Centennial Book

100 years

of

colorado state transportation history

This book is dedicated to all Colorado state roads, highways, and transportation employees past, present, and future, who have served so effectively in order to help meet the transportation needs of a century of Colorado residents and visitors, 1910-2010.

CDOT VISION STATEMENT The vision of the Colorado Department of Transportation is to enhance the quality of life and the environment of the citizens of Colorado by creating an integrated transportation system that focuses on moving people and goods by offering convenient linkages among modal choices.

CDOT MISSION STATEMENT The mission of the Colorado Department of Transportation is to provide the best multi-modal transportation system for Colorado that most effectively moves people, goods, and information.

CDOT VALUES Safety We work and live safely! We protect human life, preserve property, and put employees’ safety before production.

People We value our employees! We acknowledge and recognize the skills and abilities of our co-workers, place a high priority on employee safety, and draw strength from our diversity and commitment to equal opportunity.

Integrity We earn Colorado’s trust! We are honest and responsible in all that we do and hold ourselves to the highest moral and ethical standards.

Cutomer Service We satisfy our customers! With a can-do attitude, we work together and with others to respond effectively to our customers’ needs.

Excellence We are committed to quality! We are leaders and problem solvers, continuously improving our products and services in support of our commitment to provide the best transportation system for Colorado.

Respect We respect each other! We are kind and civil with everyone, and we act with courage and humility.

100 Years of Colorado State Transportation History Design

Ideologie, Inc. Mary Junda, layout

Project Coordination Editing

Proofreading

Webb Public Relations David Wetzel, CO State Historical Society/Retired Vicki Sladek, CDOT Region 4 Environmental

Indexing

CDOT Staff Photographer

Kris Anderson Robert Autobee Gregg Gargan

Printing Vision Graphics

This book is a publication of CDOT Public Relations.

To all CDOT employees who submitted photos or sent information—thank you.

Right: Highland/Sixteenth Street pedestrian bridge over I-25, central Denver. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Cover: Golden aspens, brilliant sunshine, and majestic Mt. Evans frame this fall season view along SH 103 in Clear Creek County.

Back Cover: U.S. Hwy. 550 descends from Red Mountain Pass toward Ouray, with Twin Peaks towering in the background, along the San Juan Skyway National Scenic & Historic Byway, southwestern Colorado.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

IN MEMORY

4

FOREWORD

6

CHAPTER 1 Isolation to Destination: The Roads Leading to a Colorado Highway Department

8

CHAPTER 2 Overcoming Obstacles: The Evolution of Colorado’s Highways

22

CHAPTER 3 Putting Colorado on the Map: Linking the State Highway System and Tourism

36

CHAPTER 4 Maintenance: The Face of Colorado State Transportation

52

CHAPTER 5 “In Productive Harmony”: Beginnings of Environmental Planning

68

CHAPTER 6 It Has Always Been About the People

82

Endnotes

102

TIMELINE

109

INDEX

116

in memory

May we never forget our co-workers who have lost their lives in the line of duty: Region 1 Adam Fraser, 1946 Wayne S. Whitlock, 1957 Eldon Misner, 1958 William O. Townsend, 1958 Donald R. Edison, 1963 Carl L. Hicken, 1964 Glen S. Railsback, 1971 Ted Will, 1973 Joseph J. Lochnikar, 1975 Charles V. Hendricks, 1977 Rodney A. Benjamin, 1982

Region 2 Charles J. West, 1951 Arthur Dekalb, 1952 Willard W. Hunter, 1960 Henry Kahl, 1967 Wray N. Roth, 1968 Jerome H. Falk, 1976 Milton Walling, 1995 Charles Mather, 2006 David J. Valdez, Jr., 2009

Memorial monument at CDOT Headquarters Complex, Denver, dedicated in 2006. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Region 3 Harry G. “Gus” Nelson, 1962 Howard Pierson, 1965 Roy L. Baxstrom, 1975 Mark Van Wyl, 1977 Rydell Gasler, 1978 Alan E. Losey, 1985 Gene M. Shofner, 1985 Lawrence Brooks, 1999 Region 4 Alfred M. Dunham, 1957 James E. Trimble, 1958 Ambrose W. Chesney, 1964 Norman Odenbaugh, 1964 William H. Glidewell, 1969 Kenneth M. Vondy, 1979 John A. Mette, 1980 Victor J. Dempewolf, 1985 John A. Mapes III, 1986 Thomas J. Frank, 1996 Sharlene Nail, 1998

Region 5 Asa Willard Heald, 1929 Joseph “Dutch” Krouth, 1929 Robert F. Miller, 1969 James Wysong, 1977 Terry L. Kishbaugh, 1978 Alfred T. Burbridge, 1984 Eddie J. Imel, 1992 Richard Gorrell, 1995 Ernest J. Finehout, 2003 Rodger Bell, 2006 Region 6 Ernest E. Wich, 1967 Melvin A. Jackson, 1973 Harold D. Martin, 1978 Louie S. Volturo, 1992 David Stekr, 1996 Paul Forster, 2004 Eladio Lopez, 2004 Headquarters Roger R. Pope, 1966 Harland C. Glaser, 1982

CDOT Headquarters building in Denver. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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foreword

I

n January 1910, the first formal Colorado state government agency charged with developing a state road system began operations.

One hundred years later, it is time to celebrate Colorado’s centennial of state transportation agencies. One of the more enjoyable, and challenging, activities of this celebration has Russell George, been to look back into State of Colorado Executive Director Colorado Department transportation archives and media records in of Transportation an attempt to piece together a storied and colorful transportation history in Colorado.

That history predates 1910 by centuries, and it would not be complete without the Native Americans, pathfinders, and pioneers who opened up the way to and through Colorado. The earliest pioneer trails into Colorado, such as the Santa Fe Mountain Branch, Smoky Hill, and even a branch of the Mormon Trail, were tied to commerce and the opening of new frontiers. Many pioneers took one look at the Colorado Rocky Mountains and said, “No, thank you.” While most spent their time and energy finding ways around, the bold and adventurous among them ventured into a world of lofty peaks, eternal snow, waterfalls, dense forests, canyons, and plateaus.

Early explorers who went into the mountains for the first time did so in search of game and the abundant resources of land and water. They were among the first to discover precious minerals, and a mining boom 6

followed in earnest during the 1860s. Miners, who often set new standards for motivation, looked at the Rocky Mountain ramparts and figured that where there was a will, there was a way to the dreamed-of riches. Among their legacies are many mountain access routes still used in Colorado to this day.

Perhaps, as they considered the huge cultural changes that the appearance of motor vehicles along early 20th century roads signaled, Colorado citizens remembered the words of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who was quoted in 1854 as saying: “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”

Colorado’s state transportation agencies have always been public agencies, working together with citizen taxpayers, a series of governors, legislators, and county and local governments to meet a greater public need. The way may not have always been smooth, but together, much more was achieved and maintained than could have ever been accomplished individually.

You might think the history of these agencies would be told primarily in surveying, paving materials, new and better construction and maintenance equipment, Doppler-radar linked computer systems, and giant digital message boards that convey traveler update information almost instantaneously to our immediate-gratification world. There’s certainly truth in all of that, but I don’t believe it’s the most important part of the story.

To my mind, the most important factor in the history of Colorado’s transportation agencies is our employees past, present, and future. Without our people, no surveys would have been made, no plans written, no projects constructed, and no innovations introduced. Without our people, there would have been no one working around the clock during weather emergencies to clear the highways, making sure that traffic and commerce moved forward. Colorado’s transportation agency employees have made it all possible over the past century.

COLORADO STATE HIGHWAYS/TRANSPORTATION AGENCY DIRECTORS 1910-2010 1910 - 1920 1921 - 1930 1930 - 1945 1946 - 1963 1963 - 1975 1975 - 1982

James E. Maloney Major L.D. Blauvelt Charles D. Vail Mark U. Watrous Charles E. Shumate Jack Kinstlinger

1982 - 1987 1987 1987 - 1994 1994 - 1999 1999 - 2007 2007 -

Joseph Dolan Lowell B. Jackson A. Ray Chamberlain Guillermo Vidal Thomas E. Norton Russell L. George

During all those decades, there have been hundreds of thousands of employees of the predecessor highway departments and the Colorado Department of Transportation. Regrettably, many of those earliest names and their stories have faded into history in the face of time and reorganization. But the results of their good work remain all around us every day in Colorado’s quality transportation system.

The purpose of this centennial history of CDOT and its predecessor agencies is to paint a broad-brush picture of major trends and achievements, and to tell some stories along the way, through six essay-style chapters.

As you read this book, you will meet some of the major characters and players in this transportation drama.

You will learn more about major achievements, about obstacles faced, and about dreams realized.

Together,ourtransportationagenciesandouremployees have achieved the everyday, the extraordinary, and even the seemingly impossible. It is a remarkable story.

Denver, Colorado July, 2010

Above: I-25 received a major makeover, known as COSMIX, on the north side of Colorado Springs.

Widening, improved on and offramps, and other safety features have resulted in a more free-flowing, less-congested stretch of freeway in the fast-growing area. This view is looking south/southwest toward the Rampart Range. (Source: Colordo Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Background: Newly-completed Denver-Boulder Turnpike just days before its opening in 1952.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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CHAPTER 1

Old West, New West. An image of one of the mythic figures of the Old West, William “Buffalo Bill� Cody, gets a lift up the Lookout Mountain Road from a 1920s flatbed truck. The automobile would do more than any other social or economic force to change Colorado and the West during the 20th century. (Source: Denver Public Library-Western History Collection, Photo No. NS-34).

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Isolation to Destination: The Roads Leading to a Colorado Highway Department

by Robert Autobee, CDOT Region 4 Historian

T

he Romans had the exacting engineering skills and perseverance to construct a 62,000-mile network of roads throughout their empire. The Tyroleans taunted gravity as they carved roads from the sides of the Alps. The Incans followed their roads to the clouds. The imagination, will, and muscle necessary to construct roads and bridges over challenging terrain is evident in the vestiges of transportation infrastructure these cultures left behind. However, the technology necessary to pave miles of road, construct bridges over wide rivers, and bore through mountains was still somewhere off in the future. It would take the arrival of horseless carriages to challenge early twentieth century engineers to span long, flat distances and build roads and tunnels over and through the Colorado Rockies.

A 1918 view of the road through the Gunnison River Canyon west of Gunnison.

This shows typical ‘good’ road conditions the first Colorado Highway Commission found on its tour of Colorado in 1910, but there were plenty of ‘mediocre’ and ‘bad’ gravel, dirt, and rock road conditions as well. This scene shows the bottom of the canyon, with the railroad grade on the opposite side, at what is now the bottom of Blue Mesa Reservoir not far from where today’s SH 149 turns south off U.S. 50 across a long bridge on its way to Lake City and Creede.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

An important stop on the railroad timetable as early as 1870, Colorado’s capital, Denver, was miles from any other urban center and remained one of the most secluded cities in the United States. Gradually, during the twentieth century’s first three decades, Denver found itself connected by highway to the rest of the nation. By 1930, America was no longer a nation of small farmers and the West was maturing out of its wildness.

The automobile can take most of the credit—and blame—for those changes. The partnership of finance and technology placed the arrival of the automobile as the first significant social and economic event of the twentieth century. However, in Colorado, as in other states, it took public demand to support a road-building governmental agency to reach the promise, widely believed, that everyone was equal behind the wheel.

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FIRST STEPS: ROAD CONSTRUCTION IN NINETEENTH CENTURY COLORADO In the decade between the end of the Civil War and Colorado’s entry into the Union, the Territorial Assembly passed various acts regulating toll roads, providing stipends for road improvements, and identifying its most traveled roads. These activities were piecemeal, as Colorado’s territorial government had neither the power, funding, nor serious interest in building a statewide road network. After statehood in 1876, Colorado’s General Assembly occasionally would draw money from the state’s Internal Improvement Fund for limited highway projects. The process of selecting which roads to improve often involved political horse-trading.

Many of the state’s leading newspapers and reformers denounced the Internal Improvement Fund as a “Pork Barrel”—a trough where only the greedy and well connected freely wallowed. Without regular funding or a dedicated vision, frequent stumbling plagued the first steps toward road building during most of the nineteenth century. Before the automobile, the daily reality for Colorado’s riders, horses, stages, and carriages was to make do with hard, occasionally muddy tracks through town and country.1 The last third of the nineteenth century saw Colorado’s private citizens and state government experiment to overcome the dual dilemmas of limited funding and labor to build roads. The golden era of the toll road in Colorado arrived by the 1870s and 1880s and the state’s King Midas was Otto Mears. Heralded as a visionary west of the Continental Divide, Mears built 383 miles of toll roads by the late 1880s. From

1881 to 1883, he oversaw the completion of a road over Red Mountain Pass Without regular funding or a (later known as the Million dedicated vision, frequent Dollar Highway) in the state’s southwestern corner. stumbling plagued the first steps However, once he began toward road building during most charging five-dollar tolls of the nineteenth century. for a team and wagon and a dollar for saddle animals,

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his golden touch quickly became tarnished. Four years after Mears opened Red Mountain Pass for travel, public indignation over his “highway robbery” forced the impacted counties and the state to assume control of the road in 1887.2 By century’s end, the question of who will build the highways, and whether they would be built, forced the state’s lawmakers to think outside the right-of-way.

The state legislature looked toward the penitentiary at Cañon City and saw a potential labor pool trapped behind bars. In 1899, the General Assembly authorized the use of convicts to build a wagon road between Leadville and Pueblo. The state deemed the convicts’ construction skills a success, and within a decade, Colorado used more prisoners to clear roads than any other state. The practice continued after the creation of the Colorado Highway Commission in 1910.

Today’s drivers still follow alignments first cleared by chain gangs from Colorado Springs to Leadville, Cañon City to the Royal Gorge Bridge and through the Big Thompson, Colorado, and St. Vrain River valleys.

By the late 1920s, however, federal regulations and complaints by private contractors ended the practice.3

GET IN AND DRIVE: THE AUTOMOBILE COMES TO COLORADO The Colorado Historical Society holds the diary of a respectable Denver resident by the name of David W. Brunton, mining engineer.

In a May 1899 entry he noted taking receipt of his new plaything— a Columbia Electric automobile. After reviewing the automobile’s plans, and breaking out the wrenches and screwdrivers, he boldly took his vehicle along Denver’s brick and hard-packed dirt streets, reaching a top speed of 12 mph. Brunton personified Colorado’s early drivers —a professional with an interest in new technology and the money to afford a much-sought horseless carriage.4 For nearly a decade after Brunton’s first spin, the steering wheel remained firmly in the grip of a privileged few. The state’s newspapers were filled with accounts of the latest attempts to climb the summit of the 14,000-foot-high Pikes Peak or outrage over

reckless drivers, like the man fined $25 in January 1902 for speeding along Denver’s Sixteenth Street at 20 miles per hour (mph) when the city’s speed limit was eight mph (and four mph when crossing an intersection).5 These accounts also carried a subtext—that the new century brought a new method of transportation and the automobile was altering established roles and ways of living. In 1902, the Denver Post learned that among the city’s 200 or so auto owners were a dozen women. The Post congratulated this group of pioneers for having “the courage to take their levers and their destinies in their own hands and face the world.”6 Fascination with locomotion was not just an urban occurrence.

As early as 1905, voices as isolated as the Sterling Democrat in northeastern Colorado asked for the removal of horse teams from the main street so that the rest of the world would not mistake the town as backward and anti-horseless carriage.7 However, not all stories about the first generation of automobile owners were daring or uplifting. Less than four years after Brunton’s first drive, Denver’s police were on the lookout for the city’s first stolen car. Owner M. J. Patterson offered a $50 reward for the return of his red, four-cylinder Franklin and $150 leading to a conviction.8

The road to South Park was wide open during February 1912.

During the early years of the 20th century, only the well-todo ruled the road, but that would soon change as the 1913 legislature approved greater funding for the Colorado Department of Highways. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Despite the individualism and sense of command drivers felt behind the wheel of a motorcar, owners sought each other out for their mutual benefit. On May 15, 1902, an elite group of forty-two auto enthusiasts (mostly doctors, lawyers and other professionals) formed the Colorado Automobile Club (CAC). The members of this exclusive club not only could afford to drive and maintain the first generation of automobiles in Colorado, they also had the wherewithal and influence to lobby state legislators, correspond with county commissioners, and the audacity to lecture property owners on how to maintain roads on their lands. The club listed the following “objects” as its own initial “rules of the road”: 1 2

5 3 4

6

The securing of rational legislation.

The formation of proper rules governing the use of the automobile.

To protect the interests of automobilists against unjust discriminations.

To maintain their lawful rights and privileges.

To encourage prudence and care in driving automobiles.

To promote the good road movement.9

Althoughthehighwaydepartment’sownvehiclesandequipment were largely World War I surplus in the early years, these unidentified department engineers traveled in the latest horseless carriage. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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By the end of July 1905, the CAC agreed to a partnership with a similar recently formed promotional group—the Colorado Good Roads Association. The association counted representatives from the state’s sixty-three counties. Together, both groups pushed for legislation to create a state highway commission to improve state roads and a federal aid system to fund and complete a national highway network.

Representation from all of the state’s counties indicated a change in thinking beyond Colorado’s towns and cities. The car remained a toy of the rich, but this new technology was also an opportunity for Colorado’s rural population to improve their lives.10 The Colorado Good Roads Association met for a second time in December 1906 and proposed creating a state highway commission to fund and regulate future highway construction in Colorado. The state legislature defeated a bill based on the association’s proposal during the 1907 session. The following year, the state legislature took a small step toward highway development by appropriating $2,000 for the fabrication and installation of thirty-one signs along the old Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Colorado.11 By mid-decade, more drivers joined the momentum to establish a state highway network. Colorado came out of the national economic depression of the 1890s giddy on one of its occasional boom cycles.

Between 1900 and 1910, the state averaged 26,000 new residents each year. Denver led the parade of auto-madness. In 1908, the City and County of Denver issued automobile licenses to 2,840 drivers with that number leaping to 4,060 by the following year. At decade’s end, the Denver Republican noted, “few cities have as high a ratio of cars to people as Denver.” The newspaper found that both Denver and Los Angeles had an unusually high number of vehicles on the road for cities of their size.12 As the wealthy and privileged guided the state’s political leaders toward the on-ramp leading to a state highway system, a technological and social force came out of Michigan that altered the world for the rest of the century.

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In 1904, a standard American-made automobile retailed for $3,700.

In October 1908, Henry Ford marketed his Model T for $850— windshield, top, and headlamps extra. Ford revolutionized the auto industry by drastically improving the assembly line and insisting that everyone had the right to own a car. Nearly the entire nation, and later the world, took Ford up on his offer. By 1924, there were 3.5 million cars on America’s roads and most were Ford’s “Tin Lizzies.”13

SHAFROTH STARTS THE ENGINE: THE HIGHWAY COMMISSION COMES INTO EXISTENCE The creation of the Colorado Highway Commission a century ago resulted from the convergence of popular opinion and the policies of a determined leader. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Colorado and the West were at the mercy of the “robber barons” of the railroad industry. Fortunes were made—and squandered—as an elite few profited from the control of freight and passenger travel.

In 1905, upon leaving office, Governor Alva Adams lamented that he had no real control over the affairs of his own state. “Colorado,” he said, “is a province of the fuel company, the smelter trust, the tramway and allied corporations. “ The January 1909 inauguration of “Honest” John Shafroth as governor was the culmination of his campaign promises that the people of Colorado would directly elect their senators, the state would protect an individual’s deposits from bank tampering, and there would at last be regulatory controls over the railroad. Legislation to create an authority to build and maintain a state highway system was only one element of Shafroth’s progressive platform to level the playing field for Colorado’s citizens.14 The creation of the state’s first highway commission came closer to reality after the Colorado Automobile Club and the Colorado Good Roads Association consolidated with the Rocky Mountain Highway Association. The unified forces wrote and prepared a highway commission bill for consideration during the state legislature’s 1909 session. Governor Shafroth spent his first months in office vetoing

almost a hundred piecemeal bills proposing minor road improvements.

Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on temporary roads, he believed, a state highway authority would bring “permanency” to construction and maintenance.15 In May 1909 the legislature passed the bill drafted by the automobile ownership groups asking that that the state create a department to design and implement a statewide road plan. Shafroth signed the bill into law later that year.

The trio first met as the Colorado Highway Commission in Room 27 of the State Capitol on January 18, 1910. The commissioners appointed James E. Maloney of Littleton as secretary and the Commission’s first engineer. The three men and their engineer quickly agreed never to accept a design proposal for road construction unless they had taken a car over the proposed route (or “driven the alignment”) and made a personal inspection. The Commission’s first tasks were to complete

The circumstances leading to the establishment of Colorado‘s first highway commission were not much different from those facing the other forty-five states in the Union. However, the challenges the new commission confronted were unlike most others in the nation. On the day the commission came to life, on January 1, 1910, most of Colorado’s roads were still bumpy, unsafe trails cut by pioneers two generations earlier. Most of the state’s sixty-three county commissions remained unconvinced that they should contribute to a general fund for road construction throughout the state. Topography and nature also presented unique problems. Winters along the Continental Divide ensured both sides of the state were strangers to each other from November to May. As the Colorado Highway Commission prepared to meet for the first time, no engineer, roadway designer, or politician had a plan to conquer the Rockies and link both sides of the state.

THREE MEN AND A CAR: THE COLORADO HIGHWAY COMMISSION HITS THE ROAD On the last day of his first year as governor—December 31, 1909 —Shafroth selected three men to become the state’s first highway commissioners. William M. Wiley, an engineer and entrepreneur from Holly, would represent Colorado’s eastern plains. Thomas H. Tully (also spelled Tulley), a minor Democratic Party loyalist, would speak for western Colorado. The Denver Union Water Company’s Chief Engineer, Charles P. Allen, represented the state’s Front Range and served as the commission’s chair. Allen had spent more than thirty years as a hydraulic engineer before accepting Shafroth’s challenge to help build a state highway network.16

In July 1910, two-thirds of the original Colorado State Highway Commission visited to Silverton to promote the creation of a state highway system. The commissioners travelled across Colorado that spring and summer to find varying degrees of support for the construction of a state highway system. On this trip, commissioners Thomas Tully (left front) and William Wiley (third from the left) met with Otto Mears (second from left) to discuss a highway route connecting southwestern Colorado to the rest of the state and Utah. Tully, Wiley, and Charles P. Allen served as the state’s first highway commissioners until 1913. (Source: Papers of Thomas H. Tully, Box M-050. Located at the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College, Durango).

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a general survey of the state’s roads and apportion state aid to the counties. A county could not receive state aid unless its leaders agreed to raise and spend twice the amount apportioned by the State Highway Commission. By spring 1910 the Highway Commission had hired three assistants on a job-by-job or monthly basis to help Maloney with field surveys.17 The relationship between the highway commissioners and Colorado’s counties had to be cordial if a state highway system were to succeed.

Early in its first month, the Commission asked each county to submit maps indicating its most traveled roads. Otero County in southeastern Colorado was the first to answer the Commission’s call. However, almost half of the state’s sixty-three counties ignored the message and sent no maps to Denver.18 With limited money and little support, the commissioners took off on one of the most significant road trips in Colorado history—the statewide road survey of 1910. Motoring past the state’s spectacular scenery provided no solace for either driver or

passengers during that spring and summer. According to Tully, the commissioners’thoughts and conversations centered on how to broaden support for a state highway network: We found that the people were apathetic. There didn’t seem to be any particular interest in highways. There was a disposition manifested in virtually every section of the state of jealousy of some other section. The belief seemed to prevail that all the highway commission was after was to put in a few good roads around Denver.19 Apathy was only one of the trio’s worries. Tully later remembered that much of the 1,600 miles of terrain they covered that summer and fall covered had not changed much since the formation of the Rocky Mountains: I recall, especially, that we were six hours getting over the Battle Mountain Road and into Glenwood Springs. We got over, but had a broken spring, smashed fenders and a few other breaks, and crawled into Glenwood Springs on the last drop of gasoline.

That is a sample of the trouble we had everywhere, for we found bridges we did not dare to cross in a car, encountered mud that stuck us, found grades we managed to crawl up at a speed a snail could beat, and roads that were never meant for anything but a horse drawn vehicle.20 Back in Denver, the Commission spent the remainder of the year mapping and laying out as much of a roadway system as they could with their remaining funds. At year’s close, the Commission had allotted $46,500 to counties, spent $9,425 for salaries and expenses, and carried a balance of $74.23.21

State Highway 13 in Northwest Colorado remains one of the loneliest stretches of road in the state. This plow, and its operator, reached a standoff with a snowdrift after a 1929 storm.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Aware of the Commission’s plight, the Rocky Mountain Highway Association and the Denver Chamber of Commerce arranged for a conference involving state organizations promoting good roads. The meeting took place in Pueblo in November 1911, and Tully recalled that frustration filled the air: “It was the most spectacular and spirited meeting ever had. That smoldering battle between south and north

Colorado had flamed out and there were bitter denunciations of each other . . . I really believe it was the Pueblo battle that started enthusiasm for good roads that endures to this day and wiped out the sectional feeling.” 22 Debate during the conference resulted in four bills for consideration by the state legislature in the next session.

Lawmakers passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 43 which called for a $10 million bond issue toward construction of new highways.

Colorado’s voters balked at that amount and rejected the bond issue.

To compound the Commission’s destitution, the state Supreme Court declared invalid a law passed during the 1911 session that would have taken $800,000 from the Internal Improvement Income Fund to keep the Commission going.23 The Highway Commission was stuck in neutral with only the lobbying of various automobile enthusiasts keeping road construction in front of the legislature. Their persistence paid off during the 1913 session.

