In 1948, a seven-member Blue Star Advisory Council was established by Legislative action in New Jersey, to safeguard and promote the national and state memorial highways. The council is composed of four Garden Club representatives and three state representatives, one each from the Dept. of Transportation, the Dept. of Environmental Protection, and the Dept. of Health. Bills have been introduced in the Legislature to replace the Dept. of Health in the charter with the Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs as a more appropriate representative agency. The Blue Star Memorial Highway was one of the most extensive projects ever undertaken by garden clubs and the first ever attempted on a nationwide scale. It crosses the nation east and west and north and south.
Every state is crossed by at least one such highway.
The plan did not call for an uninterrupted planting across the country, but rather a national road beautified at intervals with memorial plantings appropriate for the location and featuring the state trees or other plant material native to the area. The success of the program paved the way for the anti-litter drive and other national projects. Although Chapel Island in Mountainside no longer exists, a replica of the original marker remains in South Plainfield. The new veterans home in Menlo Park will be dedicated as a Blue Star Memorial facility in March.