Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
In the time since the first National Work Zone Awareness Week (NWZAW) was held in April 2000, that week has served as a yearly means of calling nationwide attention to both the need for drivers to be extra cautious when traveling in the vicinity of construction work zones and the importance of remembering the individuals... Continue Reading →
Advance warning signs have long been one of the defining features of road construction and maintenance areas across the United States. The Road Work Ahead sign, which serves as a crucial means of alerting drivers that they are approaching such an area, is one of the more familiar and readily identifiable temporary diamond-shaped fixtures regularly... Continue Reading →
April 23, 1838 A significant advance in transatlantic travel took place with the arrival of the wooden paddle-wheel steamship SS Great Western in New York City. This vessel, which was designed by the accomplished civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and owned by England’s Great Western Steam Ship Company, was the first steamship specifically built for... Continue Reading →
April 21, 1890 Frank E. Weaver launched a coast-to-coast trip, pedaling out of New Haven, Connecticut, on a four-foot (1.2-meter)-high bicycle built by the Eagle Bicycle Manufacturing Company. The 19-year-old Weaver was originally from New Bedford, Massachusetts, but had lived in New Haven for four to five years. Weaver established himself as one of the most accomplished... Continue Reading →
April 16, 1914 Public officials and other good roads advocates from both Arizona and neighboring New Mexico met at a country club in the Warren District community of southeastern Arizona’s city of Bisbee. “The occasion assumed all of the qualities of an interstate love fest,” proclaimed the Arizona-based Bisbee Daily Review newspaper. Just over two... Continue Reading →
April 15, 1941 Aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky set a new record when he made the first helicopter flight in the United States as well as the entire Western Hemisphere that lasted more than an hour. He flew a Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter in the skies above his factory in Stratford, Connecticut, and managed to keep that aircraft... Continue Reading →
April 14, 1962 The Baltimore Steam Packet Company, which was popularly known as the Old Bay Line, discontinued its longtime steamship operations in the Chesapeake Bay area after a vessel named City of Norfolk had completed her final voyage for the company. The Old Bay Line was established in 1840 and – by the time its... Continue Reading →
April 13, 1898 The steamship SS Superior City was launched in the yards of her manufacturer Cleveland Ship Building Company (later renamed the American Ship Building Company) at Lorain, Ohio, specifically on the section of Lake Erie that is at the mouth of the Black River. This launch took place at two o’clock that Wednesday afternoon. The... Continue Reading →
April 9, 1934 At its manufacturing plant in Philadelphia, the Budd Company finished work on a streamliner (a high-speed trainset) for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. (That railroad, which operated in the midwestern United States from 1855 to 1970, was also known as both the CB&Q and the Burlington Route.) The exterior of the... Continue Reading →
April 8, 2009 After more than a year-and-a-half of construction, the Nichols Bridgeway in Chicago was completed. This pedestrian bridge, which is 620 feet (189 meters) in length and 15 feet (4.6 meters) in width, crosses over Monroe Street in the Windy City and connects the Great Lawn of Millennium Park with the Modern Wing of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 