50th anniversary of the Interstate Highway system

Pajamas Media links to an article mentioning that the 50th anniversary of the nation's Interstate Highway system.

President Eisenhower was the catalyst for the building of the concrete network that along with national broadcasting networks, did much to transform the United States from a collection of regions where citizens didn't think of themselves as one people, to what we are--warts and all--in the early 21st century, a more united United States.

Before the Interstate Highway system, driving from Chicago to the nearest point in the South, Kentucky, would take over 12 hours. Now it can be done in just six hours, making a trip to see and talk with Kentuckians---that is, fellow Americans--an easy weekend trip.

And there is some cross-country celebrating going on. Yesterday in Tiinley Park, Illinois a group of Illinois Department of Transportation officials greeted a convoy consisting of members of the American Association of State Highway Transportation on Interstate 80. That group is commemorating the Army's 1919 across-the-nation trip that young Army officer Dwight Eisenhower was participated in.

The post World War I American roads were in terrible shape, and it was a memory that stuck in Ike's head. Nazi Germany's version of the Interstates, the Autobahn, was an important tool in mobilizing the German Blitzkrieg that shocked the world the early days of World War II.

And in the 1950s, President Eisenhower decided that America needed a better road network than what he suffered through in 1919.

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