Importance
When constructed in the 1960s, the road was the only four-lane, restricted-access connection between the I-494 beltline and downtown Saint Paul, as I-35E had not yet been completed. The road remains an important route for trucks to bypass weight restrictions on Interstate 35E and slower traffic and signal lights on Highway 5. The road closely parallels Minnesota State Highway 5 for most of its length in St. Paul and takes traffic off of Highway 5 to bypass the middle of downtown St. Paul. The road is heavily used in St. Paul for traffic coming to and from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport served by Highway 5. Because of its importance, it has been looked at by the Commissioner of Transportation to be marked as a state route, but the road is not likely to become a marked route in the near future.
Because of the location's proximity to railroads, The Webb Company was at one time on Shepard Road. Founded in 1882, Webb Publishing was among the largest printing companies in the United States, and printed magazines including The Farmer, books and telephone directories on Shepard Road. Webb was acquired by other companies, most famously by the British Printing & Communications Corp. (BPCC) of Robert Maxwell.
The first assembly of the Territorial Legislature of the Minnesota Territory was held on June 1, 1849 in a hotel that was on Shepard Road.
Read more about this topic: Shepard Road/Warner Road
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
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—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... women especially seem to have very little idea of the importance of business time.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)