Historical Highways

I mentioned I liked roads. It's a recurring theme of this blog starting with my cross country drive of my own. I've collected a lot of books on roads. Here's one category of books on the history of roadbuilding and of particular American highways.   

1.  First Highways of America: A Pictorial History of American Roads and Highways from 1900-1925, John Butler (1994). A history of the dirt-rock-to-pavement of America's early roads.  Fantastic black and white pictures of early cars, road construction and landscapes.  Bought new.

2.  Coast to Coast by Automobile: The Pioneering Trips, 1899-1908, Curt McConnell (2000).  A collection of early automobile adventures across the the U.S.  The appendix includes a great chronology of early automobile trips. Bought new.    




 

3.  U.S. 1: America's Original Main Street, Andrew Malcolm, Photographs by Roger Straus III (1991). Sometimes called America's original Main Street running from Main to Key West. First half stark black and white photographs; the second half a narrative of short histories.  Bought new.  

4.  The National Road, Edited by Karl Raitz (1996).  A history of America's first federally planned highway.   Orginally established by an act of Congress in 1808, the road originates from Maryland, crosses the Appalachians into the Midwest.  Based on Indian trials and pioneer tracks.  Provides a full history back up my maps and photographs. Bought used at the Raven bookstore in Amherst, Mass.  

5.  U.S. 40 Today: Thirty Years of Landscape Change in America,Thomas Vale and Geraldine Vale (1983).  More on the National Road but a specific slice in time.   Thirty years well contrast by black and white photographs from the same locations--sometimes with the same tree in the shot. Bought used at State Department book store. 


 

6. Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, Tom Lewis (1997).  In 1919, Colonel Dwight Eisenhower lead an Army convoy cross country.  Over thirty years later, as President, he lead the effort to build the largest engineered structure ever built--the U.S. Interstate Highway system.  Bought new. 

 

7. A Pictorial History of Roadbuilding, Charles W. Wixom (1975). Commissioned by the American Road Builders Association, this book is filled with hundreds of photos from Native American trails to interstate highways and the equipment and engineering that went into their construction. Bought used but forgot where.