The 1940s: Defense Highways
In 1941, the National Interregional Highway Committee was appointed by President Roosevelt to investigate the need for a system of nationally-connected highways to transport military personnel and equipment across the country. According to J. Richard Capka, Federal Highway Administrator under President George W. Bush, the report given to Congress, titled Celebrating 50 Years: The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, “helped shape the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, in which Congress directed the designation of 40,000 miles for a ‘Nation System of Interstate Highways’” (Capka). The roads created by the 1944 act would be used to connect the United States’ centers of industry to meet the production demands of World War II. However, it wasn’t until 1947, two years after the war had ended, that the new highways began construction.
Andrew Wood states that “during World War II, almost everything road-trip related was rationed, with tires, gasoline and leisure time at a premium.” It’s not surprising that national focus was on the conflict abroad, but what is surprising are the unforeseen impacts the war has had on American socio-politico-economic values, and specifically, the impacts it has had on the nation’s highway system. In addition to the fact that the Interstate System was conceived as a system of defense highways, connecting largely populated urban centers with isolated rural areas, the broad expanse of country covered by the progressing road system meant that “many troops traveling across the country to be deployed overseas saw parts of America that they would later want to revisit upon their return” (Wood). The baby-boom-fueling economic prosperity arising out of the end of the war was the primary factor in the recreational travel boom that later facilitated the dominance of motels along the nation’s highways.
The foundational infrastructure of the highway system, springing out of wartime urgency, pays homage to both its frontier roots and military support in many ways. Gas stations such as the Union 76 in Tucson, Arizona, and the converted B-52 bomber gas station in Milwaukie, Oregon, presented below, employ patriotic, American themes and use military regalia to convince patrons to stop there instead of the plain competitor across the street.
Left: Margolies, J. (1979). [Union 76 gas station, 4th & stone, Tucson, Arizona] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017702129/.
Right: Margolies, J. (1980). [Bomber has station, diagonal view, Route 99 E., Milwaukie, Oregon] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017702120/.
Similarly, families in the later ‘40s found motels “lit by neon and designed by flair. While [the] motel rooms were plain and functional, the facades took advantage of regional styles and, occasionally, stereotypes” (Wood). The Wigwam Motel, in Rialto, California, is an excellent example of one of those facilities that relied upon local stereotypes to sell rooms. Where the landscape vernacular of the motel makes use of Native American motifs, the pylon signs advertising that a traveler could “do it in a tee pee,” if they felt so inclined, commodified the culture of numerous Native American tribes to be sold as an experience to adventurous automobilists. This commercialization of real-world experiences and events would become a common exploit of the consumerism of the 1950s, one made apparent in the neon signs and landscape vernacular dotting the highways of the time.
Left: Margolies, J. (1977). [Wigwam Village Motel, Rialto, California] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017709973/.
Right: Margolies, J. (1982). [Thunderbird Motel sign, Routes 77 & 81, Waco, Texas] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017703533/.