This week's Throwback Thursday takes us back to April 2007. This is a
rather unique concrete sign for the Shunpike, which is a county road in
Dutchess County, New York (Dutchess CR 57 for those playing at home).
The sign was along the eastbound lanes of US 44 east of Millbrook, and
at last check, they are still there. Over time, some of the letters on
the sign have fallen off, but you may be able to make out that
Stanfordville is 7 miles away. I believe that the other town in question
is Bangall.
The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high
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