“Highway Leaders Meet Here Today,” announced a headline in the June 8, 1925, edition of the Atlantic Constitution. That Monday gathering in Georgia’s capital city was the fourth regional meeting of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways focusing on potential U.S. Highway Numbered System routes.
“The meeting is being held as one of a series of group meetings over the country,” noted the Atlanta Constitution. “Each meeting will report its findings and recommendations in accordance with a plan looking to a coordination of interstate highways. Representatives from nine southern states are expected at the Atlanta session today, including Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Mississippi.”
This meeting took place at the district office of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) in Glenn Building. This building, which is located on Marietta Street in downtown Atlanta, is still in use today. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The accompanying photo of this was included in the August 1924 issue of the City Builder, a periodical that was published by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
The June 8 meeting of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways began at 10:00 a.m. and, other than a break for lunch, continued until about 5:00 p.m. The following members of the board attended this meeting:
- Edward Warley (E.W.) James (1877-1967), who served as both the chief of the Design Division of BPR and the board’s secretary;
- Camden Page Fortney (1878-1962), chairman of the West Virginia State Road Commission;
- Henry G. Shirley (1874-1941), chairman of the Virginia State Highway Commission (and one of the founders of the American Association of State Highway Officials [AASHO] and also the association’s first president);
- Charles H. Moorefield (1883-1946), state highway engineer for the South Carolina State Highway Department; and
- Herbert C. Dietzer (1887-1955), state highway engineer for the Mississippi State Highway Commission.
The following highway officials were present at the meeting by invitation:
- Frank Page (1875-1934), North Carolina state highway commissioner;
- John N. Holder (1868-1961), chairman of the Georgia State Highway Board;
- James G. Creveling Jr. (1871-1939), commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Highways and Public Works;
- Robert E. Adams (1889-1961), office engineer of the Georgia State Highway Department;
- Clark Neil Bass (18985-1984), first assistant engineer of the Tennessee Department of Highways and Public Works;
- Harold G. Spahr (1889-1965), secretary and treasurer of the Georgia State Highway Board;
- Stephen W. Mullins (1854-1940), a Mississippi state highway commissioner;
- James L. Cresap (1883-1945), state highway engineer for the Florida State Road Department;
- William S. Keller (1874-1925), state highway engineer for the Alabama Stat Highway Commission (and another founder and past president of AASHO), who died just a little over three months after the Atlanta meeting;
- Robert L. Bannerman (1893-1961), a district engineer for the Florida State Road Department;
- Warren Rabun Neel (1882-1961), state highway engineer for the Georgia State Highway Department; and
- William T. Anderson (1871-1945), another member of the Georgia State Highway Board.
In the comprehensive board report submitted later that year to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture William Jardine (1879-1955), the assessment of the regional meeting in Atlanta was generally positive. The report asserted, “All connections delivered to this group were at once agreed upon by the States concerned and the work of putting through the main roads was done without any serious disagreement.” A week after this regional meeting, the next one was held up north in New York City.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on the regional meeting of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways in Atlanta, please check out https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Report_of_Joint_Board_on_Interstate_Highways_October_30,_1925 and https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/numbers.cfm
Transportation History 
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