Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 21, 1969 In the southeast corner of Minnesota, a public use airport in Houston County was officially dedicated. Houston County Airport is located three miles (five kilometers) south of the central business district of the city of Caledonia, which serves as that county’s seat. The public officials attending the dedication ceremony for the airport... Continue Reading →
September 20, 1830 Point Lookout Light in southern Maryland was formally inaugurated. This structure, marking the mouth of the Potomac River, is located at the southernmost tip of the state’s western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. (The origins of the name “Point Lookout” can be traced to the War of 1812, when that area was... Continue Reading →
September 19, 2005 In downtown Salt Lake City, a newly completed light rail station in the median of 200 West between 800 South and 900 South made its official debut. The 900 South Station serves all three lines -- Blue, Red, and Green -- of TRAX, a regional light rail system operated by the Utah... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1896 Edward Orpen Moriarty, a civil engineer who had undertaken a wide range of public works projects across the globe, died in the community of Southsea within the city and unitary authority of Portsmouth in southeastern England. He was 71. Moriarty was born on October 11, 1824, in County Kerry in southwestern Ireland.... Continue Reading →
As a soldier in the Massachusetts National Guard (the Bay State’s component of the U.S. Army National Guard), Marisol A. Chalas achieved an aviation milestone by becoming the first Latina in the entire National Guard to pilot a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. (That longtime four-blade, twin-engine utility helicopter is manufactured for the Army by the... Continue Reading →
September 14, 1993 The two-millionth Ski-Doo snowmobile was manufactured in the city of Valcourt in Québec, Canada, approximately 34 years after Joseph-Armand Bombardier (1907-1964) introduced that pioneering vehicle. Bombardier, a mechanic who had built his first snow-friendly vehicle in 1935 in a small repair shop in Valcourt, developed Ski-Doo as a faster and more lightweight... Continue Reading →
September 13, 2015 On the West Side of Manhattan, a newly built subway station in the neighborhood of Hudson Yards was officially opened. The 34th Street-Hudson Yards station is part of the New York City Subway’s IRT Flushing Line, which is named for its eastern terminus in the Flushing neighborhood of the borough of Queens.... Continue Reading →
September 12, 1906 The Newport Transporter Bridge, which crosses the River Usk in the city of Newport in southeastern Wales, was officially opened. This structure is only one of a dozen transporter bridges still in existence today -- a movable bridge that carries a segment of a roadway over a river that other types of... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of the World Trade Center in the southernmost part of New York City’s borough of Manhattan; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and – where a hijacked... Continue Reading →
September 8, 1966 A dedication ceremony was held for a suspension bridge spanning the River Severn between England and Wales. The Severn Bridge, which connects the unitary authority area (local government seat) of South Gloucestershire in England with the County of Monmouthsire in Wales, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. Measuring about a mile... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 