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The Texas Legislature established the Texas Highway Department in 1917. This timeline lists major milestones and events during our history.

Present to 2006 | 2005 to 2001 | 2000 to 1971 | 1970 to 1951 | 1950 to 1931 | 1930 to 1917

1969

• Legislature establishes Texas Mass Transportation Commission.
• Accounting and Aid Divisions merge into new Finance Division.
• October - Commission hires an architectural firm to prepare plans for the new department building.
• September 1 - The department has 20,272 full-time employees.
• April 1 - Dewitt C. Greer is sworn in as chairman of the highway commission, the first and only time a department executive director served on the policy-making body.
• Commission purchases Block 124 in downtown Austin as the future location of a new department headquarters. The location is at 11th and Congress Avenue, just across the street from the Governor's Mansion.

1967

• Department celebrates its golden anniversary. It now has 17,000 employees and 66,000 miles of highway.
• First rest area with restroom facilities opens on Interstate 35 between Round Rock and Georgetown.

1965

• Automation Division is formed.
• September 1 - First specialty license plate is issued.

1964

• The department's eight-year-old computer replaced with a faster CDC 1604-A model.
• June 30 - Department opens its first tourist bureau in the Capitol, serving 5,470 visitors its first week.

1963

• August 23 - Maximum speed limit for two-thirds of the state highway system increases to 70 mph during the day, 65 mph at night.

1962

• Colson-Briscoe Act is amended by the legislature to allow $8 million of the state's annual General Revenue funding for farm-to-market and ranch roads to be matched with federal funds.
• November 2 - Commission approves minute order requiring STOP signs on the state system to be red and white with reflective sheeting instead of yellow and black. The conversion process would take five years.
• May 3 - A ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the opening of a 43-miles section of Interstate 35 in Bexar County. This is the first county line to county line section of interstate in a large metropolitan area.

1961

• Legislature passes state's first sales tax. Lubricants are included among taxable items.

1959

• Division of Information and Statistics is renamed Travel and Information Division.

1958

• Materials and Tests Division moves to Camp Hubbard.

1956

• Federal Highway Revenue Act increases gasoline and other motor-vehicle taxes and creates the Highway Trust Fund.
• Congress appropriates $25 billion for building the interstate highway system from 1957 to 1968. The amount of money appropriated would grow.
• Three stories are added to two-story Camp Hubbard office building.
• October 15 - A new IBM 650 computer is installed at the Greer Building. We become only the second state in the nation to have a computer of this size, California having plugged in its new computer only two months before.

1955

• Legislature increases gasoline tax to five cents, the first hike since 1929.
• December 1 - Three Highway Department employees travel to Dallas (the state had just increased per diem travel allowance to $7 a day for overnight trips; state workers received $4 maximum to cover meals on non-overnight trips lasting more than six hours) to see a demonstration of a new dry-copying machine developed by the Xerox Corp. The department soon purchases one of the machines.

1954

• Construction of Camp Hubbard's first department-wide office building begins.

1953

• State employees get a 40-hour workweek, no longer having to report for duty a half day on Saturdays.
• Division of Information and Statistics is organized.
• September 22 - Baytown Tunnel opens, replacing the Morgan's Point Ferry as the way to cross the Houston Ship Channel.

1952

• April 9 - A mild earthquake in Oklahoma shakes the top floors of the Greer Building.

1951

• Diesel fuel tax increased to two cents a gallon.
• August - First major leg of the Gulf Freeway (Interstate 45) is dedicated. It is Texas' first urban expressway. The 50-mile freeway costs $28.5 million.

Present to 2006 | 2005 to 2001 | 2000 to 1971 | 1970 to 1951 | 1950 to 1931 | 1930 to 1917