That year, Colorado’s legislators approved a bill reorganizing the State Highway Commission into the State Highway Department, established a continuing appropriation for the state’s roads, and turned the Internal Improvement Fund into an appropriation for road construction. That session also enacted the first law for the registration and licensing of motor vehicles. The initial license fee varied from $2.50 to $10 depending on the car’s horsepower. The state government and the counties divided the revenue from the license fee and prohibited any city or county to levy their own motor vehicle tax.”24 Before its demise, the Highway Commission laid out 4,380 miles of a primary road system eligible for state aid. The Commission estimated that it would take twenty years to complete the grading and surfacing of these roads.25 The first Highway Commission wrote its own epitaph in the Second Biennial Report of the State Highway Commission: “The past two years with the State Highway Commission of Colorado have been a series of handicaps and disappointments.”26 Passage of the 1913 bill ended the first Highway Commission. It also meant that never again in Colorado’s history would a group of enthusiastic automobile owners have so much sway over the development of the state’s highways.

By the mid-1920s, the federal government played a greater role in constructing roads across Colorado.

However, it would be a while before construction, or maintenance, would clear this future highway. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Above: Colorado’s newspapers campaigned for the State Highway Commission and good automobile roads as more people purchased cars. The combination of the commission building and designing roads, and the press promoting Colorado’s spectacular scenery, laid the foundation for the state’s tourism industry. (Source: Papers of Thomas H. Tully, Box M-050. Located at the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College, Durango).

Right: Perhaps the only Colorado roadway immortalized in song — 1975’s “Wolf Creek Pass” by C.W. McCall — Wolf Creek Pass in 1918 had many visual attractions, such as this overhanging rock on the approach to the pass from South Fork, that either amazed or terrified the state’s first generation of drivers. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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MONEY AND A PLAN: THE DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS TAKES CONTROL A stroke of Governor Elias Ammons’s pen made the team that scrimped and suffered during the first three years of the State Highway Commission redundant. On March 25, 1913, Thomas J. Ehrhart became commissioner of the revamped Colorado Highway Commission, supported by a five-member regional advisory board.

A rancher who owned a spread south of Nathrop in Chaffee County, Ehrhart had previously served as a state senator. Under Ehrhart’s leadership, the Commission began to look like an actual agency as it hired full-time engineers to support Maloney, clerks, and a Miss A.A. Ross of Denver as the Commission’s first stenographer.27 As the head of the revamped state highway authority, Ehrhart made himself a public figure and was constantly in the press. Those who opposed the state’s authority over road construction were not impressed with the new commissioner. Denver’s real estate industry attacked him. “State Highway Commissioner Ehrhart,” they said, “betrayed his inefficiency, the inefficiency of the state highway commission and the weakness of the policy of road development.”28 Other voices expressed their hopes that regular construction funding would create a new industry—tourism—for the state. In the decade between 1910 and 1920, Colorado gladly accepted the increasing influx of drivers from around the country drawn by the scenery and lingering romance of the Wild West. Pride in one’s state could occasionally cross into local xenophobia. The Pueblo Chieftain worried that if the state did not improve its highways immediately, that soon, a transcontinental highway would bypass Colorado: A trip from New York to San Francisco without crossing the Rockies in Colorado would be worse than a trip to France without viewing Paris. Shame on ourselves when the little state of Wyoming and the still smaller state of New Mexico are allowed to step in and catch this business which, from every point of consideration, belongs wholly to Colorado.29

On Colorado Day, 1912, U.S. Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado introduced a bill in Congress “establishing the Lincoln memory highway from Boston, Mass. to San Francisco, Cal.” The bill died in committee, but a nationwide group of auto enthusiasts pledged $4 million toward construction of the Lincoln Highway the following year. The relationship between Colorado’s road builders and the Lincoln Highway Association quickly soured. The association’s members accused Colorado of maintaining poor roads and called it “state full of malcontents”obsessed with building a trans-national highway through the Colorado Rockies. Following the logic employed by the railroads nearly a half-century earlier, the association authorized construction of the Lincoln Highway (now Interstate 80) over South Pass in southern Wyoming as the least worrisome route over the Continental Divide.30 Despite the bitterness between Colorado and the Lincoln Highway Association, other “named” interstate roads brought visitors over the eastern plains into the Rockies. In the years before World War I, the National Middle Trail, the Victory Highway, the National Old Trails Highway (now US Highway 40), the Omaha-Lincoln-Denver (OLD) Road, and the Great North and South Highway (now Interstate 25) were the primary thoroughfares into the state. Resulting from the suspicions and misconceptions that drove the bickering with the Lincoln Highway Association, the State Highway Commission fought back with good public relations. In 1919, the Commission launched the magazine ColoradoHighwaysBulletin(subsequentlyColoradoHighways)totrumpet the state’s latest accomplishments in asphalt and concrete.

A partnership between the federal and state governments brought to a close the adventures associated with America’s named highways.

In 1916, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Highway Act, which matched funds available to each state’s highway authority. The legislation initially proposed that each state make 7 percent of its total road mileage eligible for federal funding. Resulting from the 1916 Act, the Colorado Highway Department’s advisory board approved an initial set of construction contracts. Colorado and the federal government would split the costs on the first six Federally Aided Projects (FAP):

17

FAP-1: Denver to Littleton (Santa Fe), $73,939.74 FAP-2: Pueblo to Trinidad, $267,191.91 FAP-3: Granite to Twin Lakes, $37,089.90 FAP-4: Rifle to Meeker, $79,082.85 FAP-5: Placerville to Norwood, $7,480 FAP-6: Lamar to Springfield, $10,390.9031 Building on the Federal Highway Act, the state legislature passed another highway act in 1917. The act combined state and federal funds into a central pool for distribution throughout Colorado for highway development and maintenance. The legislature also reorganized the State Highway Commission into the Colorado Highway Department.

Ehrhart and the five-member advisory board retained their roles. The 1917 act also divided the state into seven districts. Each district had its own assistant superintendent of maintenance and a division engineer for surveys, construction, and supervision. Under the reorganization, however, the Department’s central office in Denver was anything but central. For almost half a century, the Highway Department’s management and engineers had their offices near the corner of Colfax Avenue and Sherman Street, while other employees of the various units (known internally as “squads”) worked out of buildings at Nineteenth and Broadway, Eighth and Emerson, and Fourteenth and Krameria. It would take until the mid-1950s before the various squads in Denver would be under one roof. 32 In 1918, the Department laid its first stretch of concrete pavement south of Denver along the alignment of today’s Santa Fe Drive. The decision to improve the main road south of Denver was a wise one, as by 1923, the state counted 1,200 to 3,500 vehicles a day between the state capital and Colorado Springs. The ever-increasing number of cars forced the department to widen the road again by the early 1920s.33

much higher in the decade after the Armistice. As the 1920s dawned, the Colorado Department of Highways had grown to a staff of 250 people with seven divisions led by a highway commissioner earning $3,600 annually. In 1919, Colorado was one of the first four states (initiated by Oregon) to levy a one cent per gallon motor fuel tax solely for road construction. The combination of federal dollars and gas tax revenues provided the stimulus to aim high and build roads above 10,000 feet.34 A new decade also brought a change in the Department’s leadership.

Governor Oliver Shoup appointed Major Louis D. Blauvelt as the state’s highway engineer in 1921. Blauvelt built railroads prior to his appointment to head the Highway Department. During World War I, “The Major” supervised construction of arsenals and munitions depots for the Army. His first job in civilian life was as chief engineer of the Colorado Railroad Commission. Blauvelt’s attention to detail is evident in his supervision of the 6.1-mile long Moffat Tunnel through the Continental Divide. The Major’s calculations were so accurate that the tunnel’s grade was within .3 feet of specifications and the horizontal alignment was only 1.74 feet off design specifications. Blauvelt’s nearly decade-long term as the Department’s chief engineer followed two doctrines established by his predecessor Ehrhart—manage federal

Right: The Colorado Highway Commission and Clason Publishing of Denver issued the state’s first highway map in 1912. During the 20th century’s first two decades, drivers followed named roads in and around Colorado. Named roads fell out of favor after the federal government established a numerical system

THE DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS TAKES TO THE HILLS, 1919-1929 If the Department concentrated on automobile roads to lure motorists to Colorado before the First World War, the state’s road builders aimed 18

for highway identification during the 1920s. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Library, Denver).

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funding of road construction in Colorado and promote automobile tourism to the rest of the nation. 35 The 1921 legislative session also ushered in a new highway law mandating that the Department build all roads in the state and share maintenance costs with each county. The head of the Department’s newly created Division of Maintenance, R.H. “Bob” Higgins, had been president of the Colorado Good Roads Association. It was said of Higgins that he held the state record for traveling over 140,000 miles in an automobile with only 100 of that total behind the wheel.36 For the remainder of the 1920s, Higgins’ maintenance division ran on 485 war surplus four-wheel-drive trucks and 22 tractors.

During the administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, a steady stream of dollars left Washington to fund road building across the nation. In Colorado, Washington’s influence helped to realize the design and construction of difficult, high-profile projects. The federal Bureau of Public Roads managed the first major post-war construction project —a 27.5 mile-long highway over 11,400-foot high Monarch Pass.

The three-year project paired the Bureau of Public Roads and the U.S. Forest Service with the Colorado Department of Highways. Colorado contributed a quarter of the final tally of approximately $200,000 to complete the road. The work at altitude was difficult and the Bureau directed the construction with a military precision. The results were worth the effort. Before its completion in September 1921, the Bureau’s engineer for the project, William Jeffrey, wrote to his wife: “You ought to see the cars coming over Monarch now. Our road resembles Broadway sometimes.”37

This“splendid example of Colorado gravel highways” from 1922 was a result of the Department’s recently acquired war surplus machinery and old fashioned horsepower. (Source: Colorado Highways, Colorado Department of Transportation Library, Denver).

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After Monarch Pass, the federal-state road building partnership continued elsewhere across the Rockies. In the San Juan Mountains, asphalt was used to improve Otto Mears’s “Million Dollar Highway.”

The nation’s highest highway—the Mount Evans Road—went from drafting table to asphalt surface in only three years. Conquering the state’s highest peaks one mountain at a time was not enough for some.

The chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, Thomas H. MacDonald,

taunted local road builders. He pointed out that Colorado was “overlooking one of the biggest opportunities that could possibly come to a state”—a paved automobile highway over the Continental Divide. The Department explained that its reason for not building a road over the Divide was that the federal government owned much of the land in the state. These non-taxable federal lands meant Colorado could not take as large a piece from the substantial revenue base to pay for new highway construction as other states.

This disadvantage usually placed Colorado 40th out of 48 states for highway revenue into the 1940s.38 Despite the blessings and burdens associated with huge amounts of federal land, Colorado could look back at the end of the 1920s and count an average of $10 million in its annual highway budget each year from 1922 to 1929. However, as a result of the 1929 stock market crash, the Department lost that funding momentum. In 1930, nearly every issue of Colorado Highways trumpeted road construction as the relief for the state’s deepening unemployment problem. By September 1930, Colorado had spent $5 million and the Highway Department directly hired 1,200 workers to build, gravel, and maintain the state’s roads.39 Then, as the Depression began to settle in and deepen, the Department suffered the additional shock of the death of Major Blauvelt from an arthritis attack in October 1930. During Blauvelt’s nine years as highway engineer, the state expended $75 million to expand and maintain Colorado’s 9,203 roadway miles.40 Because of the automobile, Colorado was a much different place in 1930 than it was in 1900. In the short span of thirty years, the automobile bolstered existing industries like agriculture and fostered what would go on to become one of the state’s most profitable revenue sources—tourism. The Department of Highways could take credit for bringing reliable roads and their resulting commerce to the state’s vast eastern plains, clearing the first highway roads through the Rockies, and regulating traffic in Colorado’s growing cities and towns. Each new highway represented an opportunity that did not exist when the first automobile came to the state at the turn of the century.

Freed from tolling, the Million Dollar Highway south of Ouray was improved, opening it to an increasing number of drivers by the 1920s.

In the space of two decades, the department built miles of safer roads over and through the state’s various landscapes, often opening spectacular vistas like this one.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

By end of the 1920s, the nation’s auto industry was cranking out cars as fast as state and federal authorities could pave roads. At the start of the 1930s, the car was no longer a rich man’s plaything. By the middle of the Depression, many people would leave their homes behind to venture into an uncertain world in their most indispensable possession—an automobile. Colorado’s Highway Department faced the Great Depression guided by the policies, regulations, and engineering sense that evolved over its first two decades.

The experiences and lessons learned in those first two decades helped prepare the Highway Department for its future of weathering the financial uncertainty of the Depression and on to significant engineering achievements ranging from Vail Pass to T-REX, from the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels to the I-70 Final Link in Glenwood Canyon. A dramatic future awaited, and it was not far ahead.

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CHAPTER 2

22

Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels, East Portal, on I-70 west of Denver. The 1.7 mile twin tunnels provide vehicle access beneath the Continental Divide and are one of the great engineering feats of Colorado state transportation history. (Source: Tunnels Section 9 Maintenance, Region 1).

Overcoming Obstacles: The Evolution of Colorado’s Highways

by Jennifer Wahlers, CDOT Assistant Staff Historian

T

o say that driving on early roads in Colorado was treacherous would be an understatement. But the labor that went into constructing Colorado’s roads was even more dangerous. As equipment technology advanced over time—and as surveyors, engineers, and builders improved and honed their skills—new and safer roads opened across the state. Routes that had been too perilous or physically impossible to build with hand tools and early machinery became a reality. Unthinkable passes were opened to provide the traveling public new experiences and explorations, and the state’s once isolated regions became more accessible than ever.

In addition to technological advances, Colorado road building improved through the state’s attention to social and environmental imperatives—many of which changed the way highways were built. A century ago the most important goal was to find the fastest, easiest, and cheapest route across mountain or plain. Today highway development takes citizens’ concerns into account and works to protect the environment and natural geography. In fact, Colorado’s geography presents innumerable challenges to road construction, yet it is the very thing that entices tourists and residents alike. The advancements in Colorado highway building, both technological and social, have resulted in a modern transportation infrastructure that serves millions of travelers each day.

“JUST A PART OF THE DAY’S ROUTINE”: CONFRONTING ADVERSITY TO BUILD COLORADO’S EARLY HIGHWAYS The Million Dollar Highway (US 550), which is arguably one of Colorado’s most visually stunning highways, is an example of how early auto roads in Colorado came about.1 Initially, prospectors with their burros slowly and carefully blazed a trail over the rugged San Juan Mountains, and a primitive road was born.2 Based upon this early path, Otto Mears constructed a private toll road in the 1880s. It was no doubt an incredible accomplishment to

Silverton-Ouray Highway postcard, circa 1920.

(Source: Dan & Kathy Jeffrey, Denver).

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chart a virgin road through some of Colorado’s most rugged landscape.

In one year, Mears’ crews cleared 8.5 miles of rock at $40,000 per mile. Although an arduous task to complete, this new route served a necessarypurpose—providingamuch-needed connectionbetweenthe region’s mines and their suppliers in Ouray and Silverton. Following arguments over excessive toll charges by Mears, the state of Colorado and the impacted counties took over the control and maintenance of this important route in 1887.3 Subsequent to the first automobile trip over the Ouray-Silverton road in 1910, the state and the county set about improving it for automobile travel in 1916.4 This exemplifies a common trend in early Colorado highways, which consisted of routes and structures owned and operated by county governments with little help from the state besides designation on the statewide network and occasional engineering assistance. By the 1920s, with federal aid project money, the state had extended, widened, and rerouted much of the highway. It was during

Using hand tools on the Million Dollar Highway in 1918. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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this time that the term “Million Dollar Highway” was coined, reportedly for the amount it would cost to make the improvements and complete “some of the most difficult and costly road building in the world.”5 The State Highway Department would continue to make improvements to the storied and sometimes hazardous route. With the assistance of advanced snow-clearing equipment, the route remained open year-round for the first time in 1935 despite the risk of frequent avalanches—for some twenty points on the highway are avalancheprone.6 Following several avalanche-related fatalities, the highway department constructed the 180-foot-long, 60-foot-wide Riverside Slide Snowshed in 1985. In addition to the snowshed, avalanche control workers utilize rifles, shells, and bombs dropped from helicopters to control the incredibly dangerous slides.7 The snowshed and maintenance crews, armed with information from advanced studies on avalanche reduction sponsored by today’s Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), keep a route that started as an early mining toll road accessible to travelers as a modern, improved, and visually stunning highway.

While the alignment of the Million Dollar Highway followed an old mining toll road, other early highways were planned relatively from scratch. One of these is Wolf Creek Pass. Prior to the construction of this mountain road, much of southwestern Colorado was truly isolated.

Rudimentary routes and early Native American trails into the region existed but were often flooded and impassable. In order to provide a link to the rest of the state, the Colorado Highway Commission appointed a construction committee with commissioners from three surrounding counties—Archuleta, Alamosa, and Rio Grande. Indicative of local government control in developing and maintaining roads at the time, the commissioners went about determining a route for the new roadway. They hired a civil engineer and conducted surveys to determine which of two passes would work best—Elwood Pass or Wolf Creek Pass. The commissioners split in their decision. It wasn’t until the Rio Grande County commissioner took the undecided Archuleta

At the time it was completed in 1916, the Wolf Creek route, elevation 10,850’, was the highest automobile pass in the state.

County commissioner on a hair-raising trip over Elwood Pass that the tie was broken and Wolf Creek was selected.

Construction was soon started and Wolf Creek Pass opened to traffic on August 21, 1916.8

Building Wolf Creek Pass and other high mountain roadways during that era was a painstaking task. CDOT’s road-building predecessors did not have the benefit of today’s technology, including heavy earth-moving machinery, engines with enough horsepower to climb precipitous grades, and drilling and blasting equipment. Building a new road in the early 1900s was often done by hand and literally used horsepower—and oxen power and donkey power. First, new routes required clearing and grubbing heavily wooded alpine environments with hand tools and beasts of burden. In addition to vegetation, the rocks and boulders that scattered the mountainsides had to be cleared before any plows or grading equipment could be used—though clearing crews did benefit from using dynamite and the more popular TNT. Once the area was cleared, plows with scrapers would gradually widen the proposed route to the desired width using tandem teams of horses.

Like the Million Dollar Highway, the Wolf Creek Pass route has been improved several times since its initial construction not only to accommodate more automobile traffic, but also to increase safety in the unique mountain environment. At the time it was completed in 1916, the Wolf Creek route, elevation 10,850’, was the highest automobile pass in the state. Early drivers regarded the Fourth of July Cliff as a particularly dangerous death trap, “with a straight drop of 2,000 feet from the mountain ledge to the bottom of the canyon.”9 In 1925, the route was widened for safety, and in 1950 a final stretch of paving closed “the last gap in the first hard surfaced road between eastern Colorado . . . and the fabulous scenic southwest.”10 The new road measured no

less than eighteen feet wide at any given point. Another hazard on the Wolf Creek route, the Alberta Snow Slide, could engulf the highway with a massive wall of snow and render it impassable. A 400-foot-long snowshed, built there in 1965, protected motorists from certain disaster.

In 2004, a new 900-foot tunnel added even more protection. A decade long $88.5 million series of projects to widen and improve safety on US Highway 160 over Wolf Creek Pass concluded in 2009.

Wolf Creek Pass represents another example of cooperation between the state and its counties to create highways that served Coloradans and opened up previously isolated regions. Ironically, the same geography that isolated residents also attracted tourists—and it plagued historic road builders just as it continues to present unique transportation engineering problems for Colorado’s highway engineers.

Monarch Pass is another early highway route in Colorado—but one initiated by the federal government. The U.S. Forest Service opened what was regarded as “the most beautiful piece of highway in the state” in 1921 at a cost of over $200,000, or approximately $2.4 million in 2009 dollars.11 Survey crews worked in remote wilds for many

Survey Party on Wolf Creek Pass in 1913. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

25

months and endured incredible weather that produced snow two and three feet deep and temperatures as low as 43 degrees below zero.12 In addition to the extreme cold and isolation, they spent up to five weeks trudging across the deep-powder terrain on snowshoes—far less than ideal conditions for surveying work.13

Contemporary survey team using snowshoes to complete their work on Hardscrabble Canyon, circa 1919.

(Source: Dan & Kathy Jeffrey, Denver).

Once construction began, the crews working on the road stayed in tent camps that moved from point to point as construction progressed. Like the surveyors, the men who worked on the road suffered considerable hardship: they were separated from their families for long periods of time, isolated from the world by sporadic mail service, and braved dangerous natural elements to complete their jobs, stopping only when the snow became too deep and heavy to complete any further work.14 Sometimes they abandoned their tents to find shelter in mine structures along the way. The one bright spot, it seemed, was food. According to William Jeffrey, the highway engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads in charge of the Monarch Pass project, “the board furnished was excellent, and two very capable cooks were employed. Many men leaving these camps soon came back to work, the reason given in most cases being ‘good grub here.’ Too great emphasis cannot be laid on the furnishing of good and wholesome food to the men, as it eliminates a large amount of discontent and keeps the better class of men on the work.”15 Most of the early effort on the Monarch Pass route relied on laborers with pick and shovel along with wagon teams, but eventually the Bureau of Public Roads brought in heavy equipment. Nevertheless, there were stories of a slow, cumbersome steam shovel that was prone to breaking down and had to be transported to the nearest town for repair.16

A worker’s camp on the Monarch Pass road in 1921.

(Source: Dan & Kathy Jeffrey, Denver).

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When construction ended, approximately 1,000 citizens participated in the dedication ceremonies of the route, one of the few in Colorado that linked Denver to the west.17 The celebration, however, did not last long. Seventeen years after the Monarch Pass road was constructed it was determined to be too steep with too many sharp turns. State Highway Department engineers came up with an alternative in nearby Agate Pass, which would result in better approach alignments, but locals argued for the road to be built over Marshall Pass instead. Ultimately, CharlesVail, the highway department’s chief engineer,

decided on the Agate Pass alignment, located just over a half mile to the east of the original Monarch Pass alignment.

Unlike the building of the original Monarch Pass route, design engineers during the 1939 reconstruction benefitted from new technology in road building equipment that allowed for previously impossible construction in remote, challenging regions. The short amount of time that passed from the 1921 completion of the original Monarch Pass route to the 1939 reconstruction brought enough advances in equipment technology that routes through Colorado’s unique topography thought impossible eighteen years prior were then attainable. Upon completion of the new pass, it was to be named Vail Pass; however, proponents of the Marshall Pass route vehemently protested and vandalized signs withVail’s name.

The Highway Department decided to maintain the old name Monarch Pass despite its new location, but Charles Vail would not have to wait long to get his namesake pass.18

THE DEPRESSION: THE SILVER LINING TO THE COUNTRY’S DARKEST DAYS Although the Depression was a terrible time for the nation and the states, it proved to be a boon to road construction in Colorado. When Franklin Roosevelt pledged a New Deal for the American people, nobody knew just what it would look like. As it turned out, the New Deal meant encouraging better farming practices, creating public art projects, constructing civic and community buildings, and improving infrastructure like nothing before. Colorado’s roads, in particular, benefited from what some people considered “make work projects.” More than a third of Works Progress Administration funds expended in Colorado went into road projects. Across the state, WPA workers built or improved 9,458 miles of highways, roads, and streets; 3,368 bridges and viaducts; and 21,241 culverts.19

Workers on the Monarch Pass road dealing with stuck equipment in 1921. (Source: Dan & Kathy Jeffrey, Denver).

While WPA forces accomplished a huge amount of road work in the state, they were not the only agency helping to develop and improve Colorado’s nascent infrastructure. Since the WPA lacked skilled workers, many major road jobs went to the State Highway Department, the Public Works Administration (PWA), and the Bureau of Public Roads. The highway department’s Charles D. Vail successfully lobbied Gov. Edwin C. Johnson and the state legislature to finance highway projects by borrowing against future gasoline tax revenues in 1935.20 This money, 27

added to grants from the PWA, allowed the highway department to complete several notable projects across the state, including part of what was to become known as Vail Pass. In 1936, the department undertook a reconnaissance survey of the route that would bear Vail’s name (and lend his name, by the same token, to one of the world’s most famous ski resorts).21 From 1939 to 1940, PWA crews constructed 4.6 miles of the new road from Wheeler Junction, now Copper Mountain, to the top of the new pass, which at that time carried no name. At the same time, a private contractor worked on a 9.5-mile stretch from the top of the pass down the west side to Gore Creek.22 The signs bearing Vail’s name went up on December 16, 1939.23

RESOLVING DIFFICULT TERRAIN CHALLENGES THROUGH BRIDGE ENGINEERING The engineers who planned and designed Colorado’s roads had to contend with a multitude of landforms and overcome unique topographic constraints. From wide meandering rivers on the eastern plains to raging rapids in narrow mountain canyons, Colorado’s roads spanned a diverse mixture of natural features. State engineers took on jobs large and small—from soaring arched bridges to small culverts to engineering marvels like the sculptured freeway that graces the sides of Glenwood Canyon in western Colorado.

Once the state took over roads previously owned and managed by the counties, it was left with a hodgepodge of bridges built at different times and of different materials. Around 1916, the state revised and improved standard bridge designs and undertook the first bridge inventory, identifying structures on state owned roadways.27 Many of the structures, it found, had been built by railroads, mining groups, private citizens, and the U.S. Forest Service. As a result of the inventory, the state learned it had approximately 1,800 to 2,000 bridges with spans of twenty feet or greater.28 In addition to the responsibility of inventorying bridges in the state, Staff Bridge Branch at the Colorado Department of Transportation, the bridge unit located at the headquarters office, is responsible for many other tasks. In 1972, the federal government began offering funds for regular and systematic bridge inspections, which Colorado utilized.29 In addition to inspecting and maintaining records on all major vehicular bridges, the branch inspects and maintains records on tunnels, minor culverts, high mast lights, mast arm signals, and overhead signs within the CDOT right of way.

