Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
March 12, 1882 Edwin George “Cannon Ball” Baker, who would achieve widespread fame for his motorcycle and automobile records, was born in the community of Weisburg, Indiana. He first became known to the public as a vaudeville performer but started focusing instead on transportation-oriented pursuits after winning a dirt-track motorcycle race in the Hoosier State... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer and Olympic athlete Iris Cummings, who is also known by married name Iris Critchell, was on December 21, 1920, in Los Angeles. She attended the 1932 Summer Olympics in that city and shortly thereafter began swimming competitively. Cummings went on to win a large number of local and regional tournaments in this sport.... Continue Reading →
Grace Darling earned worldwide acclaim for her heroic efforts to help rescue survivors of a shipwreck off the coast of northeastern England’s ceremonial county of Northumberland in 1838. The seventh of nine children, Darling was born in Northumberland on November 24, 1815. Her father William was a lighthouse keeper. In 1826, William Darling became keeper... Continue Reading →
March 7, 1925 After more than a quarter-century of service in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the U.S. Navy tugboat USS Iroquois (AT-46) was decommissioned. This steam tugboat was the second Navy vessel named after a confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples originally based in the northeastern part of North America. The... Continue Reading →
March 6, 2009 Construction began on a 3.2-mile (5.1-kilometer) light rail tunnel in Seattle. This structure is a key connection within Sound Transit’s Link light rail system serving that metropolitan area. The two-bore tunnel is specifically part of the University Link of the 1 Line of that system and carries trains running between the Downtown... Continue Reading →
March 5, 2008 John C. Mackie, who served as Michigan’s state highway commissioner, passed away in Warrenton, Virginia, at the age of 88. He was also the 51st president of the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), which is now known as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Mackie was... Continue Reading →
By the early 1920s, Seattle resident Carlia S. Westcott had become the first woman granted a license to work as a marine engineer in the United States. (Marine engineers design, operate, repair and/or maintain machinery and equipment on ships; quite a few of those engineers perform similar work on offshore installations.) The significance of Westcott’s... Continue Reading →
In 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space when he went into orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. The first African American astronaut was actually Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. He never had the opportunity to travel into space, however; in 1967 -- just a few months after being selected... Continue Reading →
February 29, 2016 The newly built terminal for an airport in the north-central region of North Dakota first went into service. This airport, which is located two miles (3.2 kilometers) north of the city of Minot, dates back to the 1920s. Originally known as the Port of Minot, its first airstrip was developed on a... Continue Reading →
February 28, 1996 Cisneros station, which is part of the rapid transit system serving the Metropolitan Area of Medellín in the Republic of Colombia, was officially opened. This facility was one of seven stations that made their debut on the same date and constitute Line B of the Medellín Metro. Cisneros station is located in... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 