History
In 1919, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower traveled in a convoy from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. Faced with quicksand, broken bridges, ditches, and sand drifts, they traveled 3,242 miles in 62 days, averaging 52 miles a day. Today, that distance takes an hour. Eisenhower wrote the experience in his book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends: “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways…”
1919 Motor Transport Corps Convoy, Eisenhower Library
Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower talks to the 101st Airborne Division before the D-Day landings, Eisenhower Library
During WWII, Eisenhower witnessed Germany’s Reichsautobahn—the predecessor to the Autobahn—in action. Troops and supplies moved efficiently over long distances. He brought this idea home with him.
America’s bad roads were notorious. Several bills, including Federal-Aid Road Acts of 1916, 1921, 1944 and 1952 attempted to fix the problem. The major disagreement over the legislation was the division of funding between the federal government and the states. Thus, only 6,000 miles of highways were built by 1953—the year Eisenhower became president.
Horrible road conditions along State Highway 13 in Wisconsin in the 1940s, Wisconsin Historical Society
Eisenhower delivering State of Union Address 1954, National WWII Museum
During his 1954 State of the Union Address, Eisenhower said, “To protect the vital interest of every citizen in a safe and adequate highway system, the Federal Government is continuing its central role in the Federal-Aid Highway Program, so that maximum progress can be made to overcome present inadequacies in the Interstate Highway System…”
He appointed General Lucius D. Clay, a West Point graduate in engineering, to develop a plan for the IHS.
General Lucius D. Clay, U.S. Army