1961: The Start of the First National Highway Week in the United States

May 21, 1961

The first National Highway Week in the United States was officially launched. The idea for this commemorative week had taken place about three months earlier in Washington, D.C., during a Public Understanding Workshop co-sponsored by the Better Highways Information Foundation (BHIF) – a group founded by several highway industry organizations – and the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) to further promote highway construction efforts nationwide. 

President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) subsequently issued a proclamation on April 29 designating May 21-27 “as National Highway Week in recognition of the vital role of highway transportation in our way of life.” Kennedy also stated in this proclamation, “During this period I encourage all Americans to judge the value of highway transportation to their own activities and to our national welfare.” 

The various events held from coast to coast during that year’s National Transportation Week included the following:

a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Alabama on Interstate 65 between Montgomery and Birmingham;

open-house tours of the Iowa Highway Commission headquarters, which gave visitors the chance to learn more about concrete laboratory testing procedures and the computerization of data such as traffic counts and bridge calculations;

a Los Angeles luncheon that was attended by 300 local business leaders and public officials and featured an address by Clarence Daniel Martin, Jr. (1916-1976), who had become U.S. undersecretary of commerce for transportation that year and would remain in the position until 1965;

and the opening of a large motor service center for truck drivers in Ohio along Interstate 71 between Columbus and Medina. 

Newspapers across the country likewise reinforced the significance of the week. An op-ed piece appearing in the Missouri-based Joplin Globe asserted, “Although there are unsolved questions intertwined in our expanding creation of highways and the means to traverse them, it has long been proven they are a major element in our national strength, both as regards defense and our well-being. National Highway Week re-emphasizes these national concerns.” (The accompanying photo of a portion of Eastshore Freeway [now part of Interstate 80] in the San Francisco Bay Area city of El Cerrito was taken that same year.)

Presidential proclamations for National Highway Week became an annual tradition over the next dozen years. The last of these proclamations was issued by President Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) on September 4, 1973.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

Additional information on National Highway Week in 1961 is available at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50interstate2.cfm and https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byday/fhbd0521.htm