Texas. Highway Dept.

The Texas (State) Highway Department (merged into the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation in 1975, and merged again into the Texas Department of Transportation in 1991) was responsible for the building and maintenance of the state's roads and highways from its creation in 1917. Its governing body was a three-member Highway Commission who appointed the state highway engineer, held public hearings, had the authority to create geographical divisions within the Department, and formulated plans or policies for the location, construction, and maintenance of a comprehensive system of state highways and public roads in cooperation with the counties of the State, or under the direct supervision and control of the State Highway Department.

The Texas Highway Department was created during the early twentieth-century movement to stimulate building and improvement of roads throughout the nation. The Federal Aid Road Act of July 11, 1916 (39 Stat. 355; 16 U.S.C. 503; 23 U.S.C. 15, 48), signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, initiated federal aid for highways with the requirement that each state receiving aid have a state highway department that controlled the building of roads. While earlier bills to establish a state highway department in Texas had failed (in 1911 and 1913), the promise of matching federal funds enabled the 35th Texas Legislature to pass House Bill 2, signed into law by Governor James E. Ferguson on April 4, 1917, which created the State Highway Department. The Department was to administer federal funds to counties for state highway construction and maintenance and to provide for state motor vehicle registration, fees from which were to generate the state's required matching funds.

The department began operation on June 4, 1917 with the first meeting of the three-member Texas Highway Commission. The first commissioners were Curtis Hancock, T.R. McLean, and H.C. Odle. George A. Duren was appointed as the department's first state highway engineer, who serves as the department's chief executive officer. In the summer of 1917, after gathering information at public hearings, the commission proposed an 8,865-mile state highway network. Further influence from the national level came with the Federal Highway Act of 1921, which required state highway departments to control the design, construction and maintainance of roads rather than Texas' practice of allowing counties to undertake the work themselves with oversight from department engineers.

Gibb Gilchrist became the fourth state highway engineer in 1924, having begun as a division engineer in 1919. In his service, he oversaw a period of significant modernization in the department and instituted a beautification policy for roadsides. Gilchrist resigned in 1925 when Miriam A. (Ma) Ferguson became Governor, and a quick succession of five men held the department's executive post from 1925-1928. Gilchrist returned to serve from 1928 until 1937, when he left to become dean of engineering (and later, university dean) at Texas A&M University.

In 1927, the legislature authorized the hiring of 20 plainclothes license and weight inspectors, whose job was to collect fines for vehicles weighing more than their registration class allowed. The legislature increased the number of inspectors to 50 in 1929 and designated them as the State Highway Patrol, which in 1935 was separated from the highway department (Senate Bill 146, 44th Legislature, Regular Session) to become a component of the newly created Department of Public Safety.

Julian Montgomery became state highway engineer in 1937 and resigned in 1940, when Dewitt C. Greer took over the post at which he remained until 1967, later becoming a highway commissioner from 1969 to 1981 (chairman 1969-1972). During Greer's tenure, the passage of the Federal Highway Act of 1956 led to the initiation of the Interstate Highway System in Texas, and the Texas highway system grew threefold to over 68,000 miles of paved roads. The Highway Department building near the state capitol, completed in 1933 as its first purpose-built home, was eventually named for Greer.

James C. Dingwall (1968-1973) succeeded Greer as state highway engineer, followed by B.L. DeBerry (1973-1980), who saw the department through its first merger with another state agency. After the merger, the title of State Highway Engineer was changed to Engineer-Director.

In 1969, the 61st Texas Legislature created the Texas Mass Transportation Commission to develop public mass transportation in Texas. This agency was merged with the Highway Department in 1975, creating the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation. An executive order of May 1976 transferred the Governor's Office of Traffic Safety to the Department. On September 1, 1991 (House Bill 9, 72nd Legislature, 1st Called Session), the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation and the Texas Department of Aviation were merged into the new Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

(Sources include: Guide to Texas State Agencies, 11th edition (2001); An Informal History of the Texas Department of Transportation, Hilton Hagan, 2000, available at http://www.dot.state.tx.us/heritage/default.htm under TxDOT History link.)

From the guide to the Highway Department records, 1920s-1930s, 1962-1975, (Repository Unknown)