Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) Sites

The federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) built the Hermit Road in Grand Canyon Village in 1934-35.  The National Park Service (NPS) website says this: "Hermit Road and most of its associated overlooks and parking areas are historic, designed and constructed in 1934-1935 by the Bureau of Public Roads and the National Park Service." Hermit Road and its overlooks have some of the best views of the Grand Canyon on the south rim.  It is commonly thought that the overlooks and wall were the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), but it was the BPR and NPS. The road was modernized...

"A major line change is being made in the State Highway at San Onofre north of Oceanside in San Diego County and $85,000 will be expended to construct a concrete overhead where the Atcbison, Topeka & Santa Fe crosses the highway."

The Texas Highway Department and the United States Bureau of Public Roads built the International & Great Northern Railroad (now Union Pacific) Underpass in 1937 to separate the grade between the railroad tracks and San Pedro Avenue in San Antonio, Texas.

On January 9, 1936, the Austin City Council adopted a resolution to request the Texas State Highway Commission to seek federal funds to separate the grade of Enfield Road from the International–Great Northern Railroad tracks. The Highway Commission with assistance from the United States Bureau of Public Roads built an underpass to take Enfield Road beneath the train tracks.

Interstate 70 travels through Glenwood Canyon, east of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  The highway follows the route of the first road through the canyon, constructed under the Federal Bureau of Public Roads during the New Deal.

The Texas Highway Department and the United States Bureau of Public Roads built an underpass in 1935 to separate the grade between the Texas & New Orleans Railroad tracks and U. S. Highway 77 in Schulenburg, Texas.

The Bureau of Public Roads provided funds to construct an overpass carrying Lake avenue over the railroad in Scotch Plains, N.J. The project was undertaken as part of a larger grade crossing elimination initiative during that era. New Jersey Board of Public Utility Commissioners: "A "Works Program-State Highway Department" project on which the Board initiated proceedings and on October 2nd, 1935, issued an order to eliminate the grade crossing Construction started July 21, 1936, and the project was opened to traffic in January, 1937. Funds from the Bureau of Public Roads were allotted to meet the entire cost of construction."

Cement bridge with off set railings. Bridge is on 2nd Street (I-20 BL) and spans Lone Wolf Creek. Marker Text: LONE WOLD CREEK BRIDGE REBUILT IN 1936 BY THE TEXAS HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT -------------------- UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS ------------------- STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION HARRY HINES CHAIRMAN D.K. MARTIN MEMBER JOHN WOOD MEMBER GIBB GILCHRIST HIGHWAY ENGINEER WEST TEXAS CONSTR CO CONTRACTORS

The Lord Bridge is a 92 foot steel and concrete stringer bridge that carries the Loggin Rd. over Marsh Stream. It was one of 26 bridges badly damaged or destroyed by a 500 year flood in March 1936. A state highway commission report notes that the reconstruction of these bridges were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. The design is standard for Maine State bridges of the era and was resurfaced recently in 2019. The concrete posts show signs of wear.

The federal Bureau of Public Roads gave a grant of $8,200 for the State Highway Department to grade and surface a half-mile portion of Main Street from Broaddus Creek to the North West Pacific Railroad tracks.  Main Street is part of the old Redwood Highway, which is was bypassed by the modern Highway 101 in the 1960s. 

$40,000 was provided by federal funds for the Malpaso Creek bridge on State Route 1, the Cabrillo Highway, just north of Big Sur, California. It is a concrete arch bridge, built in 1935. This bridge was part of a much larger effort by the New Deal to aid in construction of the California coastal highway (then called State Route 46) from Monterey/Carmel to Morro Bay.  Much of the road had been built in the late 1920s by the state highway department, with federal aid from the Bureau of Public Roads, but New Deal funding was required to complete the job, particularly in...

New Deal agencies played a major role in the transformation of the narrow and dangerous Wawona wagon trail into a safe and comfortable route from the South Entrance of Yosemite National Park to Yosemite Valley. As part of this project, a new entry road was built to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees (Sequoia Giganteum). The National Park Service and the Bureau of Public Roads (U.S. Department of Agriculture) signed a Memorandum of Agreement in July 1925, authorizing the planning and construction of new roads within Yosemite National Park. Surveying was begun in 1928 and initial construction was finished by 1933,...