Colorado’s dry air and high altitude have required engineers to consider the effects of nature on a bridge’s durability in ways that differ from other parts of the country.30 In this respect, one of Colorado’s most

When the Colorado Highway Commission was established in 1910, bridge building around the state had already been somewhat standardized through the assistance of the State Engineer’s Office, which aided counties in designing major bridges and overseeing their construction.24 The new highway commission, and later the highway department, had a difficult time The Red Cliff Arch Bridge convincing towns and counties to use concrete, which under construction in winter conditions. (Photograph was more expensive than cheap and plentiful timber but 25

by N.B. Rongen, from the was much stronger and longer-lasting. Nevertheless, the Colorado Highways issue of commission managed to build nearly 275 concrete, steel, Rocky Mountain Contractor, and reinforced concrete spans for approximately $1,000 March 12, 1941). each, many of them replacing older wood structures.26 28

striking bridges—and one that spans a sheer canyon—is the Red Cliff Arch Bridge. Completed in 1940, the bridge addressed the need to eliminate a “tortuous” 1.8-mile section of highway near the foot of Battle Mountain that ran through the town of Red Cliff.31 Designedbythehighwaydepartment’sstaffengineer, King Burghardt, the Red Cliff Arch Bridge reflects an innovative cantilevered construction.32 Sheer canyon walls prevented test pits at the proposed pedestal locations, so the abutments, piers, and pedestals had to be built using hand drills and small dynamite charges in precarious locations without the benefit of previous location specific testing. The difficulties in constructing the substructure, however, were not the only problems encountered.

When the time came for the steel fabrication and erection, the contractor could not find steelworkers who would work in subzero temperatures at 8,700 feet. According to Burghardt, the men worked at temperatures of 18 degrees below zero with frost crystals creating slippery and hazardous conditions on the sloping rib sections situated approximately 210 feet above the canyon floor.33 Workers were hoisted to scaffolding on a platform that hung from a line, and they ate their lunches on the steel structure while frigid winds whipped around them.34 When completed, the bridge helped forge the final link in hard-surfacing US Highway 24 across the state. It was hailed “the most spectacular bridge ever built on Colorado’s highway system.”35 In recognition of its unique form and the fact that the Red Cliff Arch Bridge is the only example of its construction type in the state, it was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.36

Completed Red Cliff Arch Bridge stands proudly in 1949.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

29

Another bridge listed to the National Register of Historic Places—also from a Colorado Department of Highways design—is the open spandrel concrete arch Castlewood Canyon Bridge, built in 1948. The structure was built on what was originally to be the route of I-25 through the area, State Highway 83, the Franktown Road. I-25 was ultimately built on an alignment further to the west, but the impressive bridge remains.37 Open spandrel concrete arches were not a new structural type, but they fell out of favor because they were prone to cracking.

Because of its significance as the longest concrete arch bridge in Colorado, project engineers recognized the historical importance of the structure and rehabilitated it in 2003. They maintained the concrete arch but replaced other deteriorating components using unique techniques that resembled the original bridge elements. This included replacing the bridge railing with a modern one that met current safety standards but was treated to resemble the original doghouse rail, and the use of fiber-reinforced polymer to wrap the arch. Parts of the original bridge have been preserved and are on display on a trail under the structure.38

Top: Constructing the framework for the Castlewood Canyon Bridge in 1948. Lower: The bridge following its 2003 rehabilitation. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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TRAFFIC JAM: NEW APPROACHES TO HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT IN THE POSTWAR ERA World War II, which helped pull the nation out of the Great Depression, proved to be a difficult time in road development in Colorado. To conserve rubber, equipment, and raw goods for the war effort, the War Department insisted that highway departments get federal approval to start any project more than $5,000.39 This limit on major road building projects put a temporary halt to the impetus on highway construction during the 1930s. After the war, however, highway development slowly recovered, turning to the construction of major “mega roads” to ease congestion and facilitate travel. This new approach came about, in part, by the formation of a Highway Planning Committee, which Governor Lee Knous established in 1949 to “make a thorough study of economic and practical problems involved in Colorado’s highways, and to prepare a long-range program for their development.”40 For the first time, the highway department would need to listen to the general public and study population trends and highway usage to determine where its limited funds would be spent.

THE BOULDER TURNPIKE: “A DREAM YESTERDAY, A REALITY TODAY”41

Almost immediately following the war there was a cry for new and better roads in the Front Range corridor—particularly between Denver and Boulder. Boulder’s population had almost doubled since the beginning of the war, and some Boulderites called for the immediate construction of a new road connecting the university town to the larger metropolis.42 The highway department argued that funds simply didn’t exist, but that did not dissuade Boulder residents and students at the University of Colorado, who, under the direction of Prof. Roderick L. Downing, “surveyed possible routes for the new highway.”43 In 1949 the legislature passed a bill authorizing the highway department to build a toll road that would be initially funded with bonds and paid for by tolls when the road was complete.44 Howard, Needles, Tammen,

The Broomfield Interchange Tollhouse on the Boulder Turnpike in 1952.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

and Bergendoff, a Kansas City consulting firm hired by the state of Colorado, conducted an economic feasibility study that predicted it would take thirty years for the road to pay for itself.45 On January 19, 1952, after an investment of $6.3 million, the road opened to traffic.

Built to freeway standards which included divided lanes and controlled access to the roadway, it incorporated toll collection stations placed at each terminus and at the Broomfield exit.46 So many travelers passed through the toll booths, paying the 25 cents to travel from Denver to Boulder and 15 cents to exit at Broomfield, that the road became free in 1967 after fifteen years, roughly half the time consultants had predicted.

The Boulder turnpike was the first public toll road to become a free highway in the United States.47

A “SUPER HIGHWAY” FOR DENVER: THE VALLEY HIGHWAY For some time the State Highway Department had recognized the need for a fast north-south arterial through Denver. During the Depression, the Platte Valley Drive Road became the first such attempt, but it never effectively served the purpose.48 Charles D. Vail undertook the

31

effort once again in 1944, hiring the consulting engineering firm of Crocker and Ryan to study different routes for a north-south highway through Denver.49 The consulting firm recommended a route along what is basically the present route of I-25 through Denver, following the South Platte River from the north, then turning southeast at approximately Broadway and Alameda, and then curving south again at Colorado Boulevard. Highway department planners designed theValley Highway with a high level of foresight, following federal standards for interstate highways so that the route could be incorporated fairly easily into the interstate following the Interstate Highway Act in 1956.50 Groundbreaking on the first leg occurred on November 16, 1948. It would be ten years before the full length of the Valley Highway, from Fifty-second Avenue to East Evans Avenue, was opened for travel at a cost of over $3 million dollars per mile—twice that of initial estimates.51 The Valley Highway posed an unprecedented set of issues for the highway department. Never before had it faced the prospect of constructing a highway through a major city. Because the route cut across streets, neighborhoods, and business blocks, copious rights of way had to be acquired. Initially the city of Denver took responsibility for this, but early on it used up all of its funds and the highway department began acquiring rights of way, with the city reimbursing the state when funds were available.52 It was estimated that almost $10 million (nearly $70 million in 2007 dollars) would be needed to acquire the property.

In the long run, the city, the state, and the federal government (following the passage of the 1956 Interstate Highway Act) shared the cost of buying up property in Denver. The Interstate Highway Act offered federal-state matching funds at a ratio of 90 to 10, making it possible for the project to continue.53 But obtaining the Valley corridor’s right of way was no small task. More than 500 parcels of land had to be purchased, and many Denverites were unwilling to lose their homes for a new highway even if appraisers offered them a fair market value.54 Condemnation proceedings resulted in some cases, and each one required a time-consuming and expensive trial to determine the actual value of land and property.55 The Valley Highway ultimately ended up bisecting the neighborhoods of Globeville and Argo and

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demolished at least seventy structures in the immediate area.56 Although built with engineering foresight and careful planning, it represented a period in which highway engineers and transportation planners in general paid little attention to public concerns expressed by citizens’ groups and local residents. This would change in a major way with the advent of the environmental movement.

CHALLENGING THE MOUNTAINS: I-70 THROUGH THE COLORADO ROCKIES The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 marked a huge milestone in highway building in the country. It was the “beginning of the most gigantic public works program ever attempted anywhere in the world.”57 The act called for a system of highways to connect major metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers. It would also tie together routes of continental importance and serve national defense.58 Once completed, all highways designated as part of the interstate system were to be at least four-lane and divided, with interchanges and grade separations at crossing points. When all was said and done, Colorado ended up with 956 miles of road on designated interstate highways, including I-25, I-76, I-225, I-270, and I-70.59 Of the five interstates that run through Colorado, I-70 is perhaps the highest profile. Yet the east-west interstate through central Colorado nearly failed because Utah officials balked at building an expensive interstate highway through the challenging red rock desert and difficult mountainous terrain in eastern Utah. Following many negotiations, Utah agreed to the present interstate, and Congress approved the plan in October 1956.60 In 1960, Colorado highway commissioners “unanimously designated U.S. Highway 6 from Empire Junction to Dotsero” as the route the new “super road” would follow.61 I-70 was to feature one of the single greatest engineering accomplishments in the United States, the twin-bore, 1.7-mile Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels system completed in 1979. Colorado highway engineers, like railroad planners

before them, had dreamed of conquering the Continental Divide— especially directly west of Denver, up Clear Creek Canyon and down Straight Creek Canyon on the west side of the Continental Divide. This was accomplished via a modern highway at a point approximately 1,500 feet below the Divide, and approximately three miles from Loveland Pass, where the east and west portals of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels usher vehicles into the mountain. The first tunnel, the Eisenhower, was begun in 1968 by a consortium of construction companies which formed the “Straight Creek Contractors,” Straight Creek being the original name for the tunnel. The project was so immense that Charles Shumate, the highway department’s chief engineer, equated building the tunnel at 11,000 feet to “putting a five-story building through a mountain.”62

engineering accomplishment in the state’s history was finished after nearly thirteen years and an expenditure of approximately $125 million.68 The tunnels contain “an arsenal of about 100 cameras, a sophisticated lighting system and a state-of-the-art ventilation system” which is monitored twenty-four hours a day.69 Specially-designed lights within the tunnel help to transition a driver’s sight back to daylight following a nearly two-mile-long underground drive. In addition, ensuring clean air in the tunnels is of paramount importance. Nearly two-thirds of the total excavated area is occupied by twenty-eight massive fans which remove carbon monoxide from the tunnels.70 In addition, the tunnel has its own fire department, including a fireproof water truck, and a 120,000-gallon reservoir on the mountaintop above.71 These efforts to

The project ran into innumerable problems, including landslides, rock falls, cave-ins, and a geological squeezing effect which caused a section of tunnel floor to rise nearly 1.4 feet in two months.63 A section of rock described as “rotten” proved to be a particularly difficult geological barrier to overcome.64 Building the tunnel was an incredibly dangerous job, especially as the tunnel bore deeper into the mountain and diesel fumes could overcome workers inside the tunnel’s confines.65 During the construction of the tunnels, nine workers were killed and several were injured—buried in avalanches or crushed by massive rocks.66 The project engineers overcame these many obstacles, and the Eisenhower Tunnel was dedicated on March 8, 1973, at a cost of $108 million. Thanks to the Interstate Highway Act, the federal government paid approximately 92 percent of that cost. The completion of the tunnel required a gargantuan work force of more than 1,140 laborers who worked in three shifts, around the clock, six days a week. The need for the tunnel was quickly justified, as one million vehicles traveled through the Eisenhower within its first four months. After seven months, the tunnel served two million vehicles. The second tunnel, the eastbound Johnson Tunnel, named after former Colorado governor and U.S. senator Edwin C. Johnson, was begun in 1975 and finished in 1979.67 With the completion of the Johnson Tunnel, the largest

The control room at the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels in 1973.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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ensure the safety of the traveling public have paid off: there has not been a single fatal auto accident in the thirty-six years since the Eisenhower Tunnel opened for traffic.72 The completion of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels left the final unfinished segment of I-70 to be completed. This was the 12.5-mile Glenwood Canyon between Dotsero and Glenwood Springs that included some of the most gorgeous scenery in Colorado. U.S. 6 previously wound its narrow, two-lane way through the canyon, along with tracks of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, but the task of engineering a modern highway through a narrow canyon with two-thousand-foot-tall cliffs while still preserving the fragile canyon environment proved unprecedented.73 The project was among the first in Colorado to produce an Environmental Impact Statement under the National Environmental Policy Act—and it was a huge milestone in opening up“the interaction between social, political, environmental and technical aspects of roadway design and construction.”74 Additionally, it pioneered a unique change in project implementation—the notion of testing the constructability of a project during the design phase with environmental protection efforts in mind rather than setting out simply to overcome nature’s obstacles.

Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon has proved to be a stunningly successful engineering accomplishment. It employed technology to create a roadway that did not obliterate nature, but worked in tandem with it. Drawing upon European styles of road building, the highway department built forty bridges and viaducts, three tunnels, fifteen miles of retaining walls, four full-service rest areas, and a bike path—all of which marked a key change in how engineers and the public approached highway projects.75 The department accomplished this feat by working with groups originally opposed to the project to build a consensus regarding what should happen and how to achieve it. According to Ralph Trapani, the highway department’s Glenwood Canyon project manager beginning in 1980, working towards a consensus helped opposing groups see the project from each other’s perspectives.76

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A MONSTER NAME FOR MONSTER PROJECT: T-REX By the 1990s, I-25 and I-225 in Denver needed to be rehabilitated to accommodate higher traffic levels. The reconstruction would: 1) add an additional lane in each direction along most portions of the I-25 southeast corridor, 2) reconstruct eight interchanges, particularly the I-25 and I-225 interchange, 3) rehabilitate or replace eighteen overpass bridges, 4) reconstruct a section of I-25 between Steele and Broadway Streets known as “the narrows,” and 5) implement major drainage improvements.77 This was a monster project which required huge amounts of coordination and was aptly named T-REX, the Transportation Expansion Project.78 The unique aspect of this project, however, was that it met not only highway interests, but brought together long-range planning and multimodal interests as well. Combining highway building and light-rail construction together saved significant costs over undertaking each project separately.

The project consisted of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD), and the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG).

All of the groups sought to minimize inconvenience to the community, motorists, and the public during the construction phase. The project, which included two segments of light rail, fifteen miles along I-25 and four miles along I-225, began in November, 2001. Unlike the earlier experience with the Valley Highway, project coordinators took the interests of city residents and businesses into consideration to a much greater extent.

Since the project was such a colossal effort, one that could otherwise seriously impede traffic flow and movement throughout the city, the team undertook extremely careful and thoughtful planning to identify potential problems. Three courtesy patrol trucks drove the project corridor during rush hour, fixing flat tires, filling empty gas tanks, and finding repair for disabled vehicles free of charge to keep traffic moving along.79 In addition, various groups formed a “strong pre-construction outreach and education campaign” that worked with and informed

area business owners and residents.80 Although T-REX did encounter noise complaints, mixed opinions about retaining wall art, and noise abatement walls restricting views, the project was deemed a huge success overall. Because of careful planning, coordination, and listening to public concerns, T-REX came to completion in 2006—nearly two years ahead of schedule and below budget.81 By working with stakeholders and utilizing new technologies, CDOT had shown how it had truly come a long way since the days of early road building.

As a result of these advanced technologies, survey crews now have the benefit of GPS systems and equipment that pinpoint location and elevation information along the highway and lightrail route.82 In addition, various Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) components provide closed-circuit television cameras to monitor traffic conditions that can be relayed to the media and the public, dynamic message signs that provide travelers with traffic information before they encounter problem areas, and Freeway and Arterial Vehicle Detection Systems which monitor traffic in the area. All of this information is monitored and controlled from the CDOT Traffic Operations Center, a facility staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.83

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT (ARRA) The most recent challenge that CDOT has taken on is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.

The act aims at creating new jobs, saving existing jobs, and spurring economic activity. As part of this endeavor, $275 billion was made available for federal contracts, grants and loans.84 Of this, CDOT was to receive over “$330 million in federal highway funding and another $12.5 million in federal transit funding for transit projects in non-urbanized rural areas.”85 CDOT employees got projects “shovel ready” within tight deadlines—finalizing plans and completing necessary environmental work extremely efficiently. The Federal Highway Administration approved CDOT’s final ARRA project in mid-February 2010, and CDOT obligated its entire $385.6 million share of the ARRA highway funds three weeks ahead of the March 2, 2010, deadline.86 Through the decades, Colorado’s state transportation agencies learned that their customer base, the Colorado transportation system users, was much larger than just Coloradans themselves.

The very geography and topography that made highway building in Colorado such a challenge also drew visitors in increasing numbers beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Colorado’s highway system was an essential component in one of the state’s largest economic sectors—tourism.

Construction on I-25 at Steele Street in Denver, T-REX Project, 2003. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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CHAPTER 3

For a century, the message from Colorado to the rest of the world has been: “Wecome!� By the early 21st century, tourism brought the state billions in revenue and was one of its leading industries. (Postcard courtesy of Kris Anderson).

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Putting Colorado on the map: Linking the State Highway System and Tourism

by Lisa Schoch, CDOT Senior Staff Historian

EARLY TOURISM With its wide open plains, rugged mountains, and crisp dry climate, Colorado has been a magnet for travelers and health-seekers since before its territorial days. While the earliest explorers and travelers to Colorado slowly reached their destinations on horseback or wagon, by the late 1860s, the first railroad tracks started connecting Colorado to the rest of the country.1 It wasn’t long before the railroad companies recognized the opportunity to use rail travel to promote the state’s many assets, from scenery to climate. In a short window of time between 1870 and the first decade of the twentieth century, railroad companies became some of the state’s first organized promoters, complete with brochures and slogans associated with individual rail routes.2 By the turn of the twentieth century, rail tours or “tourist trains” transported people to popular destinations while making short excursions along the way.3 Passengers could disembark the Colorado & Southern’s “Fish Train” and enjoy a day of baiting hooks in the Platte Canyon, while other tourists took advantage of excursions to pick wildflowers, visit agricultural communities and events, or participate in “snowball excursions” to the state’s higher elevations.4 In the 1890s, climate became an important marketing tool, as people afflicted with tuberculosis bought into the idea that Colorado’s dry air had healing powers.5 The railroads capitalized on this trend, eventually facilitating the establishment of several health resorts, among them Idaho Springs and Glenwood Springs.6 Included in railroad literature were detailed descriptions of the curative powers of hot springs. Yet, by the early twentieth century, Colorado began to turn its back on its

convalescing tourists, as medical technology revealed that tuberculosis was infectious—not the sort of information promoters wanted to publicize. Despite the decrease in health-related tourists, the resort towns of Glenwood Springs, Manitou Springs, and Colorado Springs continued to thrive as tourist destinations.7 “SPLENDID HIGHWAYS AND SELLING SCENERY” The invention of the first U.S. automobile in Indiana in 1894, and subsequent growth of automobile use in Colorado in the 1910s and 1920s, introduced new opportunities for tourism in the state.8 However, poor roads and unreliable cars kept travel at a minimum.9 In 1914, the state only had 1,192 miles of improved roadways compared to its 38,588 miles of unimproved routes, many of which were simple wagon roads.

As the demand for personal automobile use grew, the need for better roads became more pressing.10 In Colorado, this need was challenged by the state’s size and its difficult and diverse topography.11 With an average altitude of 6,800 feet—and with fifty-two of the nation’s sixtyseven highest mountains, and three-quarters of the country’s elevation over 10,000 feet above sea level—Colorado is the highest state in the nation.12 Still, the obvious geographic barriers in Colorado didn’t seem to intimidate automobile tourists, who pushed the limits of their cars exploring the state’s dirt roads and trails.13 The state established its first organization devoted to the promotion of Colorado’s resources in 1909. The Colorado State Board of Immigration took on the task of collecting information about 37

various industries in Colorado, including agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, and publishing “the same with a view to attracting health-seekers, tourists, investors, and prospective settlers to the state.”14 The board of immigration was essentially responsible for marketing Colorado through advertising campaigns and participation in national conventions. The board’s yearbooks provided a snapshot of the state’s industry and resources, including the number of roads designated as state highways, and the types of venues and attractions of interest to tourists.15 According to the Yearbook of 1918, the success of tourism was linked to transportation,andtransportationimprovementsdifferedfromcountyto county. In Dolores County, “there is a wealth of picturesque mountain scenery in the eastern part of the county which is comparatively little known even to Colorado people, because of the lack of transportation facilities.”16 Conversely, in San Juan County “the completion of the Durango-Silverton highway will greatly increase automobile travel and will make accessible to automobile travelers some of the most wonderful mountain scenery on the continent.”17 Some communities took a grass-roots approach to auto tourism by supporting camp grounds and “tented cities,” used primarily in the summer months.18 As early as 1915, Denver provided a five-acre campground with free firewood. By 1917, over three thousand cars had visited this campground.19 In 1922, one hundred of these temporary communities had sprung up across Colorado, many of them with “mayors” elected from among a transient mass of campers.20 The camps were municipally owned, and many provided running water, comfort stations, cooking equipment, and other amenities.21 It was predicted that campgrounds would increase as highways leading to them were improved, and Denver felt confident enough to set aside a 160-acre tract of Overland Park for campers in the early 1920s. In a dedication during Denver’s first “All-States Day,” five thousand campers showed up, representing every state in the nation.22 By 1923, over two hundred of these tourist camps dotted the state. All of the participating communities found that a little local hospitality and good roads kept tourists in the area longer—and kept them coming back.23

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Colorado also developed a national reputation as a tourist destination.

During the railroads’ heyday, promotional literature often compared Colorado’s scenic wonders to those in Switzerland. The phrase “Switzerland of America” was actually coined in an 1869 travelogue for Colorado.24 By 1915, however, the state had become the “Playground of America,”a motto that reflects immediate access and the independence of the personal automobile.25 By 1919, the state’s newly established national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde, and national forests had become significant tourist attractions, with Denver serving as the gateway to these scenic and cultural wonders.

In 1919 alone, more than a million people from across the nation and twenty-three other countries visited Colorado’s national forests and poured $10 million into the economy.26 By 1925, the board of immigration reported that more tourists were visiting the state by automobile than by rail; accordingly, automobile travel was increasing more quickly than train travel. Tourists also appeared to be diversifying their vacations—not just visiting Pikes Peak, but looking for other attractions on their annual visits.27 Throughout the 1920s, the common denominator in the growing tourism industry came down to automobiles and good roads. The Denver Tourist Bureau in 1922 summarized the relationship between the two: “Selling scenery and climate is not unlike bargaining in other commodities, and one of the best arguments for bringing and holding tourists, once they have decided to travel by automobile, is splendid highways.”28 By 1928, Colorado collected over $39 million from tourism. While more than half of that money came from rail passengers, it was clear that the future really belonged to the auto tourist.29 PUTTING COLORADO ON THE MAP As auto tourism increased, the highway commission initiated the first of many collaborative efforts to publicize the state’s highways and accommodate the needs of travelers. As early as 1912, it partnered with the city of Denver and hired the Clason Map Company to publish and distribute the state’s first “illustrated road guide,” the predecessor

to today’s highway map. The 192-page guide consisted of eighty “strip” road maps and additional pages of “half tones and printed matter.”30 The commission purchased a camera and stereopticon—an early slide projector— to produce images for the first guide, and to photograph and display images of road conditions statewide.31 In 1913, the highway commission took a less ambitious approach to produce general guidelines for a state road map. This would be printed on tracing linen—which had been used for maps since the Civil War—and sized at forty-two inches square, unfolded. The inking would be equally inexpensive, for it consisted of only one color—red—to represent roads and highways. Open primary roads would be represented by a “heavy, full red line,” those not open by a heavy dash red line.32 Open secondary roads would take a light full red line, and new secondary routes (not open) a light dashed red line.33 In 1916, when the Federal Highway Act mandated the publication of state maps, Colorado was already ahead of the game. The highway commission subsequently contracted with Clason Map Company to publish 2,000 copies for $400.34 Another important contribution to auto tourism in the 1920s was the development of road markers and signage. In 1908, before the Colorado Highway Commission was established, the state legislature appropriated $2,000 to construct and install thirty-one signs along the mountain route of the Old Santa Fe

In 1913, the highway commission took a less ambitious approach to produce general guidelines for a state road map.

This would be printed on tracing linen— which had been used for maps since the Civil War—and sized at forty-two inches square, unfolded.

Map of the State Highways of Colorado, 1916.

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Trail, from the Kansas state line to Holly, and then to La Junta, Trinidad, and Raton Pass. These are considered the first state-funded road signs installed outside of a major city. Their fate is unknown, but by the mid1930s new highway alignments pushed them further from view, and they probably deteriorated and were removed. At a 1922 regional meeting in Boston to discuss route marking in the eastern states, a member of the Automobile Club of New York proposed a system in which a given route would retain the same number in all the states through which it passed. The signs would be square and encompass the state name or abbreviation and the route number. In 1924, the American Association of State Highway Officials began working on a numbering system for all federal-aid routes between the states and ultimately made recommendations for today’s standard traffic signal colors and sign shapes.35 Shortly thereafter, in 1925, the Joint Board on Interstate Highways—appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a standard numbering and signage system for federal-aid highways— proposed a plan in which east-to-west highways took even numbers, and north-to-south routes odd numbers. Diagonal highways of substantial length took different numbers.36 While decisions on interstate route marking took place at the national level, the Colorado Highway Commission began standardizing signs along Colorado’s roadways. As early as 1915, the commission adopted a resolution called “An Act to Regulate Road Signs”—a set of rules and regulations for a uniform system of road signs on state highways.37 Detailed guidelines for materials, dimensions, location, sign content, and historical or informational highway markers that local organizations sponsored were included in the resolution.38 By 1921, highway department engineer Maj. L. D. Blauvelt developed a standard road marker design, with the hope that the signs could be fabricated and installed in 1922.39 Throughout the 1920s, local auto associations and other organizations approached the highway department with various signage requests.

