Interstate 20 in Alabama - History

History

Between Leeds and Riverside in the early 1960s. Between the Jefferson/Tuscaloosa county line and Tuscaloosa (exit 73) in the mid-1960s. Between Arkadelphia Road and Ensley Avenue (Birmingham) in the late 1960s. A short segment from the Mississippi/Alabama border to Cuba, Alabama.

Early 1970s: between exit 73 and Epes, Alabama. between Riverside (exit 162) and Lincoln (exit 168), then to Anniston/Oxford (exit 185). Between Arkadelphia Road and downtown Birmingham. Between Ensley Avenue and Valley Road in Fairfield.

Mid-1970s: From 17th Street downtown Birmingham to US78 in Irondale. From Valley Road in Fairfield to 18th Street in Bessemer. From exit 185 to exit 199 at Heflin, Alabama.

Late 1970s and early 1980s: From Exit 199 to Exit 205 (Heflin, Alabama)....however, the remainder of the route eastbound to the Georgia line was complete but waited for Georgia to complete the section from Douglasville westward to the Alabama line before it could be opened.

From US 78 in Irondale to Leeds. From Epes, Alabama to Livingston, Alabama and then from Livingston to Cuba, Alabama.

By the mid-1980s the entire route was complete and open to traffic. Interstate 20 has no three-digit spur routes in Alabama, although at one time there was discussion of a spur northward from Oxford into Anniston which would also serve as a connection to the U.S. Army base at Fort McClellan as well as to Gadsden. But the closing of the base as well as a lack of population between Anniston and Gadsden ended any thought of such a route.

In Alabama's 1962 Democratic Primary Run-off, George Wallace carried every county except one: Jefferson County, the most populous in the state. Wallace vowed to prevent a cent of state highway funding to complete Interstate 20's Jefferson County segment, a promise he fulfilled, thus hastening Atlanta's rise to pre-eminence among Southern cities.