A $100,000 grant from the federal government enabled the construction of a bridge to carry Maze Boulevard over the San Joaquin River, east of Vernalis, California, according to a report from the California Department of Highways in 1935. The grant almost surely came from the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR)s, either in its regular budget or from a pass-through grant by the Public Works Administration (PWA) The Maze Boulevard bridge was replaced by the California Highway Department (CalTrans) around 1970, according to reports in the Modesto Bee.

The McCoy Creek bridge in Mendocino County is a timber stringer trestle bridge on state highway 271 – which used to be the Redwood Highway before U.S. 101 was constructed. It was renovated in 1966 with a steel stringer sub-unit supporting upper trestle components. According to California Highway and Public Works, $22,000 was appropriated by the federal government for the grading, surfacing, and structure of the McCoy Creek bridge and approaches.  The journal does not specify which federal agency provided the funds for the California Division of Highways (now CalTrans), but it was probably the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), possibly with...

Red oaks line a section of McLoughlin Boulevard on its southern entry into the City of Portland. The nearly ninety-year-old trees are the legacy of a highway beautification project funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1934. The Oregon State Highway Commission selected this section on McLoughlin Boulevard (99E), along with two sections of Barbur Boulevard (99W), for the state's first comprehensive highway beautification program. Members of the Portland Garden Club joined in designing the landscape plans that focused on native plants. Funding for the six-mile section on McLoughlin Boulevard amounted to approximately $15,000, which covered landscape materials and a...

As motorists travel southbound on the Milwaukie section of McLoughlin Boulevard they pass through a corridor of Giant Redwood trees. The Public Works Administration funded the planting of these Sequoia Giantea in 1934. The Oregon State Highway Commission selected six miles of McLoughlin Boulevard (99E) that connects Milwaukie and Portland to launch the state's first comprehensive highway beautification program. The north unit is still marked by red oaks while this southern section is defined by the giant evergreen Redwoods. Funding for the entire six-mile section amounted to approximately $15,000 for landscape materials and the labor required to complete the landscaping.    

The Middle Bridge is 296 foot Warren (Riveted) Through Truss bridge that carries Route 197 (Patterson Road) over the Eastern River in Dresden Maine. The Middle Bridge was completed in 1936 to replace a previous bridge after the Flood of 1936. The previous bridge was a wooden stringer bridge supported on stacked stone abutments and timber cribbing. The bridge included a wooden king post truss drawbridge. The bridge was located just north of the previous structure and diverted the roadway to higher ground. The bridge’s elevation was raised up to nearly 130’. Substantial roadway approaches were graded to meet the new bridge’s...

DON WARREN, Senior Bridge Engineer February 1937 issue of California Highway and Public Works magazine: "... The projects were intended to relieve labor and carried the condition that as far as practical, labor was to come from the relief rolls and that labor be confined to one hundred thirty hours per month. It also stipulated that railroad work could be done by the railroad forces. CARRIES FOUR R. R. TRACKS The largest of these projects is the Mission Road Grade Separation, which carries four lanes of Pacific Electric tracks over the junction of Mission Road with Huntington Drive North. Huntington Drive South and Soto...

The Montopolis Bridge is a historic Parker through truss bridge across the Colorado River in Austin, Texas. On June 15, 1935, the City of Austin suffered a devastating flood along the Colorado River. The original Montopolis bridge, built by Travis County in the late 1880s, was one of five bridges washed away by the flood. The Texas Highway Department designed the current bridge and requested federal emergency relief funds from the Bureau of Public Roads to rebuild it. Work on the bridge began on February 15, 1937. The bridge was completed on February 11, 1938 by Vincennes Steel Corporation under contract...

The Morse Bridge is a 285-foot steel through arch bridge over the Androscoggin River on ME 108 Bridge Street in Rumford. Although constructed by the city and state in 1935, a year later in March 1936, was moved off its foundation by the results of a 500 year flood. A 1936 State Highway Commission Annual Report lists 26 bridges that were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. A sizable concrete retaining wall and riverbed cover flanks the bridge on the downtown island along River...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.  Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As of 1939, the PWA had expended $1,050,000 on the reconstruction work. As one newspaper put it, “...the mile long park connecting the Capitol with Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial probably would still be in an early stage of development but for the allocation of PWA funds to finish the project." In 1934, with the aid of funds from the PWA, work began under the supervision of the...

