History
Luton and Leagrave stations were built by the Midland Railway in 1868 on its extension south from Bedford to St Pancras. The old Leagrave Midland station buildings still exist, having been restored in the 1980s. For some years Luton station was called Luton Midland Road to distinguish it from the earlier Luton Bute Street, built by the Luton, Dunstable and Welwyn Junction Railway Company in 1858, later part of the GNR. Bute Street was closed in 1965.
Construction of the first section of the M1 in 1959 meant that Luton being one of the first towns in the United Kingdom to be linked to the new motorway network.
The A5 road, which passes through nearby Dunstable, is on the route of the Watling Street, an ancient route of England.
Luton Airport was opened for passenger services at the end of World War II. Passenger numbers more than doubled from 1992 to 1998 when the growth of new low-cost flights rejuvenated the airport, and it was expanded in 1999 with a new terminal building and Luton Airport Parkway railway station was also opened.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Luton
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—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
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—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)