TidbitsSalina_Issue67forweb

TIDBITS® TAKES A RIDE ON THE INTERSTATE by Janet Spencer The Interstate Highway system is the longest engineered structure ever built. There are some 43,000 miles of interstate highways in the U. S. built as a result of the largest public works project... More

TIDBITS® TAKES A RIDE ON THE INTERSTATE by Janet Spencer The Interstate Highway system is the longest engineered structure ever built. There are some 43,000 miles of interstate highways in the U. S. built as a result of the largest public works project ever undertaken by humankind. Join Tidbits as we take a ride down the highway! • In 1903 it took a doctor from Vermont and his mechanic 63 days to drive from San Francisco to New York in their two-cylinder Winston. (At the time, the same trip by railroad took about four days. ) Six years later it took 21-year-old Alice Huyler Ramsey and her three girlfriends 41 days to do the same trip in their Maxwell, as a publicity stunt. Around the turn of the century, roads were nothing more than dirt tracks. When it rained or snowed, they became mud tracks. There was no organized system of roads connecting places. America needed better roads. • In 1919 young Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower joined the military s very first transcontine Less