History
- 1920s: NC 51 is a state highway going from Rockingham to Ellerbe.
- 1935: NC 51 is renumbered NC 73 and NC 109 and a new NC 51 forms at US 521 in Pineville going to NC 24/NC 27 north of Mint Hill. This used to be NC 276, which was decommissioned after the introduction of US 276 in North Carolina.
- 1968: US 21 is moved onto I-77 allowing NC 51 to be expanded 2-mile (3.2 km) to the South Carolina border, from where it goes on to the new US 21.
- 1988: The first segment of NC 51 becomes a four-lane highway, at the Providence Road interchange.
- 1990: More widening makes NC 51 a four-lane road from Pineville to Matthews.
- 1991: Head-on parking in west Pineville is changed to parallel parking, allowing for NC 51 to be four lanes through that section of town.
- 1992-1994: With the last true center of congestion being downtown Matthews, Matthews Township Parkway is built, creating a bypass north of the city. NC 51 has not been rerouted or widened since, although many construction jobs have added turn lanes on the route.
- 1998: Interstate 485 opens in Pineville.
Read more about this topic: North Carolina Highway 51
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)