Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
March 6, 1913 A large number of highway officials and supporters from all of the states showed up at the Raleigh Hotel in Washington, D.C., for the Second National Good Roads Federal-Aid Convention. This heavily attended conference was held under the auspices of the American Automobile Association (AAA). Laurens Enos, the president of AAA, opened the... Continue Reading →
November 15, 1932 A major milestone for a pioneering highway in northern Virginia with took place with the inaugural ceremony for the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, which had been built by the Bureau of Public Roads of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to commemorate the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. The new route, stretching from... Continue Reading →
October 28, 1874 Henry Garnett Shirley, who became the first president of AASHO (officially renamed AASHTO in 1973), was born in Jefferson County, West Virginia. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a degree in civil engineering in 1896, and went on to serve as commandant and professor of military science at Horner Military... Continue Reading →
May 4, 1870 George Preston Coleman, who would become chairman of the Virginia State Highway Commission (the Old Dominion State’s original highway agency) and the second president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHO), was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. Coleman came from a family of high-profile lawyers, professors, and public officials.... Continue Reading →
September 13, 1955 Carl W. Brown, who established himself as prominent highways leader not only within his home state of Missouri but at the national level, died in the city of Fulton in the Show-Me State. He was 68. Brown was born on January 7, 1887, in the city of Vandalia, Missouri. He received his... Continue Reading →
January 15, 1853 Sidney Suggs (third from left on the top row in the picture above), a leading good roads advocate who became the first director of the Oklahoma Department of Highways (forerunner of today’s Oklahoma Department of Transportation), was born near the city of Tupelo, Mississippi. When Suggs was 14, he and his family... Continue Reading →
A milestone in the development of American highways took place when the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads issued a certificate of completion for the first project finished under the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. The project was based in Contra Costa County, California, and it involved a 2.6-mile (4.2-kilometer) stretch of road between the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 