In 1923, Rocky Mountain Motorists, Inc., joined with the highway department to install road markers that directed travelers to colorful

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places and provided mileage information.40 Among other things, Rocky Mountain Motorists, a nonprofit organization, worked to “provide the tourist with a complete system of strip-maps covering the entire region” and linked these to highway markers to “assist the motorist in reaching his destination.”41 The organization provided road markers that the highway department installed in concrete bases. Mounted on two-and-a-half-foot posts, the signs consisted of steel coated with Vitrolite enamel and featured a plain white background, black letters, and a bright orange border featuring the seals of the State Highway Department and Rocky Mountain Motorists Club.

These are probably the earliest state highway signs to display specific mileage information, and they may represent the first use of the color orange, now so closely associated with the Colorado Department of Transportation.42 By 1926, five thousand of these signs were installed throughout the state with the intention to erect ten thousand more by 1930. The signs were part of a three-part plan that included road markers, mapping, In the 1920s, the State Highway and traveler information.43 Department installed some of the earliest tourist-related signage along the highways.

The fabrication and placement of these signs in 1923 was a collaborative effort between the State Highway Department and Rocky Mountain Motorists, Inc. (Source: Colorado Highways, March, 1923).

In fall 1928, the highway commission considered a proposal by the State Historical Society of Colorado to place historical markers along the state’s highway system. The historical society agreed to provide the bronze and wooden markers, and the highway department would mount

them in native rock.44 Almost immediately, the first of these markers went into the ground at the junction of US Highway 160 and State Highway 112 in Del Norte.45 In 1929, the highway department partnered with the Motor Club of Colorado, and local and county governments and organizations, to develop “Scenic Colorado” signs, designed to direct tourists to scenic and historic attractions throughout the state by identifying points of interest by name or geographic location. The signs were funded, fabricated, and strategically placed by the highway department, with financial support from city or county organizations.46 Ten years earlier, in June 1918, the highway commission had actively begun promoting its highway system and road projects with the publication of Colorado Highways: A Magazine Devoted to Good Roads. Each issue featured a dramatic cover—usually a car wheezing its way along a winding dirt road through a deep canyon or along a narrow mountain shelf. The magazine’s official goal was to highlight current road projects and provide information about the highway department activities—including lists of Federal Aid Projects in progress or completed—to county commissioners and road officials.47 The bulk of the magazine’s content, however, was pure boosterism— articles describing the state’s wonderful road system and awe-inspiring scenery accented with photos of projects across the state. Walter Pyke Johnson served as the initial editor for $200 a month, and a photographer worked for a ten-week period at $25 per week.48 In 1920, the highway commission voted to continue the publication of the magazine and to find “some competent person to act as editor and also as publicity man for the state.”49 The magazine, published through 1933, was the highway department’s primary public relations tool. From 1938 through1948,RockyMountainContractor-ColoradoHighways Issue became the new voice of the highway department, covering transportation happenings and construction projects in the Rocky Mountain region in the tradition established by Colorado Highways.

Below left: Designed to direct tourists to specific attractions, the “Scenic Colorado” signs were installed by the State Highway Department in partnership with the Motor Club of Colorado starting in 1929. (From Colorado Highways, June 1929).

Below: Published from 1918 to 1933, Colorado Highways represented the State Highway Department’s first effort to publicize its engineering accomplishments and highlight its remarkable highway system. This 1923 cover was typical— capturing a car, a road, and a dramatic view, in this case above Chaffee County’s Chalk Creek Canyon with Mount Antero in the background.

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HIGHWAYS AS ATTRACTIONS Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, a national trend to designate and build transcontinental highway routes extended its reach to Colorado.

Considered one of the state’s “heaviest traveled roads” in the early 1920s, State Highway 8 from Colorado Springs to Manitou (now known as US Highway 24) was part of the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean (PP-OO) Highway.50 One of the earliest transcontinental highways, the PP-OO was built between 1910 and 1926, and extended from New York to Los Angeles, primarily on the country’s back roads.51 The PP-OO Association was formed in February 1912. Based in Colorado Springs, where the Lincoln Highway Association was also located, the PP-OO Association’s initial purpose was to campaign for a transcontinental route through Colorado. In a series of meetings between 1916 and 1920, PP-OO members discussed everything from route location to financing. All along the PP-OO, tourists camps welcomed visitors, and local boosters and PP-OO members ensured that the roadway was maintained and that tourists received top-rate service.52 The segment of that route through Colorado became one of the state’s most important tourist routes, particularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s.53 Other early Colorado highways embedded in named transcontinental routes include the current US Highway 40, which was part of the “Victory Highway” that stretched 3,205 miles from Atlantic City through Denver to San Francisco.54 US Highway 50, also known as “America’s Backbone” and the “Rainbow Route,” follows part of the old Santa Fe Trail in Colorado, and extended from Ocean City, Maryland, through central Colorado, ending in Sacramento, California.55 In later years, the Highway 50 Association of Colorado put out colorful pamphlets extolling the romance of travel on US 50— how it “shows you something of all that goes to make the West.”56 Though not included in transcontinental highways, other sections of the state road system became recognized scenic routes and, in some instances, were built solely as tourist attractions. In 1918, construction began on a road to the summit of Mount Evans, popularly known as the Mount Evans Highway, but now officially identified as State 42

Highways 5 and 103. The road was originally conceived by the Denver Mountain Parks Commission in 1915, which felt that a highway to the top of Mount Evans was “the one thing that more than any other would bring fame to Colorado as the playground of the nation.”57 Funded and built jointly by the United States Bureau of Roads, the state of Colorado, and the city of Denver, the initial plan was for the route to terminate at the mountain’s summit, but eventually a proposal for a loop out of Denver was adopted. As part of this plan, the highway would extend twenty miles from Bergen Park to Echo Lake, then stretch an additional fifteen miles to the summit. The route would then descend the summit onto the saddle between Mount Evans and Mount Epaulet before it ran southwesterly into Deer Park and eventually into Denver via Conifer and Morrison.58 This loop was never completed, but the road was built in phases to the mountain’s summit with a specific directive from Governor Clarence J. Morley that it would be completed before his term in office ended.

Cresting about 140 feet below the mountain’s 14,264-foot summit, the highway was built exclusively to attract visitors, and was known as the highest automobile road in the world at the time of its completion in 1927.59 The tourist appeal of the Mount Evans highway was further enhanced with the construction of the Crest House between 1939 and 1941. Designed by Colorado architect Edwin A. Francis to represent a shooting star, the building exhibited elements of organic, futuristic, and Art Moderne architectural styles and featured moon-shaped light fixturesandatwo-story star-shapedglassandsteelobservationplatform.

Funded by private investors, the house served as a coffee shop and overlook where the summit’s nearly 100,000 annual visitors could view the extent of Colorado’s geographic extremes from the eastern plains to the Continental Divide. The Crest House was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1979, but during its brief existence was the highest businessrelated building in the United States.60 Other roads built or improved in the 1910s and 1920s that became tourist routes include Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park, the scenic drives through the Denver Mountain Parks system (several of which follow segments of state highways), the Million Dollar Highway (today’s US Highway 550), and the Pikes Peak Highway.

THE LEGACY OF DEPRESSION-ERA ROAD PROJECTS When the stock market crashed in 1929, and during the long years of the Great Depression, the state still attracted tourists, particularly to its national parks and monuments.61 Surprisingly, Colorado’s high country remained largely untapped as a tourist destination during this time.

Most tourism was directed at the foothills and areas just west of Denver.

It’s the end of the road for State Highway 5—also known as the Mount Evans Highway. This serpentine roadway was built specifically as a tourist attraction, and was enhanced by the highest business-related building— the Crest House—pictured here as a backdrop for the State Highway 5 sign in 1954. (Source, Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

The declining mining towns of the high country were largely ignored with the exception of Central City, which was reinvented as a summer theater destination by Denver socialites in the early 1930s.62 Colorado’s high peaks, however, brought mountaineering enthusiasts from across the country and the world, and skiing by mountain clubs and small groups became increasingly popular in the mid-1930s.63 Initially, the Colorado Highway Department didn’t feel the pinch of the stock market crash. By 1930, there were 9,203 miles of designated state highways in Colorado, but many small communities still sat isolated by poor roadways.64 In that same year, the highway department collected over $4 million in gas taxes and $2.2 million in federal aid and completed over $5 million in road projects. In the thick of the Depression, the dust storms of 1932 and 1933 forced many farmers in eastern Colorado to leave their land and find work elsewhere. The National Industrial Recovery Act brought relief projects to the most critically affected areas of the eastern and southeastern plains, and highway construction became a primary source of work, pouring almost $13 million into local communities in 1936.65 Colorado also benefited statewide from many projects sponsored by New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The CCC, active from 1933 to 1942, was responsible for employing young men to build roads and bridges, and making improvements to national forests and park lands, including construction on Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park.66 However, the WPA probably had the greatest impact on Colorado, finding unique ways to put a variety of unemployed people to work—everyone from artists to musicians to manual laborers.67 For most WPA jobs, the Colorado Highway Department provided materials, but the projects were completed by local labor.68 In the mid-1930s, the State Highway Advisory Board requested a loan of $30 million from the federal government under the National Industrial Recovery Act. Along with the continued improvement of the highway system, the advisory board specifically cited the importance of stimulating the tourist industry in this request.69

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Perhaps the highway department’s greatest contributions to tourism were its actual road projects during the Depression. Significant projects included the realignment of Monarch Pass (now US Highway 50) and construction of three projects in Clear Creek Canyon.70 In addition, in 1932, the highway department opened a new dirt road over 11,992foot Loveland Pass, which connected the eastern slope of Colorado (via Georgetown) with Dillon on the western slope. Up to that point, the counties immediately west of the Continental Divide remained largely isolated from Denver and the communities of the Front Range.71 Between 1939 and 1940, Public Works Administration funding enabled the highway department to build a new road over the southern tip of

the Gore Range that would connect Eagle and Summit Counties—this route was named Vail Pass for Charles Vail, the highway department’s newly appointed head. In the 1940s, this road became part of the federal aid system, and was designated US Highway 6. Although it wasn’t built to accommodate tourism, this segment of US Highway 6 is where the future Interstate 70 alignment would eventually run, and where cars often line up bumper to bumper to reach the ski resorts along this corridor today.72 Throughout the Depression years, the Colorado Highway Department continued publishing the state highway map, and, until 1933, issues of Colorado Highways. The text of the highway maps in the early thirties was published in black and white, with color highlights only on the actual road map, but the 1938 edition featured a colorful moderncoverandenthusiasticmessagetotravelers to “Motor Thru the Majestic Rockies over Colorado’s Streamlined Highways!”73 Unusually optimistic for the time, the 1938 map also included a message from the governor—in this case called “The Governor’s Invitation”—which would become a standard feature of the state highway map for years to come.74 The tone of Colorado Highways during the early Depression years was decidedly more somber. The magazine still carried features promoting the state’s resources, but they were tempered by articles about the reality of unemployment and back-to-work programs.

Therelationshipbetweenhighwaysandtourismwasclearly conveyed in this 1938 highway map, which paired photos of Colorado’s scenic highways with information about the state’s most popular tourist attractions and a warm invitation to visit from Governor Teller Ammons. (Source: ColoradoDepartmentofTransportationArchives,Denver).

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HITTING THE SLOPES: SKI TOURISM AND HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS During the early years of World War II, road construction declined as many of the highway department’s employees went off to war or took higher paying jobs elsewhere. With its workforce depleted, the department struggled simply to address daily workload issues, much less large construction projects.75 Despite the war, the tourism economy in Colorado appeared to be booming for the first time since the early Depression. Most tourists used Denver as a base to visit places like Rocky Mountain National Park and the Pikes Peak region.76 The early 1940s also laid the foundation for a culture of tourism that would extend into the present. An important element of this was the establishment in 1941 of the State Advertising and Publicity Committee, with its focus on promoting the state as a tourist destination, and as a place for future growth and development after the war.77 Another important ingredient was the rise of the ski industry.

Skiing had been part of Colorado’s history since the nineteenth century—initially as a necessity for miners and early mail carriers who used skis to travel during the winter months. By the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century, skiing took on a recreational role as clubs organized winter carnivals and tournaments that became longstanding events in many mountain communities. In the 1940s, this early ski culture expanded and became more accessible to the public at large after members of the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Colorado’s Camp Hale returned from the war to manage or establish well-known ski areas such as Arapahoe Basin, Loveland Basin, Winter Park, Vail, Ski Broadmoor, Powderhorn, and Breckenridge.78 Both skiing and tourism became major industries in Colorado following the war, which placed more pressure on the state’s highways and overall transportation network. Prior to the war, most roads to ski resorts were dirt-surfaced and winter weather closed most mountain passes. It wasn’t until 1939 that the road over Loveland Pass featured a gravel surface. US Highway 40 over Berthoud Pass and through Steamboat Springs wasn’t paved until the late 1930s. There were thirteen locations where highways crossed the Continental Divide,

Colorado’s ski industry flourished in the post-World War II period and would not have enjoyed such success had it not been for improvements to the state’s mountain roadways. This image of skiers at Loveland Pass was taken in 1949.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Breathtaking scenery surrounded caravans of skiers who wound their way over Loveland Pass after a day on the slopes of Arapahoe Basin and other Western Slope ski areas in 1949. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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but of these, only three were paved prior to World War II.79 By 1952, US Highways 40 and 6 had become primary arteries carrying traffic across the state and over ski routes like Berthoud, Rabbit Ears, Loveland, and Vail Passes. The passage of the Federal Highway Act in 1956 and subsequent construction of Interstates 70, 76, and 25 changed the nature of travel and tourism in Colorado.80 Interstate 70 is arguably the most significant of the corridors to facilitate ski and recreationrelated tourism across Colorado, but all of the corridors along the interstate system introduced connectivity and accessibility to the state that didn’t exist previously.

WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO

The Blue Star Highway Program connected the State Highway Department with a national effort to commemorate the armed forces during the post World War II period. This image of one of the program’s distinctive signs was taken along US Highway 40 outside of Idaho Springs in 1948. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Throughout the postwar period the Colorado Highway Department collaborated on or developed additionaltourist-relatedsignageand services along its highway system.

Colorado was the first to implement a statewide Blue Star Memorial Highway program in the 1940s.81 Originally conceived by the New Jersey State Council of Gardens in 1944, the program paid tribute to the armed forces and was eventually developed as a national program by the National Association of Garden Clubs. In Colorado, the program was initially sponsored by the Colorado State Federation of Garden Clubs, the department of highways, and other local entities.82 The distinctive blue star—featured on the service flag flown by military families on the home front—was selected as the

symbol of the memorial and figured prominently on the signs installed along designated highways.83 The first marker was dedicated along a stretch of US Highway 40 near the town of Dinosaur in 1948.84 In 1951, a Colorado Blue Star Memorial Highway Committee sought to establish a master plan for roadside parks as developed by landscape architect S. R. DeBoer.85 US Highways 85 and 86 were designated in 1951, followed by US Highway 24 in 1952. By 1974, Blue Star Memorial markers were also installed on US Highway 24 at the entrance to Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, along Interstate 70 southeast of Deer Trail, Colorado, and along US Highway 40 at the main south entrance to the former Fitzsimons Army Hospital.86 There are currently twenty-three markers in Colorado, many of which feature small roadside parks. The Blue Star Memorial Highway program is yet another example of the partnership between local groups and the Colorado Highway Department in their efforts to interpret and promote the state’s roadways.

In 1950, the iconic “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” signs became the standard signage at the state’s entry points.87 Perhaps more than any other highway-related signs, these are the most recognizable and strongly associated with the state’s identity and the spirit of the Old West.88 Rustic and simple, the wooden signs featured bold white lettering and were mounted on posts clad in conglomerate rock.89 In 1990, the Department of Highways replaced the wooden signs with colorful metal signs sporting the slogan “Welcome to Colorado: Mountains and Much More!” but criticism prompted the department to reinstate the old wooden signs starting in 1998.90 When the Office of Economic Development and International Trade proposed replacing the wooden signs with modern signs made of fabricated stone in 2005, many Coloradans rose up in protest. Hundreds of angry messages sent to what was by then known as the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) showed that Colorado’s drivers felt a connection to and appreciation for the state’s past.91 Governor Bill Owens granted the signs a pardon as long as he was in office, provided the state’s lawmakers increased tourism funding.92 The wooden signs still greet travelers today.

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Located at the state’s entryways, the rustic “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” signs attracted tourists to Colorado’s scenic wonders and storied past. This early sign graced the lonely roadway at the Colorado-New Mexico State Line in 1950.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Rest areas were often the motorist’s first stop in Colorado. Early rest areas started out with restroom and picnic facilities but grew to include interpretive information and eventually led to the development of the state’s first Welcome Centers. The Virginia Dale Rest Area featured simple picnic facilities as well as an interpretive panel in July 1966. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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In the late 1980s, CDOT standardized the development of tourist-related signage when it developed rules and regulations for the installation and maintenance of Tourist Oriented Directional Signs (TODS), a program for signage within non-Interstate rights of way that provides business and directional information for tourists—including cultural, historical or recreational activities—on lowervolume roadways.93 CDOT also manages the Specific Information Business Signs Program, known as LOGO, which provides signs within designated Interstate rights of way that are designed to provide business and directional information to the general traveling public along higher volume roadways. These signs are installed for eligible businesses offering gas, food, lodging, camping, and other services.94 Both programs involve collaborative efforts with privately owned businesses.

As the State Highway Department evolved into the State Department of Highways (1953) and the Colorado Department of Transportation (1991), the agency made improvements to some of its most practical travel-related services—rest areas. Unlike the leisurely pace of the 1920s-era municipal campgrounds, rest areas were established along interstates and freeways to provide short-term and convenient facilities for travelers intent on reaching their destinations as quickly as possible. In the 1960s, the department partnered with the Colorado Game, Fish and Parks Department, the State Reformatory, State Forest Service, and State Historical Society to install roadside

rest areas, equipped with restrooms, running water, picnic shelters, grills, garbage cans, and interpretive information. The rest areas were landscaped and featured information booths to direct travelers to local points of interest. By 1967, there were over thirty of these facilities— primarily on interstate routes—maintained by the State Department of Highways.95 Additional facilities were constructed into the 1970s, and by 1985 the state maintained over fifty-eight rest areas, twentyfour of which were on interstate highways.96 A study in 1994 found that Colorado’s rest areas were primarily used by tourists, truckers, and business travelers, and that they had evolved from the traditional restroom and picnic facilities to “a point of introduction to Colorado.”97 In some communities, rest areas were included as part of welcome centers and parks. By the mid 1990s, there were only thirty-four rest areas—with ten on the national highway system and twenty-four along the interstates.98 Included among these were improved rest areas at Vail Pass, Glenwood Canyon, and Rifle, and new facilities at Edwards and Wiggins. Existing facilities along two-lane state highways at Virginia Dale, Eckley, Hadley, and Shaw Creek were improved during this time as well.

The tourism industry in Colorado became a significant component of the state’s economy throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983, the Colorado Tourism Board replaced the 1950s-era Division of Planning, and focused primarily on marketing Colorado as a vacation destination.

The tourism board worked to increase visitation and length of stay, and to encourage partnerships between travel and tourism. 99 During these years, the tourism board and the Colorado Department of Highways collaborated on a number of tourist-related programs including a Sign Appeal Variance Board to address signing needs, and the Gateway Welcome Centers, which emerged from efforts to upgrade the state’s rest areas. In fact, several of the welcome centers were established in existing rest areas and became cooperative programs between the two agencies. Trinidad marked the location of the first center in 1986, and a center to the east was constructed along Interstate 70 in Burlington in 1988. To the west, the Fruita Welcome Center opened in late 1988 along Interstate 70 and State Highway 340.100 There are presently ten

welcome centers in Colorado, The Colorado Department of all featuring Highways took a more proactive a variety of approach to tourism when it began services, from children’s funding and providing part-time playgrounds staff to the state’s Scenic and to tourist Historic Byways Program in 1989. information.

While not maintained by CDOT, these centers are typically located directly off major highways and give travelers their first impressions of the state.101 In 1995, the Federal Highway Administration and CDOT partnered with the Colorado Historical Society to replace the 180 bronze and wooden historical markers initially installed in the late 1920s. The new signs feature color photographs, maps, and graphs and include updated historical topics not previously addressed by the original markers. The historical society developed sign content and design, while CDOT installed the markers.102 Known as the Colorado Roadside Interpretive Program, this initiative brought full circle the relationship between the early State Highway Department and the State Historical Society and their efforts to interpret the state’s historic resources. Over 220 updated markers have been installed in the state to date.103 The Colorado Department of Highways took a more proactive approach to tourism when it began funding and providing parttime staff to the state’s Scenic and Historic Byways Program in 1989.

Created when Governor Roy Romer issued Executive Order B 045 89, the Scenic and Historic Byways Commission was the result of a scenic byways movement that started nationwide in 1988.104 In 1999, CDOT established a full-time position to manage the byways program.

The executive order included introductory language that reinforced the historic link between tourism and transportation so firmly established

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in the 1920s: “Tourism and Recreation in Colorado,” the order states, “would benefit from increased national exposure given to byways of exceptional scenic, ecological, cultural, or historic interest.”105 A fifteen-member byways commission appointed by the governor evaluated proposals for designations from local groups and conveyed those recommendations to the Transportation Commission for final approval. During the first six years of the program, the byways commission designated twenty-one scenic and historic byways. In the next fourteen years, only four more routes achieved the status with the twenty-fifth byway designated in 2005. Each byway is marked by distinctive blue signage featuring the state’s flower, the columbine, and is featured on the state’s official highway map.106

Eligible byways had to exhibit scenic, historic, recreational, education, scientific geological, natural-wildlife, cultural, or ethnic elements.107 The first five routes, designated in 1989, included the Alpine Loop between Ouray, Silverton, and Lake City; the Gold Belt Tour connecting Florissant, Victor, Florence, and Canon City; the San Juan Skyway between Ridgway, Silverton, Cortez, Durango, and Ouray; the Peak to Peak Route extending from Estes Park through Allenspark, Nederland, and Black Hawk/Central City; and the Highway of Legends along State Highway 12 connecting Walsenburg, La Veta, Aguilar, and Trinidad.108 Over the years, the byways commission has worked with various state agencies, including the Colorado Tourism Office, Colorado Historical Society, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Colorado State Parks, and the Colorado Council for the Arts in the development of interpretive information for the byways. Marketing efforts, started in 1994 with the development of an award-winning brochure that featured inserts written in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese, also included a book, video, exhibit, and a website.109 The Scenic and Historic Byways program is another example of the

Beautiful fall scenery along the Gold Belt Tour America’s Byway not far from Canon City in Fremont County. (Source: Colorado Scenic & Historic Byways Program, Denver).

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partnership and collaboration that has been such a critical element in the relationship between CDOT and the state’s tourism industry.

Although the byways program is a statewide partnership, it is the only tourist-related program managed by CDOT and the only program that specifically highlights the state’s highways and other roadways as significant resources and attractions.

For the past 100 years, CDOT and its predecessor agencies have played an important role in the development and facilitation of tourism in Colorado. The State Highway Commission and early State Highway Department created a blueprint for collaboration in the 1920s that has extended to the present. Clearly the agency’s most significant contribution to the tourism industry is its amazing state highway system, which covers every conceivable topographic and engineering challenge from mountains to plains, and makes accessible some of the world’s most stunning and unique scenery.

Yet, it was the seemingly mundane efforts to organize the state’s road system for travelers—through the installation of signage, the publication of the state highway map, and the construction of rest areas—that transformed travel experiences over time and helped shape perceptions of Colorado’s identity and its role as a tourist destination.

The countless Coloradans and visitors alike who used the state’s highway system for travel of all kinds became very familiar with highway department trucks, equipment, and people so readily visible along the roads at just about any time of day or night in any kind of weather. In order to keep the highways in peak performing condition, especially when new construction and resurfacing costs soared exponentially, the role of maintaining the highways to help ensure their top condition, and to extend their useful life, became critical. From the middle of the 20th century onward, the striking orange of highway department trucks, equipment, and employee hardhats became the virtual identity of the department with the public.

Dramatic scenery along SH 91 at Fremont Pass. (Source: Colorado Scenic & Historic Byways Program, Denver).

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CHAPTER 4

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Colorado state transportation maintenance employees get a lot of warmseason experience with overlay projects, such as this one, where a freeway onramp is being resurfaced on the west side of the Denver metro area.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

maintenance: the face of colorado state transportation

By Dennis Van Patter, CDOT Public Relations

B

y 1902, pressure was already mounting to improve the state’s roads for auto travel. It hadn’t taken long—the first selfpropelled automobile had appeared on Denver streets in 1899.

Since there was no state agency in charge of roads, auto interests of the time were already ‘advising’ the counties and private road owners about the best way to maintain the roads—for example, they advised against using plows and scoops because of their tendency to break up compacted dirt on the roadway surface. They were particular enough to have an alternative suggestion—using road drags and rollers to promote surface smoothness and to limit dust. You can draw your own conclusions about whether local governments and private road owners welcomed that kind of input, but one thing was certain: highway lobbying was underway in Colorado.

On those early gravel (some) and dirt (mostly) roads, a paradigm shift was underway, as illustrated by a June 7, 1996 article in the Denver Post in which reporter Gail Pitts recounted the story of Pagosa Springs resident Myrtle Herach.

In 1916, buoyed by the fact that an automobile road had been built across the new Wolf Creek Pass, Herach went to Denver, bought a seven-passenger, V8 engine Cadillac, and started for home. The new road was slickened by rain, and one bad quarter-mile stretch took her party nearly three hours to negotiate.

Then they had the misfortune to meet a descending loaded freight wagon pulled by a team of horses. The wagon driver wielded his

This was the main Denver to Colorado Springs highway in 1915, showing the typical gravel/dirt conditions of a roadway in good weather.

