Texas. State Department of Highways and Public Transportation

The 35th Legislature, House Bill 2, created the Texas State Highway Department in 1917 to aid counties in the construction and maintenance of state highways and to provide for state motor vehicle registration. In 1924 the department assumed active control from the counties for the maintenance and construction of highways. In 1969 the legislature created the Texas Mass Transportation Commission, which was merged with the Highway Department in 1975 to create the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation. On September 1, 1991, the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation and the Texas Department of Aviation were merged into the new Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

Administrative control of the Department was vested in a State Highway Commission and a State Highway Engineer. The Commission was composed of three members appointed by the governor, with consent and approval of the Senate, to six-year terms. Duties of the commissioners were to formulate over-all policies and plans for a comprehensive system of state and federal highways under the direct supervision and control of the Department. The Commission appointed, for an indefinite period, the State Highway Engineer to administer the policies, supervise all location, design, construction, and maintenance of state highways, and direct the workings of the Department in general.

Dewitt C. Greer was Texas State Highway Engineer and head of the Highway Department for 27 years, from 1940 to 1967, and a member of the Highway Commission from 1969 to 1981. He first joined the Highway Department in 1927, working in the Tyler district and becoming district engineer. He came to Austin in the late 1930s to be the Department's chief engineer of construction and design. On July 1, 1940, Greer was chosen by the Commission to be State Highway Engineer, a position he held until his retirement in 1967. After his retirement, Governor Preston Smith appointed Greer to the Highway Commission in 1969, and he served as its chairman until 1972. When his first six-year term expired in 1975, Governor Dolph Briscoe appointed him to another one. Greer died in November 1986.