Fighting over the superhighways

Image
Body

President Dwight Eisenhower is generally credited with beginning the Interstate Highway system that now crisscrosses the nation. But it came from a plan that he inherited, and one that miffed a lot of local folks when it skipped over south Louisiana.
According to some accounts, the idea of a system of U.S. superhighways began in the 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt drew three lines running east and west and three lines running north and south on a U.S. map and told the Bureau of Public Roads to turn them into highways. He thought the roads themselves were a good idea, but they were also part of his huge Depression-era program to create jobs through public works.
The New York Herald Tribune reported in February 1936 that “a network of superhighways (was being) seriously considered by President Roosevelt,” who had “discussed with congressional advisers the possibility of ,,, (linking) the country’s international boundaries with smooth, arrow-straight four-lane thoroughfares.”
The New York paper reported that “nearly every State would be crossed by one of the roadways in (a) vast mosaic pattern.”
Folks in south Louisiana had a problem with the “nearly” part of the plan. When engineers finally unveiled the federal Net Work of Super Highways that had evolved from Roosevelt’s lines, it did not include U. S. Highway 90, the Old Spanish Trail, that ran across the bottom of the state.
According to a report in the Lafayette Advertiser on Feb. 19,1944, “The proposed network suggests no cross-country link for south or central Louisiana.” One of the Super Highways would run from the West Coast to Houston and another one from the East Coast to New Orleans, but “with no provision made for connection between the two cities.”
The local report stemmed from a meeting of the Public Works Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, which protested to the Louisiana congressional delegation that “the people of South Louisiana were astounded to learn of the omission of this vital highway link.” They pointed out that it traversed the largest and most densely populated agricultural areas in Louisiana, served two deep-water ports and terminals all along the Intracoastal Waterway, and linked cities and towns with a combined population (in 1944) of more than 100,000.
According to the newspaper, “It was further pointed out that the (Old Spanish Trail) route through the state is part of the oldest and most historic highway (in) the country, an all weather route, with the South Louisiana Evangeline country being one of the most scenic in the nation.”
It turned out that the fuss was over nothing, Roosevelt’s road system never got past the drawing boards, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways authorized by the federal highway act of 1956 did include a route through south Louisiana — though there was another big fight over just where in south Louisiana it was to go.
The first plans took Interstate 10 along the route of U.S. 90, the Old Spanish Trail, through Lake Charles and Lafayette, before diving south through Morgan City to New Orleans. That plan skipped Baton Rouge, and the people there hollered loud enough to get the planners’ attention.
A new plan routed the road along Louisiana Highway 12, U.S. 190 and U.S. 61 through Eunice and Opelousas, then to Baton Rouge and on down to New Orleans. That plan skipped Lake Charles and Lafayette, and their citizens hollered.
That brought on Plan C, under which the road followed U.S. 90 to Lafayette, but instead of turning south, continued practically due east, across the Swamp Expressway to Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
The current road follows that plan pretty closely, but communities all along the way jockeyed over the final details practically until the concrete was poured. The current push to extend I-49 to the south of Lafayette is in many ways a consequence of the tussle that began back then, when I-10 planners decided the first south Louisiana superhighway would go to Baton Rouge instead of Morgan City.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.