In the background is the familiar northern profile of Pikes Peak.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Caterpillar-mounted rotary snowplow hard at work on the western approach to Wolf Creek Pass, February, 1936. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

six-gun in front of the Cadillac until it backed down to where the wagon could pass. Later, when the car was descending the west side of the pass, part of the right of way collapsed under its weight, and the travelers spent the rest of the day rebuilding cribbing and getting the car on the road home.

Herach’sadventuresclearly illustrate that the sharing of roads with automobiles was not going to be well accepted by all non-auto users.

In 1921, faced with ongoing damage by increasing traffic and heavy loads, the Colorado General Assembly passed a new highway law giving responsibility for construction and maintenance of the roads to the Colorado State Highway Department. The Division of Maintenance was then established, with R.H. “Bob” Higgins named as State Superintendent. For the first few years, counties actually did the maintenance work on state highways within their jurisdiction, utilizing World War I surplus vehicles and whatever other equipment was available. Counties were then reimbursed by the state for their work.

This system worked for a while, but by 1926, newspaper reports said that automobiles were being built faster than highways could be improved or paved. In 1927, the Federal Bureau of Public Roads met with the State Engineer and the Highway Advisory Board in Denver to complain about poor maintenance of the federal aid roads within the state. Under the threat of losing a portion of their federal aid, the Highway Advisory Board passed a resolution directing the State Engineer to take over the actual maintenance of federal aid roads no matter where they were located.

At first, some counties balked at this idea, but when the State Engineer agreed to hire the county road crews as state employees, the plan was adopted.

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BLIZZARD OF 1946 On November 1, 1946, a snowstorm that continued for four days and was accompanied by 50 mph winds hit Colorado’s eastern plains, earning its infamous title of “The Blizzard of ‘46.”

All available highway department crews and equipment joined various contractors in the task of opening roadways.

They made good progress until, on November 7, another storm struck with 18 inches of additional snow in twelve hours. When it all wrapped up a few days later, level snow depths of 34 to 50 inches had accumulated on the plains, stranding motorists and causing extensive livestock loss. Drifts were reported at 15 to 20 feet and higher. 1 BLIZZARD OF 2003 Colorado had been in a prolonged drought situation by the time the winter of 2002/3 arrived. The bulk of the winter season had been mild and dry. Ski conditions were sparse; Coloradans seemed resigned to another year of water rationing and wildfires.

But that all changed on the week of St. Patrick’s Day, March 17-20, 2003. A major winter storm hit the eastern slopes of the central and northern mountains beginning on Sunday, and by Monday evening, heavy snow that would continue into Wednesday began along Colorado’s Front Range. This storm brought traffic and commerce to a halt right during the busy spring break ski and visitor season.

The storm closed most northern Front Range and nearby mountain highways. Due to its late occurrence in the winter season,

the snow was wet and heavy, which provided even more problems for snow removal crews battling depths of 50 to 60 inches or more in mountain areas, and three to four feet on the level at lower elevations.

To make matters worse, avalanches ran in places where they had never been recorded before, including two which hit houses in Georgetown, and several others that ran down onto I-70 from the mountainsides and cliffs above.

Travel was restored onto I-70 in careful phases, allowing traffic to move without overwhelming the freeway. Included were busloads of spring break skiers headed to resorts that in many cases measured new snowfall in feet.

All CDOT maintenance sections that could spare equipment and operators sent them to the I-70 corridor and the Front Range.

CDOT began receiving calls on Thursday and Friday of blizzard week from local residents asking if CDOT could plow their local roads, since the state highways were already cleared and dry.

In May, 1928, the highway department designated 125 two-man maintenance patrols to be located all across Colorado to deal with 3,332 miles of state highways. Each patrol was assigned between twenty-five and sixty miles of roadway, and was provided a tractor or truck, maintainer (motor grader), plows, and various tools. Already, powerful new vehicles and equipment were being developed, such as new four-wheel-drive Coleman trucks being built in Littleton, CO, equipped with mounted rotary snowplows. As early as 1924, a rotary plow had cleared the road over Berthoud Pass in a period of just 72 hours after a particularly heavy snowstorm. These same types of advances helped the highway department keepTennessee Pass open all winter, a particularly important feat because it was located on the main road to Grand Junction from Denver and the Front Range at that time.

In preparation for taking over all reconstruction on Federal Aid and National Highway systems, the Colorado Highway Department established a Division of Engineering to do route survey work around the state and submit data to the Denver Headquarters in order to award projects to contractors for roadway improvements.

New business processes were being established and there were many new “firsts” for transportation in Colorado. A good example occurred in 1928 in the San Luis Valley, where contractors were rebuilding seven miles of roadway between Romero and Antonito. State maintenance crews rigged up an asphalt distributor and sprayed oil on the gravel as it was being placed on the grade. The oil/gravel mixture was ridged, then rolled, in what was the first highway oiling job in Colorado history. The roadway lasted many years before it needed resurfacing.

Some of these calls came from Coloradans who were running low on food or medical supplies, were without electrical power, or were merely suffering from cabin fever. In instances where local jurisdictions needed help, CDOT assisted whenever possible.

Despite its challenges, the 2003 blizzard brought saving moisture to a parched portion of the state, helping bring Colorado out of a drought that, as of the centennial year of 2010, had not returned. 2

Highway department snowplow trucks attack blizzard-driven snowdrifts along U.S. 36 near Anton, Washington County, on Colorado’s high eastern plains.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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By 1929, the state highway system had nearly tripled in size to 9,203 miles, just before the arrival of the Great Depression. With the nation experiencing severe job losses and governmental funding shortages, the Bureau of Public Roads set up a program to use manual labor on roadways as a way to put citizens back to work. At first, the work times were limited to twenty hours a week with pay set at thirty cents per hour. Later, the work week was expanded to thirty hours, and pay was raised to fifty cents per hour.

THE BATTLE AGAINST SNOW The highway department’s new maintenance forces quickly learned that meeting rising public expectations about unlimited mobility in all seasons was going to be difficult to achieve. One of the major reasons was snow.

Depending on location, snow can pose problems in every portion of Colorado from as early as September to as late as May or June. The difficulties in the high mountains, with major snowfall combining

with high winds, whiteouts, and steep slopes and cliffs, were obvious.

But the problems were no less severe, if perhaps a bit less frequent, on Colorado’s eastern plains and in western valleys, where high winds fueled blizzard conditions and left snowdrifts as high as some of the highway department equipment itself. In those early years, when a two-man patrol might be facing 15-foot snowdrifts along miles of its assigned roads, the challenges must, at times, have seemed insurmountable.

In some areas, roads remained closed for days and communities dealt with being isolated because of monumental snow. Motor graders and truck-mounted rotary plows made good progress, but with few employees and little in the way of technological advances, at times the only option was for local residents to join highway employees, climb atop the drifts, and begin shoveling.

Avalanches happened without warning, often during whiteouts or at night. Modern forecasting techniques were decades away. Prior to World War II, the options were to close roadways during times of high risk, to discourage motorists from crossing the passes until snowpacks had consolidated, or shoot ordnance into the slide paths, hoping the slides would run after the resulting detonation and concussion.

Whether the snow came down naturally or following explosive mitigation, the result was the same—many tons of slide debris on the roadway, compacted as hard as concrete and sometimes several stories high. Attacking the resulting mess was often even more difficult than dealing with wind-driven drifts.

Ittookhardy,determined,evenstubbornhighwaydepartmentemployees to cope with these conditions, and that’s exactly who went to work on the roadways. Anyone who took a highway department maintenance job thinking it would be easy, or even fun, was quickly weeded out.

The streets in Silver Plume, circa 1950s, were dry, but snow on the mountainsides in the background meant it was time to get the heavy avalanche artillery ready to go for the winter season at the old Silver Plume shop.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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As the years passed, equipment and resources gradually improved.

Bigger trucks, better designed plow blades, and more reliable rotary plows were introduced. Explosives became more stable and reliable.

Above: Clear skies and calm winds give CDOT maintenance forces a chance to use a truck-mounted rotary plow to blow the snowline back away from U.S. 160 near Mancos Hill west of Durango, creating this photogenic snow fountain along the way.

(Photo courtesy of Tom Vaughan, FeVa Photos, Mancos, CO).

Right: Keeping all that highway department equipment on the road and operating was a big job requiring continuous work in the department’s maintenance shops all around the state. Here, Frank Allen Dunn (left) and Nathan Hale are shown at work in the District 1 (now Region 1) maintenance section shops in Aurora in 1961. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Roadways were widened to provide an extra safety factor. Two-way radio communication became available, increasing safety factors and allowing the highway department to direct personnel and equipment to areas where they were needed the most.

Across the years, a group of dedicated highway department employees who relished the challenges posed by snow in all types of terrain emerged, and many became the earliest representatives of multi-generation CDOH/CDOT families.

It has not been unusual for two or three generations of the same family to make highway/transportation their life’s work. Names such as Vickers, David, Haptonstall, Cummings, Carlson, and Jensen, to name just a few, are well known in highway maintenance ranks.

Checking wind-loaded avalanche chutes the old way along US 6, Loveland Pass, in the 1950s to determine the best method of avalanche mitigation.

Many of the snow removal improvements that have occurred from 1929 to the present time were made by highway department employees themselves who faced the needs every day and came up with innovations and inventions to meet them. A perfect example of innovations not just relating to snowplowing and anti-icing or deicing methods occured in Burlington, CO, in a 2005 emergency situation.

Just in time to strand thousands of Thanksgiving holiday travelers, a winter storm with high winds and whiteout conditions struck eastern Colorado and western Kansas November 26-28, 2005.

At its height, the storm forced the closure of more than 300 miles of I-70.

All along the way, small communities opened schools, public buildings, and churches to provide shelter to stranded motorists. Many local residents also opened their homes.

In Burlington, the first sizeable community in Colorado west of the Kansas border, 3,000 or more motorists were stranded—no one is sure exactly how many. The local high school and middle schools were overflowing and churches were packed.

Ray Mumford, longtime Region 1 avalanche coordinator, takes aim at an avalanche chute in Clear Creek County. (Sources: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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When Burlington High School Student Council members prepared to go to school on Monday, November 28, to fix a pancake breakfast for their stranded

guests, they were alarmed to find that local grocery stores were running low on supplies. Electricity was going on and off intermittently, and there were concerns about the amount of city water that was available.

Burlington, population 3,700, was on the verge of being overwhelmed.

The storm was moving east, and when only about forty to fifty miles of whiteout conditions remained between Burlington and much better driving conditions to the west, local CDOT officials made plans to execute a mass evacuation of stranded motorists needing to go on west to Colorado’s Front Range.

It wasn’t an easy undertaking. Snowdrifts as high as ten feet needed clearing from beneath freeway overpasses. Careful coordination with the Colorado State Patrol and local law enforcement agencies was required.

The established rules were simple. The convoys would be led in each lane by a CDOT snowplow truck laying down sand. The convoys were open only to passenger vehicles, and a strict, steady twenty mph speed limit was observed. Drivers were required to stay in close visual contact with the vehicle ahead at all times, and each convoy was concluded by a CDOT vehicle. No vehicle that broke down or became stranded would be left behind.

At 10 a.m. that morning, notifications about the planned ‘pilot snowplow’ operation went out in the community. The first two-lane convoy, comprised of those stranded at the high school, left at 10:15 a.m. and stretched for four miles. A second convoy comprised of those stranded at the middle school, followed shortly and stretched for three and a half miles. In total that day, five convoys consisting of Burlington strandees were joined by several hundred others from Stratton andVona.

At first, the convoys moved through miserable whiteout conditions, but everyone carefully followed the rules. No vehicles broke down and, after two hours of slow, steady travel, they emerged at Siebert into sunshine, moderate winds, and dry roads.

The convoy operation resulted in many letters of appreciation to CDOT in the ensuing days and weeks.3 Sometimes, what might have seemed to be routine winter maintenance operations take on much greater importance and urgency.

On January 29, 2007, Durango Maintenance Section 3 employees out of Ridgway and Ouray faced avalanche control work before US 550 over Red Mountain Pass could be reopened. The winter scene that greeted CDOT vehicles that day was much like the upper scene on page 60, except that the road had not been plowed.

A team of four employees worked their way slowly up from the closure gate above Ouray. Dack Klein cleared away slide debris with his motor grader; he and his co-workers Greg Stacy, Ray Ledford,

CDOT snowplow trucks such as these clearing snow on US 40 over Berthoud Pass led many miles of caravans of stranded motorists to safety during the great Thanksgiving eastern plains blizzard of 2005.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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and Lori Ethridge had moved on through the East Riverside snowshed and on to the area near memorial monuments just below the switchbacks leading into Ironton Park when Stacy noticed tracks in the snow—human tracks.

“It was a bad feeling,” Ledford recalled. Their mission to clear the road took on even more urgency than before.

The tracks continued across the expanse of Ironton Park; every time the grader moved, all four CDOT employees were watchful for what they feared worst—a body in the road or nearby, covered with snow. But the tracks continued as the road began switchbacking once again toward the Idarado Mine complex.

There, the tracks became erratic. “It looked like the person may have fallen into snowbanks in a couple of places,” Ethridge recalled.

It was Klein who first spotted the woman alongside the road near the Idarado buildings at 12:20 p.m. The tiny, emaciated woman told Ledford, “I wanted to go to Silverton, but I just can’t walk any more.”

The twenty-nine-year-old woman from Grand Junction, who had walked more than nine miles

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Above: Severe cold and deep snows like these greeted rescuers in the search for a pedestrian on Red Mountain Pass.

(Source: Durango Maintenance Section 3, Region 5).

Upper right: Big CDOT equipment battles legendary Rocky Mountain snow along SH 5 on Mt. Evans and along SH 82 on Independence Pass (right). The race is on each year to clear these highways for the Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of the summer vacation season. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

up the steep highway, mostly in deep, drifted snow conditions, survived her ordeal, although she faced surgery for severe frostbite to her feet. On a subsequent visit from Ethridge at the Montrose hospital, the victim said that when she reached the Idarado mine, she said, “Lord, you can have me. I’m done.”

Ethridge reflected the emotion of the rescue when she mused, several days later, “It scares me that we might have needed to go to shoot Lizard Head Pass that day, instead of Red Mountain. She might have gone to sleep along the road, been snowed over, and we might not have found her until spring.”4

Along with hard-surfacing of roadways came the bane of drivers and maintenance workers alike—the pothole.

Because the highway department maintenance employees were on the roadways every day and were very visible to the traveling public, they became the literal face of all of Colorado’s state transportation agencies.

KEEPING ROADWAYS IN SHAPE Winter ends eventually at all elevations, but the challenges of maintaining Colorado’s roadways continue unabated.

In the mountains, rain, rockfall, mudslides, flash floods, major temperature variations, and even summer snowstorms create challenges along the highways. At lower elevations, flooding and even dust storms can be encountered in nearly any season.

Mud season, which high country residents often joked was any season except winter, began to fade as improved graveling, grading, and compacting techniques were developed and better equipment was put into use. With each passing year, more and more miles of the state highway system were hard surfaced.

Warm season maintenance duties in the early years included grading to eliminate washboards and repairing washouts. More recently, they have included asphalt overlays, seal coating, clearing weeds and obstructions from ditches and drainage structures beneath the rights of way, and making sure highway signs and markers are in good shape. Colorado maintenance professionals have also become experts at building and maintaining many miles of fencing along the state highway right of way.

CDOT maintenance overlay project, SH 67 near Woodland Park, with America’s mountain, Pikes Peak, towering in the background.

(Source: Pueblo Maintenance Section 4, Region 2).

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Construction of maintenance section offices, then later District Offices (now Regional Headquarters), brought governance and responsibility closer to local residents. More local equipment maintenance and repair facilities were developed, which helped keep maintenance equipment more reliably in service on the road.

The highway department’s maintenance forces were increasingly expected to accomplish more than just keeping highways in good shape—their efforts were expected to extend the life of the system, as well. With that in mind, Maintenance Superintendent Doug Stewart issued the first Manual of Maintenance Procedures in 1949. The guide included 16 chapters on topics such as maintenance of roadway surfaces, roadside drainage, bridges, snow removal, and traffic control.

In 1954, a state highway system that had ballooned to 12,000 miles was abruptly reduced to 8,000 by the legislature, which allowed the highway department to concentrate employees, equipment, and effort onto fewer roadway miles. The booming postwar economy and reliable automobiles made Americans more mobile and travel-hungry than ever before. And they viewed Colorado as one of the most beautiful places in the nation to visit for a weekend or a vacation.

Over the past several decades, the prevailing color of the Department of Highways and CDOT maintenance professionals has been orange— from vehicles to hardhats to safety vests. Many Coloradans and visitors have written that they were relieved to “see that big orange truck” pull up when they might have had car trouble, run out of gas, or suffered a medical emergency during their travels. Department of Highways and CDOT maintenance workers were, and are, recognized as among the best trained and best equipped in the nation.

Ready summer or winter, CDOT’s mid-range, tandem, and all-wheel-drive trucks move from one role to another, including plowing snow, depending on the need. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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With the opening of the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel through the Continental Divide on I-70 west of Denver in 1973, another Department of Highways Maintenance Section opened, and this one needed workers with skill sets somewhat different than their highway maintenance counterparts. Some field maintenance employees, hoping to find more

THE MEANING OF ON-CALL: 2004 GLENWOOD CANYON THANKSGIVING For Colorado residents and visitors who never gave much thought to the fact that transportation maintenance professionals are on call literally twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week, Thanksgiving, 2004, made them very aware of that fact.

About 7:30 p.m. on that Thanksgiving eve, November 24, a westbound semi trailer overturned one-half mile west of Hanging Lake Tunnels on I-70 in Glenwood Canyon, spilling 1,707 cases of beer across the freeway.

CDOT employees were called out and spent all night cleaning up the mess.

Those weary employees still had visions of Thanksgiving dinner at home with their families as wreckers prepared to get the semi back onto its wheels at about 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. Then, a few minutes later, tons of quartzite rock sheared off cliffs on the north side of the freeway and came crashing down between the accident scene and Hanging Lake Tunnels.

On one of Colorado’s busiest driving holidays, I-70 was closed.

The good news was that no vehicles were caught in the rockfall. The bad news was that the viaducts were damaged and no one was sure how much more rock, if any, was likely to come down onto the interstate.

Intense local and national media coverage followed as nearly one hundred CDOT employees worked feverishly to get the freeway opened again for the crush of post-holiday traffic expected on Saturday and Sunday. Media coverage at first focused on damage and when the freeway might reopen. Gradually, local and regional coverage shifted to focus on the efforts of employees who were working in the canyon instead of enjoying Thanksgiving at home.

Their efforts resonated with residents and visitors who could easily imagine what it might be like to have to work over the holiday.

Unusual sets of circumstances combined to help CDOT address the emergency very quickly. Geotechnical inspection that same day determined that more

rock needed to be scaled (removed) above the freeway; a CDOT employee who played on an ice hockey team in Glenwood Springs with an employee of a large rockfall specialist contractor put out the call and within an hour, a company crew was on hand to begin scaling activities.

As the danger to the roadway below lessened, cleanup began. CDOT Bridge Design & Management employees determined that despite damage, the viaducts were safe for traffic. Rockfall was broken into manageable pieces (see photo above) and hauled away. At the Glenwood Springs CDOT office, work was ongoing around the clock to prepare the repair contract for bid advertisement.

At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, November 26, I-70 reopened to traffic.

Businesses in the local Glenwood Springs/Rifle area donated food, and the Glenwood Springs Eagles Club delivered Thanksgiving dinners to the site.

Media coverage praised the quick, efficient work by CDOT employees to get the freeway reopened. Long-time CDOT employees believe the Glenwood Canyon Thanksgiving 2004 emergencies resulted in more positive media coverage, and more goodwill, for CDOT than any other event they could recall over their careers.5 63

reliable permanent shift assignments as opposed to 24-hour, seven-day on-call format they had grown accustomed to, moved to this new tunnel section.

It is not by chance that many of the 58 transportation department employees over the past 100 years who died in the line of duty were maintenance professionals.

In an effort to counteract hazards posed by weather, high speed traffic, and typical job duties, the Colorado Department of Transportation increased its emphasis on safety in the final two decades of the centennial era, 1990 to 2010. Perhaps the most visible of those efforts is the CDOT Maintenance Training Academy, established in Golden in 1999. Among its purposes is to give employees the knowledge, skills, and safety awareness to provide them the best possible chance to return home safely to their families and loved ones every night. Virtually every course and seminar provided at the Academy to veteran employees as well as new hires contains a strong, unmistakable safety component. Safety training has spread far beyond the academy as well.

The unexpected often occurs. Sometimes, it’s unwelcome, as in this SH 67 washout (top) following flooding near Westcreek and Deckers. Sometimes it’s fun, as in friendly bighorn sheep looking for a handout from CDOT Heavy Equipment Operator Adam Baer on Mt. Evans. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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CDOT maintenance programs became more technical over the final few years of the twentieth century and into the new millenium. An excellent example is the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS), which utilizes on-truck computers linked to national weather forecasts, radar information, and pavement sensors to determine the best course of action for keeping snow and ice from building up on roadway surfaces.

Employees now receive comprehensive first response and first aid training, certification in handling hazardous materials, emergency response skills, and National Incident Management System (NIMS) training.

HUMBLE HERO RECEIVES HIGH HONORS The most unusual thing about what Richard Sisneros did on April 28, 2006, to save four lives at the scene of a terrible accident on SH 17 near La Manga Pass was that he didn’t ever tell anyone, even his supervisors, the full story. He did what needed to be done and went right back to his regular job responsibilities.

State Patrol said it should have required ropes and technical climbing gear.

At the bottom, in an aspen grove, Sisneros found a pickup truck with Arizona license plates that had overturned multiple times. Children ages ten and two had been thrown from the truck. Two adult women, one of whom was pregnant, were still inside the truck. Both suffered major injuries.

A spring snowstorm hit the area that Friday, and Sisneros, from Antonito, Colorado, was plowing snow. Despite the poor visibility and high winds, he happened to catch sight of a child safety seat along the shoulder of the highway. He took a closer look and saw vehicle tracks veering off the road and over the edge of a virtual cliff. “I could hear screams coming from down there,” he recalled. He pulled ahead a few yards to radio for assistance.

First, Sisneros reclimbed the 200-foot mountainside carrying the children on his back. By that time, another vehicle had stopped on the shelf above, and Sisneros, after climbing down the slope for a second time, was able to coordinate the removal of the two injured women from the accident scene below. By then, even more vehicles had stopped and other motorists helped keep the accident victims warm and safe until paramedics could arrive at the remote location a few miles north of the Colorado-New Mexico border.

Then he did something that startled even the veteran law enforcement officers who investigated the accident—he downclimbed a 200-foot-high mountainside, the equivalent in height of a 20-story building, on terrain so steep, slippery, snow-covered, and treacherous that the Colorado

Sisneros went right back to work plowing snow. At the end of his shift a few hours later, he mentioned in passing to his supervisor that he had assisted at the scene of an accident where a truck went off the road.

The Colorado State Patrol trooper who investigated the accident, Sgt. George Dingfelder, felt Sisneros deserved special recognition. He nominated Sisneros for the patrol’s highest possible civilian award, the Certificate of Honor, writing, “Had it not been for Mr. Sisneros taking time to investigate, this family probably would not have been discovered for hours, or even days. He took action into his own hands and, defying treacherous conditions, risking his own safety . . . no doubt saved their lives.”

The award was presented to Sisneros (pictured at left in the photo) on December 14, 2006, during the annual Christmas luncheon held for CDOT Alamosa-area maintenance, traffic, and engineering employees, as well as the Colorado State Patrol. The presentation, which was made by State Patrol Major Barry Bratt, took Sisneros completely by surprise, because he had all but forgotten the incident by that time.6

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DAYS IN THE LIVES OF MAINTENANCE Left: Asphalt overlay, US 85 southbound side, between Denver and Colorado Springs, 1940s.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Lower left: Chip seal job on US 285 near Villa Grove in the San Luis Valley. (Source: Alamosa Maintenance Section 7, Region 5).

Lower center: CDOT maintenance employees maneuver snowplow trucks through obstacle courses as a part of annual roadeo safety and education training, Greeley Maintenance Section 1, Region 4. Lower right: Sky Solomon and Andrew Doel, Greeley Maintenance Section 1, Region 4, spent a Saturday on their own time showing dozens of children and their parents all about CDOT snowplow trucks and front end loaders at the annual Louisville Recreation Center toucha-truck event. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Familiar orange CDOT maintenance equipment, orange hardhats with the distinctive blue CDOT logo, and the bright, fluorescent safety gear have grown to mean reassurance to motorists along Colorado highways. Maintenance professionals are often first on the scene of accidents, and they have rendered first aid and comfort to more people than can ever be counted. They have helped deliver babies, fixed broken-down vehicles, and provided that critical gallon of fuel needed to get an empty vehicle to the next gas station. They have rescued motorists from stranded vehicles and have saved many over the decades.

Faces of CDOT along I-76 on a cold spring morning were these Sterling-area employees, kneeling from left: Dale Ruch, Henry Byczkowki, and Dan Zubiate. Standing from left: Tom Gonzales, Mike Templeman, Mike Fuller, and Don Gertge. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

During the times when travel is almost impossible, CDOT maintenance professionals must be out on the roads. Their shifts have few limits during storms. No one will ever be able to total up the numbers of sporting events, school plays and activities, church functions, and community events they have had to miss because they were called to work because of a snowstorm, rockfall, a flash flood, or perhaps a wildfire requiring road closures.

They can be called abruptly to another part of the state to help out when the weather at home is fine.

The 1928-2010 legacy of service provided by Colorado’s state transportation maintenance workers has been the subject of poems, songs, and letters of tribute. For all who have been helped along the highway, they are a source of reassurance—a friendly smile in the storm, or a steady hand in an emergency situation.

