On June 29, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation funding the construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System (IHS)--something Americans had dreamed of since Detroit starting building cars.
The Missouri Highway Commission awarded the first contract to begin building the interstate along the famous Route 66 in rural Laclede County, 160 miles southwest of St. Louis. However, construction on the first section of interstate actually began in St. Charles County, Missouri, on Aug. 13. Kansas and Pennsylvania have also made competing claims that their states were first to possess sections of interstate.
No matter who was first, the enthusiasm for a uniform system of roads, bridges, and tunnels was very high in 1956, nearly fifty years after the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T automobile. The building of the IHS, formally known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, proceeded rapidly throughout the country, and by the early 1990s, nearly 45,000 miles of interstate highway were complete.
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