page_title: Texas state highway system
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Texas state highway system / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The 1956 edition of the Texas Highway Department published Official Travel Map. The Interstate Highway System is not present on the map as it had not been created yet. Route 66 travels through the panhandle region. In addition to Texas, inset maps of Amarillo, Wichita Falls, Waco, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Galveston, Houston, Beaumont, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio.
context_page_description: Texas state highways are a network of highways owned and maintained by the U.S. state of Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation is the state agency responsible for the day-to-day operations and maintenance of the system. Texas has the largest state highway system, followed closely by North Carolina's state highway system. In addition to the nationally numbered Interstate Highways and U.S. Highways, the highway system consists of a main network of state highways, loops, spurs, and beltways that provide local access to the other highways. The system also includes a large network of farm to market roads that connect rural areas of the state with urban areas and the rest of the state highway system. The state also owns and maintains some park and recreational roads located near and within state and national parks, as well as recreational areas. All state highways, regardless of classification, are paved roads. The Old San Antonio Road, also known as the El Camino Real, is the oldest highway in the United States, first being blazed in 1691. The length of the highways varies from US 83's 893.4 miles inside the state borders to Spur 200 at just 0.05 miles long.
context_section_description: The Texas State Highway System can trace its roots to the establishment of the Texas Highway Department on April 4, 1917. Administrative control of the department was given to a three-member commission appointed by the governor for two-year terms. On June 21, 1917, the commission conducted its first public hearing to solicit input on potential highway routes. The committee also divided the state into six divisions to be headquartered in Amarillo, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Angelo, and San Antonio. Later that year, the commission designated 26 state highways covering 8,865 miles (14,267 km) which were to be readily accessible to 89% of the state's population.
  In 1921, Congress amended the Federal Aid to Roads Act of 1916 to require the states to take control of road design, construction, and maintenance of state highways by 1925. As a result, on January 1, 1924, the Texas Highway Department took full control of maintaining the state highways from the counties within which they resided. In 1925, the state legislature granted the highway department the responsibility of surveying, planning, and building highways, and the authorization to acquire new highway rights-of-way by purchasing, or condemning through eminent domain, land required for highway construction.
  By 1927, the highway system covered 17,960 miles (28,900 km), of which 96 miles (154 km) were concrete, 1,060 miles (1,710 km) were asphalt, 5,000 miles (8,000 km) were gravel, shell or stone, and 10,000 miles (20,000 km) were clay or soil.
  In 1951, a 50-mile (80 km) section of the Gulf Freeway (now I-45) opened, becoming Texas' first urban freeway. In 1957, the state began receiving federal funding for the construction of the Interstate Highway System. The first section of Interstate Highway from county line to county line to open in the state was a 43-mile (69 km) section of I-35 in Bexar County. By 1967, the highway system controlled 66,000 miles (106,000 km) of highway.
  In 1984, US 66 was replaced by I-40 and the US 66 designation was removed from the state highway system the following year.
  In 1992, the 3,200 miles (5,100 km) of Interstate Highway System in Texas was completed with the opening of a six-mile (9.7 km) section of I-27. In 1997, the Texas Turnpike Authority was merged with TxDOT and independently, the North Texas Turnpike Authority became responsible for toll projects in Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant counties.
caption: The state road system in 1956, the last year before construction on the Interstate Highway System began
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