That Advanced the Arlington Memorial Bridge
  • How the Washington Monument Helped Solve a Bridge Impasse
  • Nixon's Helicopter Tour
  • The Roosevelt Map

• In memoriam: Alan S. Boyd

• William T. Coleman, Jr. - 1920-2017

• Public Roads Articles
  • A Journey to Better Highways: 100 Years of Public Roads Summer 2018
  • America's Glory Road Autumn 2017
  • Wondrous Rides Through Nature's Wonders November/December 2016
    • Recollections of the Trailblazers (Expanded) (.pdf, 0.1 mb)
    • Our National Parkways. (.pdf, 0.1 mb)
    • The Day FDR Visited Skyline Drive (.pdf, 0.4 mb)
  • A Great Day in America: USDOT's 50th Anniversary September/October 2016
  • The Pennsylvania Turnpike Turns 75 September/October 2015
  • How The Uncommon Became The Commonplace January/February 2015
  • AASHTO Centennial Part 1 September/October 2014
  • AASHTO Centennial Part 2 November/December 2014
  • The Environmental First Lady by Kathleen A. Bergeronm March/April 2008
    • Lady Bird Johnson's I-95 Landscape-Landmark Tour
  • A Noteworthy Year November/December 2006
  • Roadways and the Land: The Landscape Architect's Role by Elizabeth E. Fischer, Heidi Hohmann, and P. Daniel Marriott, March/April 2000
  • The Great River Road Celebrates 60 Years by Karen Haas Smith, November/December 1998

• Polk Versus Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln on Internal Improvements (.pdf, 0.3 mb)

• America's Highways 1776-1976, A History of the Federal-aid Program

• Alexis de Tocqueville on Transportation in America

• Good Roads Everywhere: Charles Henry Davis and the National Highways Association
  • Chronology of the Life of Charles Henry Davis
  • Charles Henry Davis 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
• The National Old Trails Road - Part 3: Promoting the Road During a War
• The National Old Trails Road - Part 4: From Named Trails to U.S. Numbered Highways

• A Highway for the North, a Highway for the South
  • The Lincoln Highway
  • Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway

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

• Dr. S. M. Johnson - A Dreamer of Dreams
  • Zero Milestone
  • Zero Milestone Photo Gallery

• 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
  • The Evolution of MUTCD
  • Press Release: U.S. Highway System
  • U.S. 1 Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida
  • Press Release: United States Route No. 1 is a Highway of History
  • 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)

• Where was the First Walk/Don't Walk Sign Installed? You Will Not Find the Answer Here
  • Addendum: The Barnes Dance

• Blue Star Memorial Highways
  • Dogwood Planted Along Roadsides

• Roads Designed for Pleasure: A Brief History of the Origins of Scenic Driving and Automobile Touring in the United States (Part 1) (.pdf, 3 mb) by Paul Daniel Marriott
• Roads Designed for Pleasure: A Brief History of the Origins of Scenic Driving and Automobile Touring in the United States (Part II) (.pdf 2 mb) by Paul Daniel Marriott 

• On The Right Side of the Road

• The Road to Civil Rights (.pdf, 1.4 mb)

• Victor H. Green: "Author and Pioneer" by Nikisha Pickett

• Who Is Elizabeth Peratrovich? The Story Behind the Country's First Anti-Discrimination Law

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

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Excess Condemnation

• Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

• Highways and Bridges Commemorated on U. S. Postage Stamps A Philatelic Transportation Venture

• In Memory of Ronald Reagan

• First USDOT Secretary Visits Washington Division

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

• A Vehicle From Out of the Past

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

• The Second Battle of New Orleans
  • The Rambler's History of New Orleans

• Edward M. Bassett The Man Who Gave us "Freeway" By Richard F. Weingroff

• Frederick W. Cron on Highway Design Under Evolution

• Landscape Design and Its Relation to the Modern Highway by Wilbur H. Simonson

• Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: An Historical Overview by Edward Weiner

• Highway Statistics Archive

• Back in Time
  • The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike
  • The Bennett Buggy and the Hoover Wagon
  • 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
  • Good Roads Everywhere . . . in Montana
  • 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
  • The Packet Boat-Transportation By Canal
  • Plank Roads
  • Roadways of the Grand Canyon
  • Route "66" The Mother Road
  • Sideling Hill Mountain, I-68-Are We Going Over It or Around It?
  • South Dakota's Black Hills to the Badlands Road History
  • Stagecoach Accidents
  • Transportation in America's Postal System
  • Wagons West
  • Zane's Trace

• The Rambler
  • Introducing the Rambler, Semi-Retired
  • Bicycles and Automobiles in Central Park
  • The Bicycle Revolution
  • Completion of the Pennsylvania Avenue Streetscape and Security Improvements Project
  • 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
  • John Steinbeck vs Charles Kuralt
  • Literary Stagecoaching: Famous Victims
  • Maryland's Bank Road
  • The Rambler Answers Mail for Presidents Jefferson and Lincoln (.pdf, 0.1 mb)
  • The Rambler's Highway History IQ Test: The Seven Questions That Could Change Your Life - Or Not! Can You Make the Grade? (.pdf, 0.2 mb)
  • The Rambler's History of New Orleans
  • The Rambler Takes a Walk - a Virtual Tour of Pennsylvania Avenue
  • The Rambler's Innovative Financing Tips #2, #3, and #4
  • The Sand-Clay Roads of South Carolina
  • Two Bay Area Bridges - The Golden Gate and San Fransisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

• Ask The Rambler
  • Ask the Rambler: Was the Lincoln Highway the First Transcontinental Highway?
  • Did the Highway Lobby Stop Congress from Funding Transit Instead of the Interstate System in 1956?
  • Interstates in Hawaii: ARE WE CRAZY???
  • Martin Van Buren and the Railroads
  • 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?
  
  

• Related Links