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Ike Learns that America Deserves
a Good Highway System — in 1919

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s role in creating America’s Interstate Highway System is well known. But how many people know that Ike’s commitment to improving our nation’s transportation system began as early as 1919?

The 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy Dwight D. Eisenhower Library

The shortcomings of America’s roads became obvious in World War I, when the War Department experienced problems in transporting both men and equipment in motor vehicles. To publicize the issue, a two-month transcontinental convoy was organized by the War Department in the summer of 1919. This convoy, which proceeded from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, consisted of 81 vehicles, 258 enlisted men, and 24 officers, including Ike.

The trip was a major achievement, since the state of America’s roads was frequently abysmal in 1919. “To those who have known only concrete and macadam highways,” Ike recalled years later, “such a trip might seem humdrum. In those days, we were not sure it could be accomplished at all. Nothing of the sort had ever been attempted.”

In the course of traversing almost 3,200 miles, the convoy averaged a speed of only six miles per hour and fifty-eight miles per day. Motorcycle scouts in the vanguard reported on road conditions and hazards. Vehicles got stuck in the mud and many road surfaces collapsed beneath the weight of all the heavy equipment. “In some places,” Ike wrote, “the heavy trucks broke through the surface of the road, and we had to tow them out one by one, with the caterpillar tractor. Some days when we had counted on sixty or seventy or a hundred miles, we would do three or four.” Army engineers rebuilt no less than sixty-two bridges on the way from the nation’s capital to San Francisco.

Ike never forgot this lesson. “I think that every officer on the convoy had recommended in his report that efforts should be made to get our people interested in producing better roads,” Ike wrote. Many public officials (and corporate leaders) lobbied for better roads in the 1920s and ‘30s. But a comprehensive American interstate highway system was not undertaken until Eisenhower’s presidency.

After Ike had seen the modern highway system of defeated Germany during the occupation, he made up his mind. “After seeing the autobahns of modern Germany and knowing the asset those highways were to the Germans, I decided, as President, to put an emphasis on this kind of road building. When we finally secured the necessary congressional approval, we started the 41,000 miles of super highways that are already proving their worth. This was one of the things that I felt deeply about, and I made a personal and absolute decision to see that the nation would benefit by it.”

Americans continue to benefit from the visionary transportation program of Ike, almost fifty years later.