Neahkahnie Mountain rises almost perpendicularly, 1600 feet from the Pacific Ocean. This headland posed an engineering and budgetary challenge to the completion of the Oregon Coast Highway until funding was provided by the Bureau of Public Roads and labor was provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Improvements to this fourteen-mile section of highway between Cannon Beach and Manzanita took approximately eight years to complete. Just before the roadway's opening in 1941, The Sunday Oregonian referred to it as "chiseled on rocky Neahkahnie Mountain" and informed prospective motorists that they would be traveling over a road that "cost $100,000 a mile." The...

Referred to as either Necarney Creek or Sam Reed Bridge, this bridge was a critical part of the completion of the Neahkahnie Road section of Highway 101, As described on a Oregon Department of Transportation plaque at the Neahkahnie Mountain Viewpoint of Highway 101: ". . . this is one of Oregon's first bridges to be constructed with steel girders and towers. The 602-foot deck, with gothic arch balustrades railings, rises 90 feet above Necarney Creek in a broad sweeping curve." Locally known as the Sam Reed bridge, the name honors an individual active in the area's promotion. Samuel Reed developed the town...

Completed in 1939, the biggest bridge on what was then the newly constructed Wolf Creek Highway (now the Sunset Highway) spans the 600-foot-deep Nehalem River gorge. It eliminated a three-mile detour on this major highway between Portland and the northern Oregon coast. The concrete arch bridge cost $130,000 and was built in a cooperative effort between the US Bureau of Public Roads and the Oregon State Highway Commission. Mountain States Construction Company, a Eugene firm, built the bridge.

The Bureau of Public Roads provided funds to construct a grade separation for Newton-Sparta Road and the railroad in Andover Township, N.J. The project was undertaken as part of a larger grade crossing elimination initiative during that era. New Jersey Board of Public Utility Commissioners: "A "Works Program-State Highway Department" project on which the Board initiated proceedings and on October 2nd, 1935, issued an order to eliminate the crossing. Contract for construction was let by the State Highway Department in August, 1936, and construction was completed in September, 1937. Funds from the Bureau of Public Roads were allotted to meet the...

The Texas Highway Department and the United States Bureau of Public Roads designed and financed several underpasses on Nogalitos Street in San Antonio, Texas. Built in 1937 by Brown & Root, the project took Nogalitos Street under Cassiano Street, The Texas & New Orleans Railroad tracks, Lachapelle Street, and the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad tracks. The street bridges were steel stringer design and the railroad bridges were steel plate girder design. The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad tracks have been abandoned, but the other three bridges and the underpass are still in use.

The Oakland-Merlin Overpass is a 1,759 foot long overpass that currently carries Malcom X Blvd (formerly Oakland Ave.) over the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Railyard near downtown Dallas, Texas. The Texas Highway Department and the United States Bureau of Public Roads oversaw the construction of the bridge with funding from the federal Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The overpass originally separated the grade of Oakland Ave and Merlin St from the tracks of the Gulf Coast and Sante Fe Railway. Uvalde Construction co. built the bridge in 1937 using Works Progress Administration labor.

2 bridges along the Otter Chain Ponds, the first was a 66 foot steel and concrete stringer bridge and the 2nd was a 210 foot Warren through truss bridge. Both were replaced in 2013. A 1936 State Highway Commission report notes that the reconstruction of 26 bridges were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. The March 1936 flood was one of the most destructive, resulting in the loss or damage of an estimated 150 bridges in Maine, believed to be the hardest hit of the New England states...

In 1935, the federal government dedicated $240,000 to the grading and paving of 3.6 miles of the old Pacific Coast Highway (now US 101) from Mussel Shoals in Ventura County to the Santa Barbara County line. The funds were probably channeled through the Bureau of Public Roads, but might also have come from the Public Works Administration (PWA).

Federal aid funded the construction of the 3.5 mile stretch of the Roosevelt Highway—now known as the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and State Route 1—along the Santa Monica, CA, coastline. The funds apparently came from the Public Works Administration (PWA), though the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) was probably involved. The California State Division of Highways would have been responsible for planning and construction using private contractors. In order to build this section of highway, the state of California stepped in to purchase the land at the foot of the bluffs that front the beach so that work could be done...

