History
In 1997, at Georgiana(Exit 114), honoring legendary country musician and Alabama native Hank Williams, the interstate was designated as Hank Williams' Memorial "Lost Highway", after one of his songs. This designation continues northward until mile 179 north of Montgomery. From the state's capital, I-65 doglegs northwards, bypassing Prattville and Clanton before going through Metropolitan Birmingham, Alabama. From exit 242 to 290, this highway carries at least six lanes of traffic. A portion of the interstate running through Birmingham, has been nicknamed for its numerous wrecks. These accidents include two separate occasions of the support beams melting after crashes by 18-wheelers, and the numerous collisions that happen every year, result from the junction with Interstate 20 and Interstate 59.
In 2004, following the death of President Ronald Reagan, a lengthy segment of I-65 from Jefferson County to Limestone County was designated the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway. The sign designating the north end of the segment includes a statement from Reagan's speech at Point Mallard Aquatic Center in nearby Decatur on July 4, 1984.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 65 In Alabama
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)