Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
March 31, 1791 U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton contracted with architect John McComb Jr. to design the first version of Cape Henry Lighthouse on Virginia’s Atlantic shore and at the southern boundary of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. (At the time, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Lighthouse Establishment was responsible for all lighthouses in the United... Continue Reading →
March 18, 1940 With the first day of spring only a couple of days away, the California Division of Highways (part of the present-day California Department of Transportation) announced that a section of U.S. Route 50 (US 50) in the Golden State that had been blocked by snow was again available for traffic. This section... Continue Reading →
March 11, 1937 The Indiana state legislature passed a measure authorizing the Indiana State Highway Commission to work with Purdue University on methods to further improve and better maintain highways throughout the Hoosier State. (The Indiana State Highway Commission, which was established in 1917, remained in existence until being replaced by the Indiana Department of... Continue Reading →
March 9, 1985 James Evans, an engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation, spearheaded the effort to keep the roadways around his Tyler, Texas community clean of litter. He'd noticed trash flying out of the back of a pickup truck and decided to take action. Initially, he approached civic and community groups to volunteer to... Continue Reading →
March 6, 1965 Commander James R. Williford and his crew took off from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet on a record-setting non-stop helicopter flight across the country. The Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King helicopter was named Dawdling Dromedary, and Williford, Lieutenant David A. Beil, and Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class Paul J. Bert began... Continue Reading →
March 4, 2000 In the downtown area of Daytona Beach in Florida’s Volusia County, construction began on a new and unique segmental bridge to carry U.S. Highway 92 over the Halifax River (part of the Intracoastal Waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States). This structure was the third one... Continue Reading →
February 26, 1930 The Texas Highway Commission (a predecessor of today’s Texas Transportation Commission) approved the designation of a new highway to be built through the longtime State Cemetery in the city of Austin. The origins of this cemetery in the eastern part of Texas’s state capital date back to the 1850s. The State Cemetery,... Continue Reading →
February 12, 1961 Charles Richelieu McMillan, who shepherded major changes to roads throughout South Carolina during his tenure as the Palmetto State’s chief highway commissioner, died in the state capital city of Columbia after a long illness. He was 61. The South Carolina-based Florence Morning News praised McMillan at the time of his death as... Continue Reading →
February 5, 2016 In Delaware, a groundbreaking ceremony took place for a highway project to help reduce congestion and strengthen commerce along a significant portion of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The focus of this project was on building a new version of U.S. Route 301 (US 301) in Delaware. This new 13-mile... Continue Reading →
January 31, 1980 A new international airport officially began operations in the south-central area of El Salvador. This facility – originally called Cuscatlan International Airport – is located in the municipality of San Luis Salvador, which is about 26 miles (42 kilometers) from the country’s capital city of San Salvador. The first flight for the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 