Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 18, 1957 An arch bridge in the municipality of Fredrikstad in southeastern Norway was opened. The Fredrikstad Bridge crosses the river Glomma and connects the eastern and western parts of the municipality. Crown Prince Olav (1903-1991) officiated at the inaugural ceremony for this bridge. At the time, he had been serving as the country’s... Continue Reading →
August 13, 1955 Nearly four months after it first went into service, the Canso Canal Bridge in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia was formally opened. C.D. Howe (1886-1960), who served as Canada’s minster of trade and commerce from 1948 to 1957, presided at the inaugural ceremony for that rotating swing bridge. This structure crosses... Continue Reading →
In central Illinois, operations began for the Standard Oil Gasoline Station in the southwest part of the village of Odell. This station is located along US Route 66 (US 66) – known far and wide today as simply Route 66 – and it was constructed by Irish-born building contractor Patrick O’Donnell to serve people driving... Continue Reading →
August 5, 2012 Operations began for a railbus service in the Indonesian province of Central Java. Batara Kresna Railbus was formally inaugurated on that Sunday by Bambang Susanto (born in 1963), who was Indonesia’s deputy minister of transportation from 2009 to 2014. This railbus service, which is operated by PT Kereta Api Indonesia (the country’s... Continue Reading →
July 15, 2013 The final section of the Trakia motorway in the Republic of Bulgaria was opened to traffic. Trakia (pronounced TRAH-kee-yah) is the Bulgarian version of “Thrace,” a historical region in southeastern Europe that encompassed part of what is now Bulgaria. The Trakia motorway, which is officially designated A1, has a total length of... Continue Reading →
July 13, 2005 The Millennium Bridge in Podgorica, the capital and largest city of southeastern Europe’s country of Montenegro, was officially opened to traffic. The inauguration of this cable-stayed bridge, which crosses the Morača river, took place on Montenegro’s National Day. It was on that date in 1878 that representatives on behalf of the major... Continue Reading →
This is the first in a series of posts commemorating the centennial of the United States Numbered Highway System. U.S. Route 40 (US 40) was one of the transcontinental routes of the newly created United States Numbered Highway System to be officially approved by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads in January 1927. US 40... Continue Reading →
June 29, 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) ushered in the Era of the Interstate System by signing into law the landmark Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. At the time, he was at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, recuperating from major intestinal surgery that had been performed 20 days earlier. To say that June... Continue Reading →
June 22, 1950 The Highway Research Board (the present-day Transportation Research Board) formally announced the imminent launch of a major highway research project in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. This project would specifically take place in the vicinity of La Plata, a Maryland town about 32 miles (51.5 kilometers) southeast of the nation’s capital. The... Continue Reading →
June 9, 1928 A five-span truss bridge crossing a section of the Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois was inaugurated with considerable fanfare. This vehicular bridge was named after James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark (1850-1921), a U.S. congressman who represented Missouri’s 9th district from 1893 until his death. In addition, Clark served as the 36th speaker... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 