This concrete bridge across Porter Slough was built under the New Deal by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). A 1941 date stamp is clearly visible (see photograph). The bridge is a 4-span concrete Tee-beam bridge. The span length is 29.9 feet and the total length is 68.9 feet. There is another New Deal bridge across Porter Slough at Leggett Ave., built in 1937, also likely by the WPA.

The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway and Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Overpass is a two-lane reinforced-concrete highway bridge that conveys West Broadway Street over railroad tracks in downtown Sweetwater. The Texas Highway Department in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Public Roads provided the design and financing for the bridge in 1935. The design includes ornate detailing in concrete along the railings and concrete light standards along each side of the bridge, The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing structure to the Sweetwater Commercial Historic District on June 7, 1984.

Rocky Mountain National Park was established in 1915 to preserve a spectacular section of the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains.  Several new additions to the park have been made over the years, until it reached its present size of 415 square miles. The park saw considerable recreational development in the 1920s under the National Park Service (NPS), but it benefitted enormously in the 1930s from the New Deal.  Most notable of the New Deal agencies was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), but the \ park also gained funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA), road work by the Bureau of...

In 1935, a bridge was built over Red Mountain Creek in rural Mendocino county south of Piercy along the old Redwood Highway (a piece of which appears to be renamed "Rosewarne Road"). The funds were granted by the federal government – probably the Bureau Public Roads – under the New Deal to the state of California Department of Highways. Later, Interstate 101 was built along the same route and the old bridge was removed.

The November 1935 issue of California Highway & Public Works reported on New Deal work in the country of Panama. "PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT has approved a program of bridge construction work on the route of the Inter-American highway in Central America, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads in charge of activities on the highway announces, Congress in June 1934, appropriated $1,000,000 to meet such expenses as the President in his discretion may deem necessary to enable the United States to cooperate with the several governments, members of the Pan-American Union, in connection with survey and construction of the proposed Inter-American Highway. As...

Lower Rolling Dam bridge is a 29 foot concrete T-beam over the Rolling Dam Stream. It was one of 26 bridges that were badly damaged or destroyed by a 500 year flood in March 1936. A 1936 Annual Report by the Maine Highway Commission notes that the reconstruction of these bridges were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Labor was provided to some by the Works Progress Administration. At some point in the past, the bridge was abandoned when Route 24 was changed and...

LOC: "Fort Worth & Denver City Railroad Underpass, Spanning State Highway 183 at Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, TX: An example of Fort Worth's exceptional network of grade separation structures, the underpass as a good example of a cooperative effort by the Texas Highway Department and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to eliminate dangerous grade crossings in Texas during the Great Depression." The bridges at: 32.79525, -97.33843 and 32.795109, -97.338925 bear plaques.

The old Fresno-Yosemite road (today's state highway 41) was rebuilt during the New Deal with aid from the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) to the California Division of Highways.  The old road, built for wagons in the 19th century, was notoriously bad and unsuited for the boom in automobile traffic into Yosemite National Park from southern California by the 1920s (Broesamle ms). In 1926, Congress began providing additional funds to the BPR to build roads within the national parks, in alliance with the National Park Service, and then added more funding in 1932 for access roads to the parks. The first park...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) and the federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) funded a large amount of road building around Arizona during the New Deal. One of the highway projects was an underpass for Route 66 beneath the busy Santa Fe railroad line that passes through the center of Flagstaff, which greatly helped relieved traffic jams of cars and trucks waiting for trains to pass. The underpass cost $125,000, of which the city contributed only $5,000.  The PWA grant was awarded in June 1934 and the underpass was finished by Christmas (Cline, p. 308). The underpass carries two lanes of traffic...

Originally named the Willamette Highway Tunnel, the 905 feet-long Salt Creek Tunnel completed the Oregon Forest Highway Project that ran through remote areas of the Willamette National Forest to link US Highway 99 near Eugene with US 97 on the east side of the Cascades. The Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) designed the tunnel and its masonry rock portals and contracted with the Portland firm Orino-Birkemeier & Saremai to construct the project in December 1937. The length of the tunnel along with the remote location and rugged terrain introduced challenges with its construction. Oregon Department of Transportation historian Robert Hadlow notes...