Vermont Route 18 - History

History

Vermont Route 18 was originally part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, a transcontinental auto trail organized in 1919 running from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine via Ontario. Several years later, in 1922, the New England states adopted the New England road marking system, assigning route numbers to the main through routes in the region. The Roosevelt Highway routing in Vermont was assigned Route 14 from Burlington to Montpelier, and Route 18 from Montpelier to the New Hampshire state line in Waterford. The original Vermont portion of Route 18 ran 40 miles (64 km) from Montpelier to St. Johnsbury using modern U.S. Route 2, then modern Vermont Route 18 from St. Johnsbury to the New Hampshire line.

In late 1926, the U.S. Highway system was established. U.S. Route 2 in Vermont was designated on New England Route 14 (Burlington to Montpelier), New England Route 25 (Montpelier to Wells River) and New England Route 15 (St. Johnsbury to Lunenburg), connected by a brief overlap with U.S. Route 5. In 1935, the portion of U.S. Route 2 between Montpelier and St. Johnsbury was relocated to use the alignment of Vermont Route 18. The previous alignment from Montpelier to Wells River was designated as part of newly established U.S. Route 302, and the overlap with U.S. Route 5 was eliminated. This truncated the northern/western end of Vermont Route 18 to St. Johnsbury.

Read more about this topic:  Vermont Route 18

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more
    John Adams (1735–1826)

    Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)