From the 1950s onward, the impacts from increasing vehicular traffic, infrastructure improvements, and maintenance activities on the environment became obvious in Colorado and around the nation. It was no longer acceptable, or permissible, to undertake major transportation improvements or maintenance activities without considering environmental impacts. The environmental movement and the resulting new ways of doing business comprise an integral part of department history.

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CHAPTER 5 In this view as sweeping as the project itself, the I-70 Final Link flows through Glenwood Canyon, providing daily testimony to one of the most significant transportation engineering and environmental achievements in Colorado history. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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“In Productive Harmony”: Beginnings of Environmental Planning

By Dianna Litvak, CDOT Region 6 Historian

T

he environmental program at the Colorado Department of Highways began with the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970, a landmark piece of legislation that radically changed the way that highways are planned, engineered, and built. When Congress initially passed the act, little thought was given to how it would impact highway building. After forty years of practice, NEPA has inarguably changed highway planning and construction, bringing new stakeholders to the table to work with engineers and broadening the scope of public input.

Prior to NEPA, very few state highway engineers took into account the concerns of local residents as they planned and constructed urban highways. Armed with traffic studies, economic statistics, and standard highway designs, when engineers communicated their choices for highways, the public usually accepted their reasoning. But more importantly, engineers rarely experienced protests over the way they conducted business. Those who did complain thought the highway department was not building roads fast enough. Most highway construction occurred within existing rights of way, and provided highly sought after transportation links for rural communities needing to keep their economies afloat. Prior to the 1940s, urban highways rarely appeared in the cities because it was such a complex task routing them through densely populated areas. The department broke new ground when it started Denver’s first limited-access freeway, the Valley Highway (1948–1958), causing ripples of dissatisfaction for those it displaced.

Congress passed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, prompting highway departments across the country to hire an army of engineers

and support staff to build the nation’s interstates. While the planning and construction of the interstate highway system constitute what many believe to be the greatest public works project undertaken in the United States, the system also had many unexpected consequences.

This Interstate System exhibit from 1961, well before the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, explains traffic, cost, safety, and design issues, but doesn’t address environmental or citizen concerns.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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One of these, freeway protests, ushered in a new era of environmental regulations, neighborhood activism, and greater citizen involvement in the planning of public projects. Interstate highway engineers and planners simply could not fathom the social furor their work unleashed.

But as public hearings for interstates became flashpoints for citizens who decried the destruction of older, lower-income neighborhoods, historic sites,parks,schools,andnaturalareas,agrassrootsmovementtosafeguard these sites began.

Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, also contributed to the growing public discontent with the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, an indictment of the impact chemicals had on wildlife and the environment (particularly the effects of DDT on birds). Her book led Americans to question the onceauthoritative decisions of government experts that had proved disastrous to Rachel Carson, author of the environment, and it fueled a new Silent Spring, helped start the movement. Soon thereafter, in 1963, environmental movement in the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), the United States. (Source: predecessor to the Federal Highway U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)

Administration, announced that all federal aid highway projects had to consider possible effects on fish and wildlife resources. This first step, six years before the passage of NEPA, marks the point when the BPR began to consider the impact of highways on biological resources, in addition to more traditional issues such as congestion relief, economic development, safety, and cost.1

The BPR also reacted to citizen distrust of interstate highways. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, citizen protests either delayed or halted interstates in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Kansas

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. . . “freeway fighters” used their experience and political savvy to help fledgling groups in other cities, resulting in a collaborative antifreeway movement throughout the country.

In response, the BPR revised policies on public hearings several times, settling on a requirement that citizens receive adequate notice by way of two required hearings.

City, Missouri, San Antonio, Tucson, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. Many “freeway fighters” used their experience and political savvy to help fledgling groups in other cities, resulting in a collaborative anti-freeway movement throughout the country. In response, the BPR revised policies on public hearings several times, settling on a requirement that citizens receive adequate notice by way of two required hearings. One would be held before the BPR selected a highway route so that public views on the proposed highway and its potential social, economic, and environmental effects could be considered. The other would be held after the BPR division engineer had approved the route, but prior to highway design approval.2 When the Colorado Department of Highways (CDOH) announced that the path of Interstate 70 would follow West Forty-Eighth Avenue through the Berkeley neighborhood in the northwest corner of Denver, the North Denver Civic Association organized a spirited protest in which it questioned why the highway couldn’t go outside of the city limits on West Fifty-Second Avenue, through a less-populated area.

Their protests helped convince the council of the city and county of Denver to vote down the route several times. In 1958, unwilling to risk losing the economic benefits the interstate would bring to Denver, the council went ahead and approved the interstate’s planned route. The construction of I-70 immediately east and west of I-25 cut through the Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, and Berkeley neighborhoods and through

Rocky Mountain Lake Park, Berkeley Lake Park, and the Willis Case Golf Course. Many residents along this section of I-70 still hold a longstanding resentment towards the department over the decision to cut through their neighborhoods and beloved parks.

Some of the highway engineers who worked on I-70 through Denver later remembered the Berkeley protests as the first time they realized the extent of opposition to the new interstate highway system. They had to contend with increased scrutiny from the public, municipalities, and elected officials for decisions they used to make unilaterally. These engineers were further alienated when highway engineers at the BPR required more in-depth studies of interstate routes before obligating federal aid for highway construction.3 As evidence of the growing discontent, Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, which required all federal agencies to take into account the impact of their projects on historic sites. In the same year, the Department of Transportation Act, which created the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, included a landmark environmental regulation, known today as Section 4(f ), which states, in part:

The Berkeley neighborhood and Berkeley Lake before and during construction of I-70. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

After the effective date of this Act, the Secretary shall not approve any program or project which requires the use of any land from a public park, recreation area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site unless (1) there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of such land, and (2) such program 71

This photo shows most members of the District 6 (now Region 6) engineering team who worked on the first segments of I-70 built west from the area of today’s Mousetrap into the Berkeley Park area then on toward Sheridan Boulevard.

These employees worked in an era of major transportation transition.

In previous decades, public sentiment largely favored new and improved roads, especially along existing rights of way. The era of urban freeways began in Denver in 1940s with the planning of the Valley Highway, and it got into full swing following passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956. Urban freeways required much wider rights of way that sometimes went through older neighborhoods. Public discontent with disruptions to private businesses, neighborhoods, parks, homes and apartment complexes rose exponentially, marking the beginning of the

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modernenvironmentalmovementandtoday’spublicinputandplanning processes so familiar to all CDOH/CDOT employees from the past 30 years or more.

The employees photographed on the new Lowell Boulevard I-70 overpass in 1966 are, from left: Clarence Siders, Dennis Rappenecker, Gary Brauer, Larry Miller, Joe Metcalf, Keith Poplin, Dean Ewy, Charles Bellinger, Stan Ihlanfeldt, Don Burkholder, George Veinberg, Bill Schuster, Bob Kilpatrick, Irv Deines, Fred Merten, Rick Stauffer, Ed Haase, Bob Link, Daryl Johnson, Jesse Russell, Boyd White, Tom Carroll, and Frank Knowles. Unit members who were not available for the photo were Fred Matti, Tom Gentry, Jr., Mark Dunlap, Gary Sams, Neal McLeod, Jack Geer, and Bob Chilcott. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

includes all possible planning to minimize harm to such park, recreational area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site resulting from such use.4 Section 4(f ) raised the bar for the impact of highway construction on sensitive sites and required a review of highway projects by the Secretary of the Interior, further complicating the highway planning process.

Just a few years later, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act, signed by President Nixon on January 1, 1970. This act resulted in major changes in the planning and construction of federally funded highways. Title 1 of the National Environmental Policy Act declared: “the profound influences of population growth, high-density urbanization, industrial expansion, resource exploitation, and new and expanding technological advances” required a new national policy “to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony.”5

Harvey Atchison implemented the Department’s first Action Plan to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

NEPA required all highway departments to hold public hearings and conduct environmental reviews to minimize negative environmental effects. CDOH would lose federal funding if it didn’t comply with the legislation. As a result, Charles Shumate, then CDOH executive director, appointed Harvey Atchison, a landscape architect, to develop the environmental unit, but made it clear to Atchison that he wasn’t a fan of NEPA. Hired in 1968 to manage CDOH’s Beautification Program to screen junkyards and remove billboards along highways, Atchison turned out to be an independent thinker. He had a friend in Washington, D.C., who had helped draft NEPA, and after reading the new legislation Atchison wrote the department’s first NEPA Action Plan.6 The plan addressed all steps in

the environmental process, including protecting or minimally disturbing the environment, and had to be approved by the FHWA.7 This view of the construction of the I-25 Environmental interchange at Sixth Avenue in Denver clearly reviews shows that urban freeways required a great deal of consequentlyslowed area, much of which was already privately owned the progress of and in use for other purposes. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver). highway projects, and the new environmental staff had to contend with distrust from engineers, contractors, and regulating agencies. But the staff gained ground as it proved that environmental clearances for projects led to their better reception by the public, and, in many cases, enhanced the environment and landscape.

When Charles Shumate retired in 1975, Governor Richard Lamm appointed the first outsider to head the department, Jack Kinstlinger, a civil engineer who had served as deputy secretary for planning at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Kinstlinger reworked the organizational chart during a time when many Americans were growing more concerned over environmental damage caused by highways. He directed the environmental unit to report directly to him, not to the chief engineer, and he added the division of transportation planning to undertake environmental review, craft policy, and bolster non-highway programs at the department, including bicycle transportation, public transportation, and building Regional Transportation District (RTD) park and ride lots.8 Each region had at least one environmental person, but headquarters cleared most of the projects for the regions because it had a larger staff. CDOH staff conducted all of the work in-house, including

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research, writing, and production of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements. Archaeologists, paleontologists, landscape architects, historians, geologists, biologists, ecologists, and urban planners worked side-by-side with engineers to counteract the impression of CDOH as a bulldozing agency that struck down whatever was in the path of highway development. The environmental staff slowly changed prevailing opinion and earned respect by building strong relationships within the department and with federal, state, and local agencies.

SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS A few summaries of the department’s significant environmental projects should give a sense of the issues CDOH encountered during the early years of NEPA. These projects set a high standard for future environmental clearances, as the practical application of NEPA was just beginning. NEPA provided a new opportunity for the highway

department to become a leader in environmental planning and to foster a spirit of cooperation between agencies in environmental decisionmaking. Colorado’s unique and challenging mountain terrain called for innovative designs to address environmental issues, and several highway projects received prominent awards from environmental groups and engineering societies.

The construction of I-70 through both Vail Pass and Glenwood Canyon has been widely recognized for creative engineering, sensitive design, and recreational amenities. Both projects also had extensive public involvement. During the 1970s some members of the public protested the impact of highways on sprawl and growth. After the election of Governor Richard Lamm on a “controlled growth” platform, highway planning became mired in contentious debates over the sprawl affecting Colorado’s communities. One project that weathered debates over sprawl was the planned routing of I-470 in southwestern Denver.

VAIL PASS

The Vail Pass section of I-70 was has been hailed as a masterpiece of modern highway engineering that blends into the environment and preserves the sensitive terrain. The 21.4-mile segment between South Frisco and the west foot of Vail Pass received local and national awards for improvements to trout habitat on Tenmile Creek, innovative wildlife crossings, the segmental design of the Gore Creek concrete bridges, and erosion control and re-vegetation projects along the roadway. CDOH celebrated when the project received the Rocky Mountain Center on the Environment award for environmental achievement in 1978, and the pass opened to traffic in September of the same year. CDOH archaeologists surveyed and recorded archaeological sites at the summit, adding to the prehistoric record and gaining understanding of the ancient peoples who Governor Richard Lamm attends the dedication of I-70 over Vail traveled through the area. A bike path Pass in 1978. (Source: Colorado became a recreational paradise for those Department of Transportation wishing to explore the pass on bike Archives, Denver). or by foot.

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This 1977 view shows an I-70 viaduct over Tenmile Creek and the roadway under construction on the east side of Vail Pass just above Copper Mountain Resort, where the ski runs are visible above the viaduct. The eventual route of the Vail Pass bike path is shown below the new structure. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Right: Archaeologists conducted extensive excavations on Vail Pass in 1975. The investigations revealed that the site was periodically occupied over the last 7,000 years and also provided information regarding significant climatic changes over time. (Source: CDOT Archaeology Program, Denver).

Far right: Archaeologist O. D. Hand demonstrates the skill of flintknapping to fellow Department of Highways employees during an archaeology open house in 1990.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Right: A crew improves Tenmile Creek for trout habitat, helping the Department win local and national awards for environmental sensitivity and design. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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GLENWOOD CANYON The issues and controversies surrounding the completion of I-70 through the narrow and spectacular Glenwood Canyon were complex and multi-layered, requiring the department to interact with the public in ways they had not done before. In 1976, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approved the route of US Highway 6 through Glenwood Canyon for I-70, the culmination of years of negotiation, debate, and compromise with environmentalists and local citizens. The initial highway design resulted in considerable public opposition, requiring the department to adapt the engineering plans to respond to these concerns. The construction took place from 1980 to 1992, resulting in what is widely acknowledged as the crown jewel of the highway system in Colorado. Engineers threaded a modern, four-lane freeway into a gorge barely wide enough to accommodate the existing two-lane highway. The design featured a terraced roadway that preserved and enhanced the canyon environment on elevated viaducts, and made driving through it a singular experience.

The highway has even been called an example of great public architecture. Recreationalists also celebrated the concrete bike path through the canyon and special facilities for launching rafts, boats, and kayaks and improved fishing access.

Left: Glenwood Canyon in 1992 on the approach to Hanging Lake Tunnel featured a viaduct that helped preserve the environment and enhance recreational opportunities in the narrow canyon. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Below: The gantry system that built I-70 Glenwood Canyon viaducts with minimal impacts to the ecosystems below is shown ready to place a precast concrete section high above the canyon floor. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

The extensive public involvement in every step of the project helped the department develop strong relationships with local groups. CDOH also developed effective strategies such as a free publication, Canyon Echoes, to keep citizens and other interested parties informed on the interstate issues. During construction, the department levied stiff fines on contractors who damaged or removed trees next to the viaducts that had been marked with ribbons to preserve, gathered seeds to re-vegetate with plant species native to the canyon, and stained freshly exposed rock so it blended in with the undisturbed rock. Glenwood Canyon won the 1993 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and it has also been recognized for accomplishments in planning, context-sensitive design, work zone traffic safety and management, and construction.9 77

CONTROVERSY OVER I-470 In 1969, the FHWA increased the total number of miles for the nation’s interstates from 41,000 to 42,500, including a 26mile circumferential route that would link I-25 south of Denver to I-70 west of the city and solve congestion problems in that part of the metro area. I-470 was the first interstate in Colorado studied in a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which the department submitted to the FHWA in 1972. The FHWA refused to approve the FEIS due to deficiencies and questions regarding air quality, alternative modes of transportation, alternate highway alignment, and effects on land use. Matters became more controversial when Governor Lamm, who campaigned on a platform of environmental protection and controlled growth, announced that he would thrust a “silver spike” through I-470 by vetoing construction of the route and diverting the interstate funds to mass transit. But the State Highway Commission supported the route, and a feud developed between the commission and the governor, who tried and failed to appoint people unsupportive of I-470 to the commission.

The role of the I-470 Ad Hoc Commission, a group appointed by Governor Lamm to debate land use, air quality, socioeconomic impacts, and transportation needs, demonstrated the growing role of outside agencies and the public in highway decision-

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C-470 is shown under construction at the Broadway interchange on the south side of the Denver metro area in this view looking southwest.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Rapid and lasting changes in interstate highway planning have created a more politically sensitive process and substantially changed the ways in which highways are constructed.

making. The I-470 Ad Hoc Commission eventually concluded that I-470 would not solve the area’s traffic problems, and advocated instead a list of smaller projects to alleviate traffic congestion, which the Colorado Highway Commission supported.10 These projects, and the completion of C-470 in 1990, demonstrate the new give-and-take process by which all major transportation improvements are undertaken today in Colorado. Another example includes the improvements to the US 85 corridor that incorporates the metro area’s first light rail line, and has become a model for multi-modal transportation projects in cooperation with the RTD.

Urban freeways posed challenges wherever they were planned. This view shows that the route of I-70 ran directly across Stapleton International Airport’s north-south runways, requiring the solution of the famous Stapleton Tunnels, which survived until the airport closed in the mid 1990s. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Rapid and lasting changes in interstate highway planning have created a more politically sensitiveprocessandsubstantially changed the ways in which highways are constructed.

But the practice of including other views and minimizing effects to the environment, which initially proved to be objectionable to most state highway engineers, is now seen as equal to engineering, economic, and community factors in highway decisionmaking. In 2003, with the publication of the Environmental Stewardship Guide, CDOT adoptedanenvironmentalethics statement to guide its work and accomplish its mission: “CDOT will support and enhance efforts to protect the environment and quality of life for all of Colorado’s citizens in the pursuit of providing the best transportation systems and services possible.”

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Far left: Modern highway design often impacts the remains of forgotten species of animals and plants, as well as ancient cultures. Here, paleontologists look for signs of Colorado’s earliest wildlife along Plum Creek in Douglas County. (Source: CDOT Environmental Programs Branch, Denver).

Left: Federal and state environmental rules and regulations are constantly revised. CDOT biologists learn the latest during a botany training in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Source: CDOT Environmental Programs Branch, Denver).

The environmental unit at CDOT has changed and grown to respond to regulations such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Threatened and Endangered Species Act. New federal, state, and local regulations and permits dictate guidance and accepted practices for noise levels and mitigation, erosion control, farmland and floodplain protection, asbestos abatement, hazardous materials investigation and cleanup, protection of wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, andthedevelopmentofstormwatermanagement plans and water quality plans.

Environmental justice has also changed the way that highway projects are planned in areas with a significant concentration of low-income and minority populations. Now FHWA is charting new territory by addressing the influence of transportation on climate change, an extremely complex subject that will impact state and local practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. CDOT has taken the initiative to apply FHWA’s new guidance for Planning and Environmental Linkages to

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Under CDOT’s direction, this landscaping job on Berthoud Pass paired pines and pavement.

Federal and state environmental regulations have broadened the Department’s responsibilities and created a greater awareness of the potential impacts highways, pedestrian walkways, and bike trails have on natural and cultural resources.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

several corridor projects, becoming known as a leader among transportation agencies in exploring this new initiative. Experts in these regulations will continue to guide the department to meet its environmentalresponsibilitiesinaprofessionalandefficientmanner.

NEPA, an interdisciplinary umbrella for more than forty different state and federal environmental laws, has radically changed and broadened the field of highway engineering. Now that more people are aware of NEPA, there are fewer misunderstandings over the impact of highways on the environment and improved relationships between the department, citizens, and regulatory agencies. The environmental process has changed at CDOT during the past forty years, but the staff still measures success based on the same principles that proved true when the program began: know your customer, cultivate relationships, and stay committed to the regulatory process.

Behind the success of the environmental and planning programs are the men and women who have made it all happen. They are, in a sense, a microcosm of CDOT and all its predecessor state transportation agencies whose histories are indelibly written in the personalities, dedication, skills, and work ethic of the employees who comprised them.

It is appropriate, then, that this Centennial history of Colorado state transportation agencies should conclude with a tribute to all of the people who have made everything possible over the past 100 years.

The modern environmental movement changed forever the way transportation infrastructure is planned, built, operated, and maintained. The Colorado Department of Transportation has been often-honored for outstanding environmental stewardship over the past several decades for sensitivity, projects, and efforts that may have begun like this, the simple act of replanting a pine tree on a project slope. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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CHAPTER 6 District 5 surveying crew in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, 1954. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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It Has Always Been About the People

By Dennis Van Patter, CDOT Public Relations

I

n 1910, the first state government agency dedicated to establishing and improving roads in Colorado began with a three-person commission and one employee.

One hundred years later, the Colorado Department of Transportation is an agency comprised of scores of buildings, fleets of equipment ranging from automobiles to gigantic trucks, bulldozers, and motor graders, intricate computer networks, and two dual-bore tunnel control centers. Through all the changes, through all the eras, through all the technological advances, one critical aspect of CDOT and its predecessor agencies has remained constant—the people.

Without employees, no highways could have been built, no improvementsmade,noequipmentmoved,notechnological advances implemented. The people of Colorado’s state transportation agencies have always made it happen, and they are the story behind the spirit and accomplishments of state transportation agencies over the past century.

DECENTRALIZATION Those first officials with the highway commission in 1910 had major decisions to make, including how to get a state highway agency organized and how to establish a process to designate which roads or proposed routes would receive state designation.

Colorado Governor Daniel Thornton (dark suit, western hat) helps place the cornerstone of the Colorado Highway Department Headquarters building in Denver, 1954. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives).

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Road building and maintenance services were needed in all sections of the state.

Meeting the need was not easy.

Rather than adding new state employees, the state settled on a service delivery system that relied on the state’s sixtythree counties, which employed workers experienced in roads and road issues. The state then reimbursed the counties for work done on the state highway system. For a while, this format worked adequately.

Earl L. Coon, Maintenance Worker II, Colorado Highway Department, 1950.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

The addition of the first significant numbers of new highway department employees occurred in 1928, when both maintenance and engineering divisions hired new workers and assigned them to field positions around the state. Within a few more years, regional offices had been established in Grand Junction, Durango, Pueblo, Greeley, and in the Denver area.

Highway department employees needed to live close to where the work was located, which was in all sixty-three counties spread across 104,000 square miles, at elevations ranging from 3,400 feet to 14,124 feet above sea level with all of the resulting climate and topographical variances.

Who went to work for the highway department in those early years? The answer is not easy to pin down, but one group often mentioned is people who enjoyed working outdoors.

Any Colorado resident wanting to work for the highway department had a variety of different employment options. Road maintenance employees brought required experience in construction trades, building trades, and heavy equipment operation, especially World War I surplus equipment. Since that equipment tended to be temperamental and to break down often, mechanics were also in high demand.

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HISTORICAL TRANSPORTATION LEADERS James E. Maloney, the first secretary and engineer of the new commission, was appointed in 1910 and led an effort to determine which roadways proposed by the counties should be designated for the new state highway system.

He served until 1921.

Major L.D. Blauvelt was appointed State Highway Engineer in May, 1921. He took on the major task of leading an effort to rebuild Colorado roads damaged by heavy truck traffic in support of World War I and dealing with employment issues of veterans returning from the war effort. Because most of the trucks that existed were war surplus trucks, most of which had been turned over to counties, the State Highway Commission and its maintenance division could do little to help with maintenance of the roads. Instead, they depended on the counties and then reimbursed them a portion of the costs. Major Blauvelt continued to serve as State Highway Engineer until his passing in 1930.

Charles D. Vail was appointed State Highway Engineer by Colorado Governor Alva Adams on Nov. 18, 1930, about three weeks after the passing of Major Blauvelt. Vail came to the highway department from a previous position as manager of improvement and parks for the

City of Denver. He served during the Great Depression and World War II. Today’s Monarch Pass, U.S. 50 between Poncha Springs and Gunnison, was located on a survey during Mr. Vail’s service, and the new highway was completed in 1939.

Vail Pass on I-70 between Summit and Eagle counties is named for Charles Vail. The history of the pass dates from June, 1936, when the highway department did a reconnaissance trip to the pass from the nearby Shrine Pass Road, then a major east-west route across Colorado.

Construction of the new route got underway that year and continued until 1941. Mr. Vail ordered that signs naming the new summit “Vail Pass” be erected at the site, which has been known as Vail Pass, elevation 10,666’, ever since.

The establishment of an engineering division was an acknowledgement of the tremendous task ahead—building highways capable of handling big vehicles and increasing traffic volumes year around. These employees brought engineering degrees and necessary practical experience in the areas of surveying, specifications, drafting, plans, cost estimating, and construction project management and oversight.

The opening of district and maintenance headquarters offices brought an even more diverseworkforcetothehighwaydepartment—administrativeassistants,typists,secretaries, clerks, accountants, and managers.

Few writings or accounts of those early years on the job for the highway department exist.

But we know that one year later, on August 15, 1929, two highway department employees, Asa Willard Heald of Montrose, CO, and Joseph “Dutch” Krouth of Ridgway, CO, died when the Nash Quad four-wheel-drive dump truck on which they were riding with 15 others, en route to Ouray on Primary Road 13 from a flood damage project near the summit of Red Mountain Pass on what is now U.S. 550, went out of control and plunged

Mr. Vail served until he passed away on January 8, 1945.

As a student at the Colorado School of Mines prior to his graduation in 1914, Mark U. Watrous served with James E. Maloney to survey a new east-west route across the southern San Juan Mountains along what would become the presentday Wolf Creek Pass. After graduation, he served as president and general manager of a Pueblo construction company. At the urging of Charles E. Shumate, who would eventually succeed him as Chief Engineer of the Highway Department, Watrous took the civil service examination for the Chief Engineer position

Alamosa maintenance employees, District 5, got dressed up and posed for this photo in 1950.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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off the highway two miles south of Ouray. Theirs were the first documented highway department employee deaths in the line of duty. The lesson that highway department field jobs had such inherent dangers was a tough one for the new employee base to learn.

In the first four decades of highway department’s existence, 1910 to 1950, employees took the realities of lack of reliable communications and extreme distances in stride.

Phone communication was available, but for an agency whose employees, beginning in 1928, were in more than one hundred locations statewide and whose duties often called them out onto the roadways and highways at all hours, actually finding someone available to take a phone call was hit-and-miss at best. Communications to and from remote field locations were virtually impossible unless a phone was available within a reasonable distance.

In 1935, the department’s ranks grew even more. Current employees were joined by 44 new co-workers who had been selected from among 7,500 applicants to comprise the first class of Colorado State Highway Courtesy Patrol troopers. The State Courtesy Patrol became a division of the highway department and remained so until 1984, when the Colorado State Patrol, as it had been renamed, was assigned to the newly-created Colorado Department of Public Safety.

that had opened following the passing of Charles Vail.

