Introduction
At the beginning of the twentieth century practically all of Missouri’s roads were dirt roads haphazardly maintained by county governments and local township road overseers.
In 1907, a series of new state laws sought to improve roads at the county level. Legislation that year established the office of State Highway Engineer within the State Board of Agriculture; provided for county highway engineers; required automobile licensing and registration; and created a state road fund of $500,000 for new construction or road improvements, distributed among the counties according to their assessed valuations. The first State Highway Engineer, Curtis Hill, had a largely advisory capacity to the county highway engineers who, in 1908, organized themselves into the Highway Engineers Association of Missouri. Additional legislation in 1909 reestablished the road fund on a permanent basis. That year Hill classified only 5,000 miles of roadways as “improved” out of the 110,000 miles of roads across the state. Additional legislation in 1909 reestablished the road fund on a permanent basis. That year Hill classified only 5,000 miles of roadways as “improved” out of the 110,000 miles of roads across the state.
In 1913, the Missouri General Assembly replaced the State Highway Engineer with a State Highway Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, and created the Missouri State Highway Department, relieving the State Board of Agriculture of its responsibilities in matters of road construction and maintenance. The expanded duties of the new Highway Commissioner, Colonel Frank W. Buffum, and Deputy Commissioner W. S. Hawkins, included devising specifications and design plans for road construction, including “standard gauge roads” which would be designated by a given name or number.
In March 1917, he Missouri General Assembly passed the Hawes Road Law, which strengthened the role of the Missouri State Highway Department, placing it under the authority of a four-member State Highway Board. The board appointed Graham,as State Highway Engineer, who began outlining the state road system. Graham’s proposed system of 5,000 miles connected all of the counties and the larger population centers, and the plan remained the foundation of Missouri’s road system.
The McCullough-Morgan Act of March 1919 amended the Hawes Law by providing for a Highway Superintendent who would generally oversee the State Highway Department operations and serve as secretary to the State Highway Board. John M. Malang, who had overseen construction of the first concrete road on the state highway system, Federal Aid Project No. 2 from Webb City to the Kansas state line, became the new Highway Superintendent. In 1920, Superintendent Malang, Governor Frederick Gardner, and the Missouri Good Roads Federation spearheaded an intensive campaign for a $60 million state bond issue to “Lift Missouri Out of the Mud.” The bond issue passed in November 1920 in sixty-one of the 114 counties.
The Centennial Road Law of 1921, designed to implement the 1920 bond issue, created a four-member Missouri State Highway Commission with broadened powers to locate, design, construct, and maintain the state highway system, let contracts, and purchase rights of way. The commission was authorized to appoint a Secretary to the Commission, a Chief Counsel, and the Chief Engineer, and reinstated Alexander W. Graham as Chief Engineer.
During 1922, the new Missouri State Highway Commission began its work in constructing the state highway system as mandated by the Centennial Road Law, and began by hiring Rollen J. Windrow as a consulting engineer. On June 1, 1922, Bion H. Piepmeier replaced Alexander Graham as Chief Engineer, who with Windrow completed the study of the primary road system, which, when constructed, would connect twenty-six cities, serving 91 percent of Missouri’s urban population and half of the state’s total population.
In 1926, the Missouri State Highway Commission published and printed 600,000 copies of its state highway map with Route 14 from St. Louis to Joplin and Route 1F from Joplin to Kansas labeled as US 60. This was unaceptable to Governor William H. Fields of Kentucky, since route numbers ending in "0" were supposed to run in an East/West direction.
The Executive Committee of The Joint Board of Interstate Highways then agreed to assign "62" to the Chicago to Los Angeles route and "60" to the route through Kentucky, but this was unacceptable to Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
On April 30, 1926, Cyrus Avery, Highway Commissioner from Oklahoma, B.H. Piepmeier, Chief Engineer of the Missouri Highway Department, and John M. Page, Oklahoma's Chief Highway Engineer, met in Springfield, Missouri, in an attempt to resolve the issue. Page noticed that the number "66" had not been assigned to any route. Avery and Piepmeier immediately sent a telegram to FHWA Chief MacDonald: "We prefer sixty six to sixty two."
Thus, Route 66 was born, becoming an iconic road that would stretch across multiple states and capture the imagination of travelers for decades to come.
References:
A History of the Missouri State Highway Department, Davis C. Austin and Thomas J. Gubbels
Historic Preservation Section, Design Division, Missouri Department of Transportation
From Names to Numbers: The Origins of The U.S. Highway System", Richard F. Weingroff, Federal Highway Administration
Birthplace of Route 66 Springfield, MO, C.H. Skip Curtis, Curtis Enterprises, 424 S. National, Springfield, MO 65802
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