History The Bankhead Highway

Seeing as US Highway Route 66 gets attention of folks here, I wonder how many have heard of or driven the old Bankhead Highway? The Bankhead was the nation's first coast-to-coast all-weather highway with route(s) from Washington DC to San Diego CA. The Bankhead is longer, more important and pre-dates Route 66 by ten years but never gets any attention since it doesn't have a catchy tune written about it.
(disclaimer: I was raised in a small Texas town The Bankhead Highway passed through. The small town is located at the intersection of The Bankhead and Daingerfield Road that was Carroll Shelby's old stomping ground)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankhead_Highway

 

Hi. Interesting to say the least. How much of it is still open and marked as such I wonder? Specially in Texas? Think I will Google & check this out. For those of us that frequent the tours and cruises with the antique car crowd this would fit right in.
I even know where Daingerfield is located as I lived in Longview in the late 60's and did a bunch of fishing on the upper end of Lake Of The Pines near Ore City as well a bow fishing on the Sulphur river just below Lake Texarkana. Tell us more of its route in Texas. Jimmie

 

The Bankhead Highway was called "The Broadway of America"

https://www.thc.texas.gov/preserve/projects-and-programs/historic-texas-highways/bankhead-highway

https://www.thc.texas.gov/preserve/...ys/bankhead-highway/bankhead-highway-survey-1

https://texashighways.com/culture/original-texas-road-trip-bankhead-highway/

https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/publications/bankhead-highway-brochure.pdf

https://texastimetravel.com/bankhead

downtown Mount Pleasant


near Mineral Wells

 

Thank you. I had not heard of this highway before this post!

 

Jimmie, The Bankhead Highway recently caught my attention as I am currently helping open a Montessori school on Main Street in downtown Dallas and Dallas' Main Street was part of The Bankhead.

Old Confucius saying:
“If your plan is for one year plant rice.
If your plan is for ten years plant trees.
If your plan is for one hundred years educate children. ”

 

Very cool . I am going to research this in my spare time. Thanks for adding to my knowledge base .

 

goes through the city i live in in alabama. it has been redone here in alabama and is called I22 now, from birmingham to the mississippi line. when i was in the navy in south carolina i drove it many times.

 

Looks like it parallels I-95 and I-85 from DC down to South Hill VA then US 58 to Clarksville and from there south into NC.

I travel US 58 a lot and this stretch is four lane, but very rural. If you take some of the business routes, you can still see small town/old buildings.

 

The Bankhead Highway was named for Alabama's own US Senator John Hollis Bankhead, a leader in early highway development projects all over the USA. Senator Bankhead's son US Representative and Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead has parts of US 78 in Alabama named after him.

 

When I lived in Yuma, Arizona I knew it as Highway 80 and the Ocean to Ocean Highway. Many portions are still there between Yuma and San Diego.

 

Thanks - learn something new every day (hopefully)

 

Some fascinating history. Thanks for posting.

 

For 6.5 miles of road from Yuma, Arizona to Holtville, California the road crossed over the Imperial Sand Dunes. For that original section of road they came up with what they called "the Plank Road", which was just that, wooden planks running over the ever changing sand dunes. It ran from 1916 to 1926 when it was then displaced by a concrete Highway 80. There are still some sections of the original plank road that still exist.

 

Hi again. Thanks for all that great info. I got my drivers liscense in 1953 living in Shreveport La and several times each year would go to Dallas. I recall that US 80 was Commerce St also thru much of downtown Dallas. That old route thru Dallas would really be a mess today. Jimmie

 

LOL yes. The soon-to-be-opened Downtown Montessori School is going to impact downtown Dallas traffic when school busses board/unload twice a day. We are told the only safe place for school busses is on Main Street. Has to do with traffic pattern and side of busses where bus doors are located so kids don't board/exit busses into traffic. DPD and DISD Security are cooperating for student safety. My limited understanding is there will be an area in the 1900 block of Main Street across from Main Street Park cordoned off for school busses. One last DISD school board meeting this week and construction starts a week later.

 

bankheads are a well known bunch here. we have a civil war sword at my lodge that belonged to a bankhead, i was installed as tyler with it. i'll see if i can find out which bankhead it was.

 

Never heard of it! Cool info tho!

 

Great info and pics! I enjoy posts like this.
If I get the DeLorean running I’m going to go back and drive it. The Harbor Freight Flux Capacitor is acting up again.

 

Very familiar road. I too was stationed in S.C. and drove home to Gadsden Al. just about every other weekend. It was very curvy and hilly and it was difficult to pass the big rigs at night, had to get up over 90 mph sometimes to pass them going downhill.

 

Now that is way cool! Love history.

 

It went through the little town in Alabama I was born in, Carbon Hill, between Jasper and Winfield. Locally it was called Highway 78 if I recall right. Drove it many a time over into Mississippi to see relatives. It was named for Senator Bankhead from Alabama if my elementary school memories are still accurate.
Good memories, thanks for posting this!

 

Taking exception to old Indian/Spanish Conquistador trails like El Camino Real (aka King's Highway/Old San Antonio Road) the oldest road in what is now the State of Texas was called the "Central National Road of Texas" and dates back to February 1844 and the Republic of Texas. The Central National Road crossed The Bankhead Highway in center of the small Texas town of my birth.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/erc01

https://texashistoricalmarkers.weebly.com/central-national-road.html

The tiny spot on the map labeled "Rockwall" is my home town.

 

And your birthplace is on the southern edge of the William B. Bankhead National Forest. I know as my mother's family still owns the old cotton plantation outside of Eutaw AL, the Fannie Gosa Cobb plantation. As a child spent many nights in the old Antebellum mansion sitting on the front porch looking down the rows of cotton. Biggest green and black grasshoppers I ever saw.
(As the last person in my family taught to farm, things like grasshoppers captured my attention. lol)

 

i work in carbon hill/nauvoo al. now and yes they did call it 78 hwy but the older folks call it the bankhead hwy.

 

My grandparents born in the 1880's called it "The Bankhead". My father born in 1918 did not but he knew what it was. I learned it from my grandparents.

When I was young the Bankhead roadway through Rockwall TX was lined on both sides with huge American Elm trees. It was really pretty. Dutch Elm disease got them all.

 

Pretty interesting info. I have a side question regarding some of those early cost-to-cost competitions. Was The Bankhead ever the route or partially the route of any 'first time' cost-to-cost runs, pre US 66?

Route 66 does indeed benefit from the song. It also got a lot of notoriety in Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes Of Wrath. What is the longest interstate section of The Bankhead with the same continuous US Highway number designation?

EDIT: Never mind that second question. I went back and read some of those links and got plenty of answers. It seems The Bankhead may have actually been earlier than the highway numbering system.

 

Wizard, dunno about any organized races on the part of The Bankhead with which I am familiar.
Closest I have is Carroll Shelby used to pass through my small town on his way to and from his family's place in Leesburg in East Texas where he was born. Rockwall is located at the intersection of Bankhead Highway and Daingerfield Road which passes through Leesburg. Mr. Shelby occasionally stopped for gas at Pete Jayroe's Texaco gas station on Rusk St. in Rockwall and he was pointed out to me as a famous race car driver. This was middle 1950's.

 

I may have to add the Bankhead Hwy. on my bucket list of things to see. Thanks for the info on it.

 

I had never heard of the Bankhead Hwy and will do some research for a future trip over to USA.
We have done Route 66 back in 2009(and an earlier part in 2005 from Amarillo to Springfield)
and whenever we come over we prefer the old roads to interstates.

 

Thank You. Another HAMB History lesson, maybe even become a regular feature!