After he was declared winner of the position, court battles contesting his appointment ensued. He took over as Chief Engineer on April16, 1946, and served until his retirement on August 1, 1963.

Mr. Watrous worked with the Colorado Contractors Association in order to foster better communication, working relationships, and cooperation between the highway department and the highway contractors and their subcontractors. He established the Planning & Research Division, which was charged with recording the design criteria, capacity, and condition of every mile on the state highway system. He also headed the department when legislative action changed the name from the Colorado Highway Department to the Colorado Department of Highways, and the budget year was changed from calendar to fiscal on January 1, 1953.

During Mr. Watrous’ tenure as Chief Engineer, the highway department prepared for the expected building of the new system of Interstate and Defense Highways. Mr. Watrous also dealt with issues regarding a potential highway tunnel to take U.S. 6/U.S. 40 west from Denver. Survey and engineering options included tunnels beneath Loveland Pass (the Loveland Pass Pioneer Tunnel was built to a distance of 1.2 miles from 1941-43), Berthoud Pass, Jones Pass, Vasquez Pass, and Straight Creek.

Colorado State Courtesy Patrol troopers in formation at Camp George West in Golden. For nearly 50 years, highway department employees and courtesy patrol troopers were co-workers. Although they are in different state departments today, the two agencies continue to work closely with each other. (Source: Colorado State Patrol, Denver)..

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Charles E. Shumate went to work for the highway department in 1924 as a rodman on a survey crew in the Durango and Alamosa areas. He came to Denver Headquarters in 1951 as Administrative Engineer, a

position later named Deputy Chief Engineer, from District 2 in Pueblo, where he had served since 1936.

He was appointed Chief Engineer following a civil service examination on Aug. 20, 1963. In 1968, the title of his position was changed from Chief Engineer to Executive Director.

At the time of his retirement, he was quoted as saying he remembered when automobiles “scared horses instead of environmentalists,” a reference to opposition to department plans for building Interstate 470 around the southwest perimeter of the Denver metro area.

Transportation officials have often described the opening of the westbound/Eisenhower tunnel bore on I-70 through the Continental Divide west of Denver as the crowning achievement of his career.

He became one of the state’s first private pilots, and he often flew the highway department plane around Colorado on business, many times with legislators and other state officials on board.

He was widely known for visiting department projects all around the state, and employees remember that he never forgot their name after being introduced to them only one time.

The Charles E. Shumate Materials Laboratory at CDOT Headquarters in Denver was dedicated on Sept. 21, 1994.

That building is no longer the Department’s materials laboratory; it was renovated and is now the home of the CDOT Library, Transportation Development Division, and Audit Division. It is now named the “Shumate Building.”

Mr. Shumate retired July 1, 1975, following a 50-year career. He passed away on Oct. 30, 1990, at age 87.

Albert R. Jensen (left) and co-worker Ed Barnaby are pictured along a District 4 highway in northern Colorado with their Coleman truck, New Year’s Eve, 1954, at the scene of a tanker truck wreck. Albert Jensen is remembered for rescuing numerous motorists from the blizzard of 1949 and taking them to safety at Rockport in this Coleman truck. His family members have worked for Colorado state transportation agencies continuously since 1939. (Source: Collection of Alvan Shipps, Nunn, CO. Mr. Shipps is Albert Jensen’s grandson.)

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Communications were just as difficult for the new Courtesy Patrol troopers, who relied on a system in which their dispatchers would often phone local filling stations along an officer’s usual patrol route to provide details of a pending service call. Attendants at the station would then post a red flag alongside the highway, which would alert an officer of the service call.1 During the half century they spent as co-workers, highway department field maintenance and engineering professionals and Courtesy Patrol troopersworkedtogethertoaddresssituationsrangingfromemergencies to vehicle breakdowns, from stranded motorists to regulating traffic flow and speeds in construction zones. Their cooperative efforts continue to this day.

Two-way communication radios began to appear for both state troopers and highway personnel in 1949, lessening the feeling of isolation. Even though radio reception was difficult in some mountain and canyon locations, the communications situation was improving.

Over the years, more lives have been saved, broken down vehicles diagnosed and fixed on the spot, and more tires changed by highway department employees than could ever be counted. No one would be adequately able to estimate how many stranded motorists have been pulled from their vehicles and taken to safety during winter blizzards, or how many gallons of gas have been handed out to get a motorist to the next filling station.

Many motorists, from Colorado and from all around the nation and the world, have written to the Colorado Department of Transportation and its predecessor agencies to explain the relief they felt when the “big orange truck” pulled up behind their vehicle or stopped to help them.

Many others have written, composed poems, and even written songs about their feelings upon seeing the flashing amber and blue lights atop a CDOT snowplow truck during a bad snowstorm.

THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE Russ Mayer, a forty-plus year highway department employee who worked his entire career in engineering capacities in Denver, recalled that communications and getting to know people were difficult in the years before the Highway Department Headquarters building was built at its present location in Denver in the mid-1950s. The same could certainly be said for field employees who Jack H.O. Crum creates worked all around Colorado in the years before district a sign in the Highway andmaintenancesectionheadquarterswereestablished Division sign shop in around the state.

Denver, 1949. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Mayer, who began work in September, 1947, said the highway department had offices scattered around the Denver metro area. “My unit (survey & plans/roadway

design) was located at 1917 Broadway in what was originally a car storage garage,” he said. “We were on the first and third floors. Right of way and the bridge department were located on the second floor.” Just prior to Mayer’s hiring, these units had all moved to the 1917 Broadway location from a state office building in the area of 13th & Lincoln.

At that time, Mayer said, design work on the Valley Highway in Denver was underway at offices in the area of 14th and Larimer, in today’s Larimer Square. “The Chief Engineer’s office was in the state office building at Colfax & Sherman,” he explained. The department’s materials laboratory was located at 14th & Krameria east of downtown Denver, at the site of a current King Soopers grocery store. The KOA radio station building and towers were also located there until the station moved to a new building at 18500 East Colfax in Aurora, a site now occupied by CDOT’s Region 1 headquarters.

Mayer recalls a formalized and regimented communications and business atmosphere in his first few years with the highway department. “Many of us were World War II veterans, and some of our supervisors were former military officers,” Mayer recalled.

“There was a definite chain of command that you didn’t go around. Things were very military and businesslike. If you wanted to communicate with someone above the level of your supervisor, you needed to check with your supervisor first. You didn’t really get to know anyone outside your own work section because people were scattered all across the city.”2

Lighter moments at the highway department, including a competitive staredown confrontation (top), much to the delight of family members and friends behind, during the 1949 annual picnic. Below, entries 46 and 48 in the highway department’s annual Halloween party, also in 1949. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

Despitetheirscatteredlocations,highwaydepartmentemployees participated in various social gatherings throughout the year, including an annual late-summer picnic in the foothills above Denver, and an annual Christmas party held for several years in the highway department maintenance facility at Colfax & Ulster St. Historic department photographs show that these events were popular.

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Completion of the highway department office building, now known as CDOT Headquarters, shown under construction here not too much ahead of its opening in October, 1955, brought together squads and divisions from numerous locations across downtown Denver into one location.

The neighborhood was much less densely populated in 1955 than it is in 2010.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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The new headquarters building, opened in southeast Denver in 1955, brought employees from numerous locations together into one complex where they gradually got to know each other and developed an agency identity. The same thing was occurring at the district and maintenance section headquarters locations around Colorado.

Rapid technological advances in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s made communications among CDOH and CDOT employees easier than ever before. Nearly every desk had a computer by the mid-1990s, even if that was one desk shared by four or more people assigned to one maintenance patrol. E-mail made its first appearance at CDOT in the mid-1990s via dumb terminals, and it quickly advanced through several iterations to become the department’s major business communication method.

The popular and wide use of cellular phones finally put department employees in reliable, consistent touch with each other. But just so employees never forgot about the vagaries of the beautiful landscapes they work in, Colorado still had its nooks and crannies where there were no cell phone signals. Even those, however, continued to shrink each year.

Draftsman Robert Sears is pictured at his desk in the Colorado Department of Highways headquarters building in Denver, 1967, where employees had more room, more windows, and more direct access to their co-workers in other squads and divisions. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

In an effort to keep a stream of information flowing to transportation system users who are on the move all the time, CDOT moved quickly to take advantage of text message subscription programs and social networking.

In an ironic twist, the introduction of reliable

Cultural, holiday, and special celebrations happen all around CDOT, although the departmentwide events of the early decades of state transportation agencies have given way to more headquarters, region, and maintenance sectionbased events. Many of these events are formatted and scheduled so that employees’ family members can attend.

Most areas celebrate holiday events. In the photo above, Miles Kemp-Herrera (left), age 4, and his younger brother Cody, 1, had a close encounter with Santa Claus at a Region 6 family holiday party in Denver in 2009. The boys’ mom, Elizabeth Kemp, works for CDOT Region 6 Environmental & Planning.

Other popular events include Cinco de Mayo observances, chili cookoffs, and barbecues. CDOT employees donate $100,000 or more annually to the Colorado Combined Campaign charitable giving drive for state employees. Wellness programs and annual health fairs have helped employees catch health problems early and improve their overall well-being. Regular blood drives are well supported in the regions and at CDOT Headquarters.

There are several food drives conducted around CDOT, especially in the fall season leading up to Thanksgiving, that have resulted in tons of nonperishable food items donated to food banks in nearly every area of the state. Sometimes, big CDOT trucks are required to move all the donated food.

Annual holiday “Teddy Bears for Seniors” drives are very popular at Region 4 and Headquarters, with hundreds of stuffed animals, primarily the Colorado-invented teddy bear, being donated to local and area senior living and nursing home facilities. Sometimes, Santa goes along to help with distribution. The generosity often brings tears.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver.)

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MORE TRANSITIONS In the first several decades of their existence, Colorado’s state transportation agency employee rosters were overwhelmingly filled by men.

Perhaps it was the types of work, or societal norms and taboos, or the attitude of the agencies themselves. Perhaps there were few women with the skills, qualifications, and experience required for many transportation jobs of the time. Perhaps, when women with the necessary skills and qualifications applied, they were not hired.

As changes occurred in the nation with regard to women in the workplace, changes also occurred at the Colorado Department of Highways.

CDOT Executive Director Thomas Norton presented the 2004 Executive Director’s Trophy, which at that time went to the first region to encumber all of its project funds for the year, to Region 4 Transportation Director Karla Harding. Harding was the first woman in Colorado state transportation agency history to become a Region Transportation Director. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

communications and computer linkupshasmeantthatdepartment employees can conduct regular business and be in regular contact with each other, all without talking on the phone or meeting face-to-face. In some instances, employees have worked in the same complex, or even building, for years, and have conducted regular business, without ever meeting each other.

The rapid rise of video conferencing as a viable alternative to longdistance travel for meetings in a difficult economy has been efficient and effective, but some employees say they miss the more personal face-toface interaction, even if they don’t miss the hours of travel that were often required in past years.

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The well-publicized case of Janet Bonnema, a 33-year-old woman who in 1972 applied for an engineering technician job at the Straight Creek Tunnel project through the Continental Divide west of Denver, may have been among first examples of a woman attempting to break into the male-dominated ranks of engineering.

Media reports of the time, and a subsequent court case, indicated that the Department of Highways thought it was offering the job to a man, not a woman, due to a typographical error in Bonnema’s first name on a department document. Bonnema was then apparently told that women were not allowed inside the tunnel bore itself. The reason appears to have been a long-standing superstition in the mining industry that women in tunnels could cause them to collapse.

Bonnema sued for the right to be able to perform the job for which she hadbeenjudgedqualified,andapparentlythesuperstitionaboutwomen in mining tunnels did not stand up to scrutiny of the legal system. She settled out of court for $6,750 and the right to perform her job, which she did, apparently successfully, until the tunnel was completed a year later. She was laid off in 1973, and although records indicate that she put her name on the rehire list, there is no record that she worked for CDOH after that.

Whether or not the Bonnema case was the catalyst, over the next 20 years increasing numbers of women were hired in highway department engineering and maintenance. From entry-level positions, women began to ascend the ranks through the state classified system until, in the final years of the 20th century, numerous women were serving supervisory positions all across the department. Major milestones for women in the once male-dominant organization included Karla Harding, the first woman to become a CDOT Regional Transportation Director (1998); Kandace Lukow, the first woman to become a CDOT Maintenance Section Superintendent (2003); and Pam Hutton, the first woman to become the CDOT Chief Engineer (2006).

Diversity at state transportation agencies has gone well beyond gender diversity, as well. In January, 2004, Ed Fink became the first employee from a Maintenance & Operations career background to become a Region Transportation Director. District engineers and region transportation directors before that time had come from engineering backgrounds. Two more employees from maintenance backgrounds, Weldon Allen and Randy Jensen, also were promoted to become Region Transportation Directors.

Another major example of diversity is demonstrated very clearly in the cultural and ethnic celebrations that have been held across the department in the final years of the first century of Colorado state transportation agencies.

Cinco de Mayo celebrations, highlighting the tremendous cultural contributions of the Hispanic culture in Colorado, have been very popular. In the Denver area, the CDOT Caucus has sponsored annual “Taste of Soul” Black History Month celebrations, one of the department’s favorite cultural festivals for nearly 15 years. The Caucus also holds a variety of fundraisers to enable the awarding of annual scholarships to qualified African-American college-bound students.

But perhaps no single event has demonstrated the workforce diversity that is emerging at CDOT better than the Region 1’s “It’s a Small

World” celebration, which over the past several years has featured numerous booths highlighting the cultures of nations and people all across the world through displays and, especially, through native cuisine provided by employees themselves. In some years, 20 or more ethnic areas and/or cultures are represented.

“It’s a Small World” provides a virtual world tour with a stroll through the booths, where you were likely to see Scottish Kilts, the prominent Orange of the Netherlands, the cuisine of Tuscany, and many other cultures, as well.

“It’s a Small World” has demonstrated that when people become co-workers and get to know each other personally, issues of gender, skin color, religious backgrounds, ethnicity—and other factors which sometimes divide people—tend to fade away. Colorado state transportation agencies have never been more diverse than in 2010.

Peggy Catlin (left), CDOT Deputy Executive Director, presented the 2004 Roderick L. Downing Award for outstanding contributions to transportation in Colorado to Flodie Anderson of Golden, longtime Colorado Transportation Commissioner. Anderson was cited for numerous accomplishments, among them her leadership in establishing and helping develop the Colorado Scenic & Historic Byways program from its inception in 1989.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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SHINING MONUMENT BIDS US TO NEVER FORGET

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

The photo below shows the CDOT Employee Memorial Monument being lifted into place near CDOT Headquarters in Denver in May, 2006.

Transportation employees have often spoken of the department as being “family.” Despite the department’s size and its decentralized organization, in fact many employees regard their longtime co-workers and friends as extended family. Department employees’ work is very often a major part of who they are as people, and their department is one of their communities. Many retirees, when asked how they like retirement, respond by saying that they don’t miss the work, or having to work, but they miss their friends and co-workers.

The memorial monument project was taken from concept to completion by the CDOT Employee Council, with help from scores of friends and privatesector partners along the way, in a period of less than a year.

The dazzling white marble monument was cut at the historic Yule Quarry above Marble, CO. Initial engraving was done at Sterling Monument Works in Sterling, CO, then the monument was transported to Denver, where it was placed in the memorial plaza and then covered.

The dedication ceremony on May 18, 2006, was attended by more than 1,200 persons in what is believed to be the single largest gathering in Colorado state transportation agency history.

The enduring message of the monument is simple: “May we never forget our fallen co-workers,” with the fervent hope that no names will need to be added to the monument in the future. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

When things go wrong, as they inevitably will given the department’s responsibilities, types of work, and work sites, the feeling of family emerges time and time again.

Any transportation agency—local, state, or federal—understands that it cannot protect all transportation users all of the time. Drivers will make bad decisions that cause accidents. Weather will intervene and create conditions that cause accidents. In a state such as Colorado, where the stunning geography inspires awe, rocks will fall, flash floods will hit, and avalanches will run. Drivers can experience dry summer road conditions that deteriorate into winter conditions within a few miles or a few minutes in nearly any season of the year.

Nor can any transportation agency protect its employees all of the time.

The history of Colorado state transportation agencies has had its share of heartbreak and tragedy as demonstrated by the CDOT Employee Memorial Monument at the Denver Headquarters, which lists the names of 58 employees who have died in the line of duty from 1929-2009.

You have already read in this chapter about the story of Asa Willard Heald and Joseph “Dutch” Krouth, who died in 1929. Charles J. West, maintenance supervisor from Alamosa, died on Sept. 12, 1951, from injuries suffered when a bridge wing wall collapsed along SH 115

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between Colorado Springs and Penrose. West heard a cracking sound and pushed his co-worker, James Wilson of Penrose, out of harm’s way before the wall collapsed on him.

Also included is the name of Sharlene Nail, who died when she was shot by a CDOT co-worker during a meeting in Greeley in 1998.

Region 4 Transportation Director Karla Harding was seriously injured by the gunman, who himself later died in a confrontation with a Colorado State Patrol trooper just outside the Region 4 Headquarters building.

Denver Maintenance Section 8 co-workers Eladio Lopez and Paul Forster lost their lives in 2004 while they were working on I-25 in Denver. A drunk driver, going the wrong way down the interstate, crashed into their workzone. Scores of CDOT employees attended memorial services for both, and resulting court sessions as the driver who caused the fatalities went on trial.

There are unique stories, pain, and heartbreak associated with all 58 of the names and the tragedies that happened to them. The CDOT memorial program is dedicated to the principle that none of those who died in the line of duty will ever be forgotten.

Tragedies through the years that involved citizens outside of CDOT have also deeply affected department employees.

For example, the East Riverside slide ran on March 3, 1963, sweeping the Rev. Marvin Hudson of Ouray and his daughters Amelia, 17, and Pauline, 9, off U.S. 550 south of Ouray and down 600 feet in the canyon below. They are memorialized on a private monument located not far from the slide area.

In 1985, as the eighth and final girder on the Walnut Street Viaduct over I-25 in Denver was being placed, the structure collapsed, killing one construction worker.

On August 10, 1987, a highway department employee working on a rockfall removal project on U.S. 40 on Berthoud Pass used a front-end loader to nudge a seven-ton boulder over the roadway edge onto a 30-foot ledge about 15 feet below. Instead of coming to rest on the ledge as intended, the boulder rolled on down the mountainside several hundred feet, where it collided with the side of a Gray Line tour bus from Denver which was descending toward Winter Park. Eight people died in the accident.

Everyone involved, even the car owner, could smile a bit after this incident, in which rockfall in Clear Creek Canyon west of Denver smashed a parked vehicle. No one was injured. In cases when much more serious and deadly results occur, CDOT employees are glad to have the support system of their co-workers available.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

In 2004, a girder collapsed off a freeway overpass under construction at I-70 and C-470 on the west side of the Denver metro area. The girder sagged down onto the roadway in front of a vehicle carrying a family of three from Evergreen, all of whom died.

All other vehicles that potentially could have been affected in the eastbound I-70 lanes were able to stop.

These incidents, among others that could have been listed, provide a somber reminder that among the many triumphs of Colorado’s state transportation agencies over the past 100 years, there have been tragedies and heartbreaks, as well. In times like those, state transportation employees are grateful to have the support systems of their co-workers available to them.

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LEGACY OF SERVICE Any employee who goes to work for CDOT will soon hear the term “service,” as in “service to the traveling public” or “serving our customers.”

For state transportation agency employees over the past 100 years, service has taken many forms, ranging from saving lives at accident scenes to providing traffic count data. It can range from helping a city or county add handicapped-accessibility facilities to helping schools find safe walking routes for their students. Service means encouraging motorists to use seatbelts, and to not drink and drive. Or it can mean helping community airports develop master plans.

Above, service with vertigo—a CDOT inspection team prepares to give a bridge on US 6 in Clear Creek Canyon west of Denver a thorough going-over. Below, service is awarded—CDOT Region 6 employees (from left) Ed Bullard, Jason Kelly, Mike Dock, and Ferdi Abaca show the Project Management Award they won for their work on a resurfacing project on Havana St. from Parker Road to Florida in Aurora. (Source: Bridge Design & Management Branch; Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

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Service is especially visible when it comes in the form of protecting the safety of the traveling public.

It can be something highly popular like plowing snow, sanding roads, or applying anti-icers and de-icers. It can also be unpopular, as when a highway must be closed because of an accident or unsafe travel conditions.

Sometimes, customer satisfaction is determined by whether or not that agency did what the customer wanted. In some cases, depending on exactly what the customer wants, it is not possible.

Service is not just an abstract concept at CDOT. It has been formalized in CDOT’s vision and mission statements, as well as its values. Those same values of People, Respect, Safety, Integrity, Customer Service, and Excellence have been formally linked to employee performance planning and evaluation.

GLIMPSES OF SERVICE CDOT service to the public takes on many forms: Left: Edwards Rest Area building, I-70.

Below left: Pedestrian bridge over I-25 to Monument Valley Park, Colorado Springs.

Below: There’s a road under all the rockfall; U.S. 6 in Clear Creek Canyon.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

97

An Allegiant Airlines passenger jet lifts off from Ft. Collins Loveland Airport, one of the more than 70 public use airports that CDOT/ Division of Aeronautics has provided with discretionary grants, technical assistance, planning assistance, and a variety of cooperative programs to help the aviation community operate safely and efficiently. (Photo Source: Shahn Sederberg, CDOT Aeronautics Division, Watkins).

98

SERVICE—WATCHING OUT FOR YOUR CO-WORKERS AND OTHERS Rocks came down onto SH 141 at Uravan in late September and early October, 2007. BIG rocks.

The first fall occurred Sept. 27. Rock scaling and mitigation activities were ongoing for the next several days.

On Sunday morning, Oct. 7th, Jack Lee (TM-II, Patrol 19 at Nucla) and Buck Burbridge Jack Lee (Patrol 19) were in frontend loaders, splitting rocks along the highway. Two employees of contractor Sutherland Trucking were standing ready to haul the rock away.

Lee was relieved to be working in daylight. Patrol 19 worked eleven consecutive days and nights during the rockfall incidents. The evening before, he had called off similar operations because he felt something wasn’t right.

“I couldn’t see the rock above us and I wasn’t satisfied it was stable, so I sent everyone home,” he recalled. “When you’re around rockfall as much as we are, given the nature of the canyon country here, you learn to read the rock. Something didn’t feel right.”

The next morning, they resumed rock splitting.

“In rock operations, we always run with the windows down on our loaders, because the new ones are so quiet. I want to be able to hear anything the rock might be telling us,” Lee explained.

He heard something—a small snapping sound.

Then he saw a small puff of dust above them on the rock face. He immediately radioed for everyone to move themselves and their equipment away from the cleanup area.

Less than three minutes later, a wall of rock crashed top-first onto the roadway below. Lee’s supervisor, Ridgway Area LTC Ops I Greg Stacy, later estimated the total debris amounted to more than 1,000 cubic yards, about 10 feet thick and 100 feet across. It buried the roadway under countless tons of boulders and rubble.

“Had Jack not been so safety conscious, we would have had numerous fatalities that morning,” Stacy said. It is estimated that nearly $1 million worth of CDOT and contractor equipment would have also been destroyed.

Predictably, Lee, who also serves as a Montrose

County Coroner and who has seen a lot of life and death in his years in the area, shrugged at the publicity.

“It’s what we do out here, watch out for each other,” he said. “I watch the rock walls all the time, and I think I would have noticed the puff of dust even if I hadn’t heard the snap before it. I still had the feeling that something was wrong.”

The reaction? There were sighs of relief and waiting for a few moments so their hearts would stop pounding.

Then it was back to regular duties—call in the rockfall mitigation experts, check out the wall for further instability, and move back in to begin the herculean task of moving all that debris away to get the highway open. And listening and watching all the while, because it’s what they do in rock canyon country.

This view shows the rockfall of Sunday morning, Oct. 7, 2007, on SH 141 near Uravan.

For a sense of scale, note the two workers at the right edge of the photo.

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

99

CDOT and its predecessor agencies have long recognized individual employees, groups, and teams for highly effective performance of their jobs, often resulting from superior performance in the areas of service, safety, and commitment. Among the recognition programs from the past two decades have been Employee of the Month, Employee of theYear, Employee Appreciation, Achievement Awards, Safety Awards,

Maintenance Patrol Roadside Safety Awards, Employee Council Awards, and Nonsalary Incentive Awards. Although the awards and their criteria differ slightly, the focus is similar—saying thank you and providing recognition to employees for doing their jobs exceptionally well and providing excellent service to the department’s customers, which often include their co-workers.

Department focus on training is also based upon preparing employees to work most efficiently in order to serve most effectively. Whether it is safety training, as provided in a variety of formats including at the CDOT Maintenance Training Academy, or professional development training, as provided through the CDOT Center for Learning & Organizational Development and, in the future, CDOT University, the goals are the same—to prepare employees to serve as efficiently, knowledgeably, and safely as possible.

In any organization like CDOT, with employees located at more than 250 locations, some of which may be separated by 400 miles or more, the challenge of taking care of employees, of training them effectively, and communicating with them so that they feel informed, will always be difficult. But it will always have the highest priority, as exemplified by the department’s philosophy of “safety before production,” because it has always been about the people.

Sometimes, serving effectively and with good humor means not taking yourself too seriously. Here, the engineering team behind major improvements to SH 145 on Keystone Hill near Telluride posed with their favorite sunshades.

Keeping a lighthearted, good attitude was necessary in the stressful project situation of 60-degree sliderock slopes, high traffic volumes, and even higher local expectations. From left, these stylish engineers are Joe Colley (project engineer); David Valentinelli (Phase I assistant project engineer); Russ Ebel (head tester); Ed Archuleta (resident engineer); Nordine Goudjil (tester/ inspector); and Lorna Alexander (Phase II assistant project engineer).

