Interstate 240 (North Carolina) - History

History

In the early 1960s, the east–west Freeway around downtown Asheville, designated U.S. 19-23, opened from the Beaucatcher Tunnel westward to N.C. 191.

The western section of what is now I-240 was built in 1966. In 1968, eastbound lanes were added to the Smoky Park Bridge, the main connector across the French Broad River. The original lanes, built in 1950, became westbound lanes.

The next step began with the 1964 presentation by J. O. "Buck" Buchanan to the N.C. Highway Commission Board.

An interstate highway was to be built from the east to downtown Asheville to connect with the existing freeway. The best way to do this, it was concluded, was to blast an 800-foot (240 m)-wide passage through Beaucatcher Mountain.

The Beaucatcher Mountain Defense Association, formed in the early 1970s, endorsed a tunnel, which would mean only about 5 percent of the mountain would be disturbed.

In 1977, the North Carolina Department of Transportation selected Asheville Contracting Co. for the project. 3 million cubic feet of rock would have to be moved, and all of it could be used in the construction. The company had several connections to those responsible for the road plan: company president Baxter Taylor was a business partner of Ted Jordan, a highway board member and a member of the Chamber of Commerce Highway Committee; they founded Hyde Insurance Company, which sold $39.9 million in bonds to finance the plan. And Buchanan went on to work in public relations for Asheville Contracting.

One of the Defense Association's arguments was the highway's proximity to Zealandia, the estate of Philip Henry, whose Tudor mansion was covered by the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act. However, when the mansion was named to the National Register of Historic Places on March 14, 1977, the destruction of the mountain had started.

I-240 was named the Billy Graham Freeway in 1995.

On April 5, 2012, the North Carolina Board of Transportation voted unanimously to rename the Smoky Park Bridge for Capt. Jeffrey Bowen, an Asheville firefighter who died in July 2011 fighting a fire. The board's policy traditionally prohibited naming state roads and bridges for firefighters, but numerous protests of the state's March decision led to the change.