Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 13, 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) signed into law a bill changing the name of South B Street in Washington, D.C., to Independence Avenue. This redesignation took place a little over three years after Roosevelt’s predecessor Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) signed into law the bill changing the name of North B Street to Constitution... Continue Reading →
April 10, 1926 The motor yacht Siele launched at the Pusey and Jones Corporation’s shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware. This vessel was designed by naval architect B.T. Dobson and built by Pusey and Jones for Detroit-area resident and banker John H. French (1881-1952). At the time, he was serving as both president of the French Investment... Continue Reading →
April 7, 1947 Ellis Dexter Atwood (1889-1950) completed construction on the Edaville Railroad on his 1,800-acre (278.4-hectare) cranberry farm in the Massachusetts village of South Carver on the inland end of Cape Cod. (The “EDA” in “Edaville” came from his initials.) That two-foot (0.6-meter) narrow gauge line is widely considered to be the world’s first tourist... Continue Reading →
April 3, 2011 On the South Side of Chicago, operations began for a passenger train station built on 35th Street in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood. This station is part of the Metra commuter rail system’s Rock Island District line. The station was officially named not only for the street and neighborhood where it is located... Continue Reading →
April 1, 2013 Operations began for Pedro Mir station on Line 2 of the Santo Domingo Metro, a rapid transit system in the metropolitan region of the Dominican Republic’s capital city. The station was one of 13 opened as part of the inaugural segment of that line. Pedro Mir station was built underneath Avenida John... Continue Reading →
March 26, 2025 In Utah’s Salt Lake County, a light rail station in the community of Daybreak was officially opened. Daybreak is part of the city of South Jordan. This city is one of many within the Wasatch Front, the name of the metropolitan region in the north-central section of the Beehive State. South Jordan... Continue Reading →
March 25, 1940 An open house for the public was held for a recently completed Greyhound bus terminal at 1100 New York Avenue in northwest Washington, D.C. This open house, which was formally classified as a public preview, took place between 4:00 and 9:00 p.m. on the day before the actual start of bus operations... Continue Reading →
March 20, 1956 Only four days after his 76th birthday, inventor and engineer William Bushnell Stout died of a heart attack at his home in Phoenix, Arizona. Stout, who made significant innovations in the aviation and automotive fields, had been born in 1880 in Quincy, Illinois. After graduating from the Mechanic Arts High School in... Continue Reading →
March 18, 1897 A pilot boat named New York was launched at the shipyards of the transportation manufacturing firm Harlan & Hollingsworth Company in Wilmington, Delaware. This type of vessel operates in the vicinity of a port and is used to transport maritime pilots to ships in the area. While on board a ship, the... Continue Reading →
March 17, 1915 Jacob Ackerman, who earned legendary status for his longtime roles as a captain of vessels and the keeper of a lighthouse on the Hudson River, died in the village of Tarrytown in New York’s Westchester County. He was 88 years old. The New York Times attributed his death to paralysis. Ackerman was... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 