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

100

This look at Colorado’s state transportation agencies has come full circle. Through the earliest years of highway commissioners trying to determine the best way to establish, build, and maintain a Colorado highway system, through organizational changes, economic upturns and downturns, and finally into the toughest economic situation in the United States since the Great Depression—the story has always been, and will always be, about transportation employees and their efforts to build, maintain, and operate the best possible transportation system for Coloradans and visitors alike.

Happy centennial, Colorado state transportation employees past, present, and future. It has always been, and will always be, about you.

Mountain Transportation Project improvements on U.S. 40 on the eastern side of Berthoud Pass are pictured in 2004. The efforts of CDOT employees, contractors, and subcontractors in improving drainage, widening the highway, and installing beautiful, artistic retaining walls resulted in a safer and more efficient corridor over the historic pass. “Taking Care to Get You There.�

(Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

101

endnotes

Chapter 1: Isolation to Destination: The Roads Leading to a Colorado Highway Department 1

2

3

4

5

6

17

Merchant, 77.

11

“Tom Tully Talks About Early Struggles for Highways, “Colorado Highways, (April 1929): 9.

18

Marion C. Wiley, The High Road, (Denver: Colorado Division of Highways, 1976): 11.

12

“The Auto Has Marked Denver for Its Own,” in Denver Republican (January 1, 1910); and “$12,000,000 Worth of Automobiles Owned by Denver Citizens in Now,” in Denver Republican (January 1, 1911). In Denver, the average cost of car ranged between $1,500 and $1,800 in 1910. The Republican also noted there were 1,500 people working in “concerns directly dependent on the automobile (garages, car dealerships, etc.)” in Denver that year.

19

“Tom Tully Talks About Early Struggles for Highways,” 9.

20

Ibid.

21

Wiley, The High Road, 12.

22

“Tom Tully Talks About Early Struggles for Highways” 18.

23

Hafen,15.

24

State of Colorado, Colorado State Legislature, Session Law of Colorado, Chapter 114, (1913), and Hafen, 14.

25

State of Colorado, Second Biennial Report of the State Highway Commission, 1913, 45-47.

26

State of Colorado, Second Biennial Report of the State Highway Commission, 1913: 5-6.

27

Colorado Department of Transportation. State of Colorado, State Highway Commission, Annual Report of State Highway Commission, 1913, no page. File: Annual Report-1913.

Accession No. 48036. Colorado State Archives, Denver.

28

Colorado Department of Transportation. File: “Magazine Articles, 1918.” Accession No. 48036. Colorado State Archives, Denver.

29

Tom Tully Papers. “The Good Roads Movement,” in Pueblo Chieftain (19 November 1911). Fort Lewis College Archives, Durango, CO.

30

Mark Wolfe, “How the Lincoln Highway Snubbed Colorado” in Colorado Heritage (Autumn 1999): 12-3.

J.A. Clay, “Dusty Pages of Past Revealed in the History of Million Dollar Highway,” in Colorado Highways, (April 1927): 6-7.

J.E. Maloney and O.T. Reedy, “History of the Colorado State Highway Department,” (Denver, 1929): 17. (Manuscript located at Colorado Department of Transportation, Denver).

“D.W. Brunton, Noted Denver Civil Engineer, Dies at Mayo’s” Rocky Mountain News, (December 21, 1937). On his death at eighty-two in 1937, Brunton’s obituary noted that he was also an owner of one of the state’s first radios.

13

14

“Drove His Auto Too Fast” Denver Times, (January 15, 1902). The presiding judge reminded the guilty party, E.I. Mathewson, of Mathewson’s conviction for speeding during the previous year.

LeRoy R. Hafen, “The Coming of the Automobile and Improved Roads to Colorado,” Colorado Magazine, (January 1931): 6; and “Women Automobilists of Denver” Denver Post, (November 16, 1902).

Sterling Democrat, (August 4, 1905).

8

“First Automobile Stolen in City of Denver” in Denver Republican, (10 September 1903): p. 5.

Diary of David Brunton [collection], 1870-1920, MSS #90.

Stephen H. Hart Library, Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO.

102

Merchant, 76.

Frank Merchant, “Colorado’s First Highway Commission 1910-12,” in Colorado Magazine, (January 1955): 75.

7

9

10

15

16

Tom Lewis, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, (New York: Viking Press, 1997), 31-33.

Stephen J. Leonard, Thomas J. Noel and Donald L. Walker, Jr., Honest John Shafroth: A Colorado Reformer, (Denver: Colorado Historical Society, 2003), 52; “Governor Names Highways Board,” Denver Post (December 31, 1909).

Shafroth had a subsequent, nearly fatal involvement with the automobile. Almost a year after the creation of the highway commission, on Saturday, January 28, 1911, he was stepping off the curb at Broadway and Sixteenth Street when a speeding automobile nearly knocked him down. A newspaper account lamented that the driver would never be found because mud and dirt covered the vehicle’s license plate number (“Governor Shafroth is Nearly Run Down by Speeding Auto,” Denver Post, January 29, 1911).

Leonard, Noel, and Walker, Jr., Honest John Shafroth: A Colorado Reformer, 38 and 49.

“Governor Names Highways Board,” in Denver Post, (December 31, 1909. Wiley would serve four years while Tully remained for only two years. As Chairman, Allen received an annual salary of $1,200 while Wiley and Tully earned $600 a year.

31

J.E. Zahn, “Along the Victory Highway,” in Colorado Highways (June 1922):10.

32

Electronic message from Dennis Van Patter to author, December 14, 2009. In 2009, Mr. Van Patter spoke with Russ Mayer. Mr. Mayer worked for the Department of Highways/ Transportation from 1948 to 1989 before concluding his career as head of the Transportation Development Research Program. The squads included sections for Highway Design, Materials, Maintenance, and Engineering.

33

Maloney and Reedy, “History of the Colorado State Highway Department,” 8-9.

34

Colorado Department of Transportation. File: “Rules and Regulations F.A.P.” Accession No. 48036. Colorado State Archives, Denver. During the early 1920s, only Oklahoma, Vermont and North Dakota paid their chief highway engineer less than Colorado. The average American earned $1,236 annually during the 1920s.

35

36

37

38

39

40

The Blauvelt News (http://www.blauvelt.org/bn/bnspring-03.pdf ). Accessed November 29, 2009.

The High Road, 17.

Letter from W.M. Jeffrey to Mrs. W.M. Jeffrey, July 3, 1921, and Joseph D. Jeffrey, “Old Monarch Pass.” (unpublished manuscript, December 2000): 57. The author is grateful to Dan and Kathy Jeffrey for use of William Jeffrey’s notebooks and letters related to the construction of the first highway road over Monarch Pass. The Colorado Department of Highways would clear a new road over Monarch Pass less than a mile southeast of the original route during the late 1930s.

Colorado Department of Transportation. Letter from Senior Highway Engineer to Assistant Engineer, October 23, 1923.

File: Maps of Colorado, 1922-1923. Accession No. 48036.

Colorado State Archives, Denver.

“Road Work Relieves Unemployment Situation in Colorado,” in Colorado Highways, (September 1930): 4.

“U.S. Bureau Chief Urges Better Roads Thru Colorado Rockies,” in Colorado Highways, (April 1928): 4; Hafen, “The Coming of the Automobile,” 16; University of Denver, “Financing Highways in Colorado.” (Denver, 1940): 15, and “Colorado Mourns Death of Maj. Blauvelt,” in Colorado Highways, (November 1930): 1.

CHAPTER 2: OVERCOMING OBSTACLES: THE EVOLUTION OF COLORADO’S HIGHWAYS

1

“Surveyors Open New Scenic Highway,” Colorado Highways (May 1922): 2.

2

Dowell Livesay, “Lowly Beasts Laid Out First State Roads,” Rocky Mountain News, June 8, 1930.

3

Associated Cultural Resource Experts, Highways to the Sky: A Context and History of Colorado’s Highway System (Denver: Colorado Department of Transportation, 2002), 11–3, Ervan F. Kushner, Otto Mears: His Life and Times (Frederick, CO.: Jende-Hagan Bookcorp), 53, and J.A. Clay, “Dusty Pages of Past Revealed in History of Million Dollar Highway,” Colorado Highways (April 1927): 6-7.

4

Ibid., 11–4.

5

Ibid., 5–31.

6

Ibid., 11–4.

7

Kit Miniclier. “Snowshed Avalanche Control ‘To Improve,’” Denver Post, September 20, 1992.

8

Marion C. Wiley, The High Road (Denver: Colorado Division of Highways, 1976), 15.

9

“Wolf Creek Death Trap Is Eradicated by State Force,” Colorado Highways (November 1925): 11.

15

Bureau of Public Roads, Final Statement of Costs and Final ConstructionReportontheCompletionoftheMonarchPassProject: Chaffee,Gunnison,andSaguacheCounties,CochetopaNational Forest, State of Colorado,”by W. M. Jeffrey (Denver: U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, District No. 3, March 10, 1922), 8.

16

Wiley, The High Road, 26; “Monarch Pass Highway Completed,” 8.

17

“Monarch Pass Highway Completed,” 8.

18

Wiley, The High Road, 26.

19

Abigail D. Christman,The Legacy of the New Deal on Colorado’s Eastern Plains (Denver: Colorado Preservation, Inc., 2008), 26.

20

Stephen J. Leonard, Trials and Triumphs, A Colorado Portrait of the Great Depression with FSA Photographs (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993), 104.

21

Wiley, The High Road, 27.

22

Associated Cultural Resource Experts, 6–6.

23

Wiley, The High Road, 27.

24

Rebecca Herbst and Vicki Rottman, Historic Bridges of Colorado (Denver: Colorado Department of Highways, 1986), 18.

25

Steve White, interview by author, November 24, 2009.

26

Dianna Litvak, Spanning Generations: The Historic Bridges of Colorado (Denver: Colorado Department of Transportation, 2004), 23.

27

Steve White, interview by author, November 24, 2009.

10

Bernard Kelly, “State Hails Wolf Creek Super Road,” Denver Post, October 16, 1950.

28 11

“Monarch Pass Highway Completed,” Colorado Highways (April 1922): 8.

Dianna Litvak, Spanning Generations, 26.

29

Steve White, interview by author, November 24, 2009.

12

“Surveyors Open New Scenic Highway,” 2.

30

Ibid.

13

Ibid.

31

14

Joseph D Jeffrey, “Old Monarch Pass: A High Mountain Road Transitions from Stagecoach to Model T,” unpublished work (December 2000), 13.

“State Plans Highest Arch Span Bridge,” Rocky Mountain News, May 2, 1940.

32

Herbst and Rottman, Historic Bridges of Colorado, 71.

33

Clayton B. Fraser, “Historic Bridge Inventory Site Form 5EA1617,” March 31, 2000.

103

34

Ibid.

53

Ibid., 42.

35

“Carr Opens Bridge Today on U.S. 24,” Rocky Mountain News, August 3, 1941.

54

Wiley, The High Road, 43-44.

55

Ed Oschmann, “Court Gives City Title to Land,” Rocky Mountain News, July 8, 1955.

36

Herbst and Rottman, Historic Bridges of Colorado, 71.

37

“’Ribbon of Death’ Road Paved With Gold From Mine Dumps,” Denver Post, December 31, 1949.

38

Clayton B. Fraser, “Historic Bridge Inventory.”

39

“War Ruling Brings Colorado Road Building To Virtual Standstill,” Rocky Mountain News, April 23, 1942.

40

Colorado Highway Department Highway Planning Committee, Digest and Review of the Preliminary Report of the Colorado Highway Planning Committee (Denver: Colorado Highway Department, December, 1950), 2.

41

“Boulder-Denver Turnpike Officially Opened,” Boulder Daily Camera, January 19, 1952.

42

“Special to the Denver Post,” Denver Post, October 27, 1946.

43

Ibid.

44

Sam Lusky, “Boulder Toll Road Bill Signed by Gov. Knous,” Rocky Mountain News, April 16, 1949.

45

104

Colorado Department of Transportation, “Glenwood Canyon I-70 Final Link,” http://www.coloradodot.info/about/50thanniversary/interstate-70/glenwood-canyon.

74

Ralph Trapani, interview by author, December 11, 2010.

58

Colorado Department of Transportation, “Fiftieth Anniversary of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways,” <www.coloradodot.info/about/50thanniversary> (13 January 2010).

75

Colorado Department of Transportation, “Fun Facts,” http:// www.coloradodot.info/about/50th-anniversary/fun-facts. html.

76

Ibid.

77

Steve Moler, “Colossal Partnership: Denver’s $1.67 Billion T-REX Project,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Public Roads” (September/ October 2001), http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/septoct01/ trex.htm.

78

Jeffrey Leib, “Official Seeks Sound Solution to I-25 Noise: Berm,” Denver Post, September 18, 2002, 113.

79

Kevin Flynn, “24 Hours a Day in the Life of the T-REX Project and the People Reshaping Denver’s Main Artery,” Rocky Mountain News, September 17, 2003.

80

John Lay, “T-REX: How Big a Headache? Project a Good Model,” Denver Post, August 24, 2003.

81

Metro Denver, “Metro Denver’s Multi-modal T-REX Takes Last Step,”http://www.metrodenver.org/news-center/metrodenver-news/T-REX.html.

82

Kevin Flynn,“24 hours a day.”.

83

Transportation Expansion Project, “Project Fact Book,” 47.

84

[Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board], Recovery.Gov, Track the Money, “The Act,” http://www. recovery.gov/About/Pages/The_Act.aspx.

85

Colorado Department of Transportation, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA),” http://www. coloradodot.info/projects/arra.

86

Russell George, “Executive Director Message to All Employees” electronic message to author, February 11, 2010.

59

Colorado Department of Transportation, “Fun Facts,” http:// www.coloradodot.info/about/50th-anniversary/fun-facts. html.

60

Colorado Department of Transportation, “The History of I-70 in Colorado” <www.coloradodot.info/about/50thanniversary/interstate-70> (13 January 2010).

61

Jack Robinson, “Highway Unit Picks U.S. 6 for Super Road,” Rocky Mountain News, April 17, 1960.

62

Associated Cultural Resource Experts, 7–13.

63

Ibid.

64

Bert Hanna, “Boring Story a Dramatic One,” Denver Post, October 25, 1968.

“Pike Becomes Free Road to Rate as Historic First,” Denver Post, 14 September 1967, 2.

65

Chuck Green, “Tunnel Crew Says Health Endangered,” Denver Post, July 18, 1971.

48

Wiley, The High Road, 40.

66

Richard O’Reilly, “Loose Rocks Add to Peril of Blasting,” DenverPost:BonusReportontheTopicoftheDay,June10,1968.

49

Colorado Department of Highways, Commemorating the Opening of the East Forty-sixth Ave. Freeway (Interstate 70) (Denver: Colorado Department of Highways, September 12, 1964), 1.

67

Colorado Department of Transportation, “EisenhowerJohnson Memorial Tunnels,” http://www.coloradodot.info/ about/50th-anniversary/interstate-70/eisenhower-johnsonmemorial-tunnels.html.

68

Associated Cultural Resource Experts, 7–13.

69

George Merrit, “Conquering the Divide,” Denver Post, March 9, 2003.

70

Ibid.

Tom Gavin, “$33 Million Valley Highway Near Finish After 10 Years,” Rocky Mountain News, January 19, 1958.

Litvak, “Freeway Fighters in Denver,” 48.

73

Wiley, The High Road, 34.

47

52

Merrit, “Conquering the Divide.”

57

Ibid., 32.

51

72

Litvak, “Freeway Fighters in Denver” 45–46.

Wiley, The High Road, 31.

Dianna Litvak, “Freeway Fighters in Denver, 1948–1975” (unpublished MA thesis, University of Colorado Denver, 2007), 39.

Jason Blevins, “Tunnel Turns 25, but It’s Business as Usual,” Denver Post, May 9, 1998.

56

46

50

71

CHAPTER 3: PUTTING COLORADO ON THE MAP: THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM AND TOURISM IN COLORADO William Philpott, “Consuming Colorado: Landscapes, Leisure, and the Tourist Way of Life” (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 2002), 21.

1

2

Eric L. Clements, “Selling the Switzerland of America: Colorado’s Railroads Promote Pleasure and Health Seeking, 1870–1930,” Colorado Heritage, March/April 2009, 15–16

3

Charles Harbert, Colorado History . . . Insights and Views through Postcards (Wellington, CO: Vestige Press, 2006), 157.

4

Clements, “Selling the Switzerland of America,” 19.

5

Clements, “Selling the Switzerland of America,” 20.

16

Ibid., 100.

17

Ibid., 180.

18

Warren E. Boyer, “Colorado’s Tented Cities,” Colorado Highways (September 1922): 3.

19

Athearn, The Coloradans, 260.

20

Boyer, “Colorado’s Tented Cities,” 3.

21

Year Book of the State of Colorado, 1925, ed. Tolbert R. Ingram (Denver: Bradford-Robinson Printing Co), 19.

22

Boyer, “Colorado’s Tented Cities,” 3.

23

24

25

John A. Robinson, “Tourism: Colorado as Advertised,” Englewood Sentinel, December 1, 1976, 20. Denver Public Library clipping files.

6

7

Wiley, The High Road (Denver: Colorado Department of Highways, 1976), 9. ; Charles Harbert, Colorado History . . .

Insights and Views through Postcards (Wellington, CO: Vestige Press, 2006), 160. Carl Ubbelohde, Maxine Benson, and Duane A. Smith, A Colorado History, 6th ed. (Boulder: Pruett Publishing, 1988), 240.

9

Clements, “Selling the Switzerland of America,” 15.

Wiley, The High Road, 13.

38

Ibid., 52.

39

Minutes of a Meeting of the State Highway Commission and Advisory Board, November 4, 1921, 99. CDOT central files.

40

“Colorado Adopts Standard Road Signs: Rocky Mountain Motorists, Inc., to Furnish Signs Free of Cost—Scenic and Historic Attractions of State to Be Exploited,” Colorado Highways (March 1923): n.p.

41

Ibid.

42

Ibid; Clarence Werthan, “Markers as Aid to Motor Tourists,” Colorado Highways (February 1926): 10.

43

Ibid.

44

Minutes of the Highway Advisory Board, October 30, 1928.

CDOT central files.

Athearn, The Coloradans, 262, 264.

27

Year Book of the State of Colorado, 1925, ed. Tolbert R. Ingram (Denver: Bradford-Robinson Printing Co), 19.

45

David Halaas, “The Colorado Roadside Interpretation Program,” Colorado Historical Society, no date. Unpublished.

28

Warren E. Boyer, “Highways Bring Two-Fold Returns,” Colorado Highways (April 1922): 7

46

“Colorado Scenic Points To Be Located by Signs” Colorado Highways (June 1929): 11.

29

Athearn, The Coloradans, 264.

47

30

Frank Merchant, “Colorado’s First Highway Commission, 1910–1912—Part II,” Colorado Magazine (January 1955): 148.

48

Minutes of a Meeting of the State Highway Commission, April 9 and 10, 1918, 253. CDOT central files.

31

Ibid, 149.

49

Resolution Unanimously Passed by the Third Highway District Association, June 3, 1920, 9. CDOT central files

32

Minutes of a Meeting of the State Highway Commission and Advisory Board, March 17, 1913, 19. CDOT central files.

50

E. E. Jackson, “Paved Roads Draw Tourists: Traffic Census Reveals Popularity of Colorado Springs–Manitou Concrete Highway to Peak Resorts,” Colorado Highways (June 1922): 6.

51

Associated Cultural Resource Experts (ACRE), Highways to the Sky:AContextandHistoryoftheColoradoHighwaySystem,2002; “Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway,” http://www.ppoo.org.

52

Richard F. Weingroff, “The Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway: The Appian Way of America,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Highway History,” http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/pikes.cfm.

Harbert, 160.

10

Ibid.

11

Ubbelhode, Benson, and Smith, A Colorado History, 240–241.

12

Paths of Progress (Denver: The A.B. Hirschfield Press, circa 1954), 8. Denver Public Library clipping files.

13

Robert Athearn, The Coloradans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976), 259.

14

State Board of Immigration, Year Book of the State of Colorado, 1918 (Denver: Brock-Haffner Press), 4.

35

Wiley, The High Road, 21.

Ibid.

36

Ibid.; “Uniform Road Marker System Planned,” Colorado Highways (May 1925): 11.

15

Minutes of a Meeting of the State Highway Commission and Advisory Board Held at the Office of the State Highway Commissioner in the State Museum Building, November 2, 1915, 52–53. CDOT central files.

26

Clements, “Selling the Switzerland of America,” 20–21.

8

Warren E. Boyer, “Trails and Tourist Camps,” Colorado Highways (September 1923): 5.

37

33

Ibid.

34

Minutes of a Meeting of the State Highway Commission and Advisory Board, Held at the Office of the State Highway Commissioner in the State Museum Building, August 2, 1916, 100–101. CDOT central files.

“Editorial Comment,” Colorado Highways (April 1922): 4.

105

Associated Cultural Resource Experts, 1–86

72

Philpott, “Consuming Colorado,” 186.

54

“Route 40 Traces Path of Pioneers,” Colorado Highways (June 1928): 8.

73

State Highway Department, “Motor Thru the Majestic Rockies over Colorado’s Streamlined Highways!” 1938. (State Highway Map)

55

Alvin Edlund, Jr., A Brief History of America’s Backbone (a/k/a the Loneliest Road in America) and How it Came to Pass through Central Colorado (Central Colorado Publishing Co., 1999), http://www.route50.com/history.htm.

74

Ibid.

75

Minutes of the Highway Advisory Board Session, June 29 and 30th, 1943. CDOT central files.

76

“Colorado’s Vacation Seasons Sets Record of 1,300,000 Visitors,” Denver Post, September 7, 1941.

53

56

57

“Colorado’s Great Gift to Nation,” Colorado Highways (April 1927): n.p.

58

Ibid.

59

Wiley, The High Road, 20; Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado: Life Along the Scenic and Historic Byways (Weaver Multimedia Group, 2007), 51.

60

Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS No. CO-81, Mount Evans Crest House, 1986, National Park Service, United States Department of Interior, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ collections/habs_haer/.

61

Ubbelohde, Benson, Smith, A Colorado History, 330.

62

Philpott, “Consuming Colorado,” 30.

63

Year Book of the State of Colorado, 1935-1936, ed. Tolbert R. Ingram (Denver: Bradford-Robinson Printing Co), 67.

64

Year Book of the State of Colorado, 1930, ed. Tolbert R. Ingram (Denver: The Bradford Robinson Printing Co), 220, 222.

65

Wiley, The High Road, 24–25.

66

Ubbelohde, Benson, and Smith, A Colorado History, 330; Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado: Life along the Scenic and Historic Byways, 8.

67

68

69

106

Highway 50 Association of Colorado, “Travel Colorado US 50,” no date. Denver Public Library clipping files.

77

78

Minutes of a Meeting of the Highway Advisory Board, December 11, 1934. CDOT central files.

70

Wiley, The High Road, 29.

71

Philpott, “Consuming Colorado,” 185.

Erin McDanal, “History of State Tourism and Promotional Agencies,” Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration,http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/ tour/index.htm.

Annie Gilbert Coleman, Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 18–19; 25–26; 106–107.

Coleman, Ski Style, 84–85, 125.

80

Coleman, Ski Style, 125. Wiley, The High Road, 34–35.

81

“History and Current Status of the Blue Star Memorial Highways,” The National Remember Our Troops Campaign, http://www.nrotc.org/blue.star.mem.hwy.htm.

82

Ibid.

83

Richard R. Weingroff, “Blue Star Memorial Highways,” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Highway History,” http://www.fhwa.dot. gov/infrastructure/blue01.cfm.

84

“History and Current Status of the Blue Star Memorial Highways.”

85

Minutes of the Highway Advisory Board Meeting, November 26, 1951, 130. CDOT central files

86

“Dedication of 5 Blue Star Memorial Markers,” April 2, 1974.

(Dedication Flyer, CDOT public relations files). “History and Current Status of the Blue Star Memorial Highways.”

Wiley, The High Road, 26.

87

Jack Cox, “Welcome to Nostalgia: For Many, Colorado’s Rustic Sign Stirs up an Old West Stew of Emotion that Says Both “Howdy” and “Home Sweet Home,” Denver Post, January 15, 2006, “Roger Johnson’s Welcome to America,” http://www.welcometoamerica.us/publicity/ denverpost-1-15-06.html.

89

Jenny Shank, “Bad Design to Replace Historic “Colorful Colorado” Signs,” December 22, 2005, 1-2. http://www. newwest.net/main/article/bad_design_to_replace_historic_ colorful_colorado_signs/

90

Fillion, “Signs of Times.”

91

Cox, “Welcome to Nostalgia.”

92

Roger Fillion, “Welcome’ Signs to Stay: Owens Won’t Change Popular Landmarks at State Entry Points,” Rocky Mountain News, June 8, 2006, http://rockymountainnews. com/news/2006/jun/08/welcome-signs-to-stay/

93

Colorado Logos, Inc., “TODS, Tourist Oriented Directional Sign Program,” no date. http://www.coloradodot.info/ library/Brochures/TODS_20051206.pdf/view

94

Colorado Logos Inc., “The Specific Information & Business Signs (LOGO) Program,” no date. http://www.coloradodot. info/library/Brochures/LOGOS_20051206.pdf/view

95

“Why Not Take Time to Utilize State Roadside Rest Facilities?” The Morning Star, August 13, 1967. CDOT public relations files.

96

Unnamed newspaper, March 31, 1985. CDOT public relations files.

97

Felsburg, Holt & Ullevig Brendle Architects, “Colorado Rest Area Management and Maintenance Study,” Prepared for the Colorado Transportation Commission, August 1997. Final draft. CDOT public relations files.

98

Ibid.

99

McDanal, “History of State Tourism and Promotional Agencies,” 6–7.

th

79

Ubbelohde, Benson, and Smith, A Colorado History, 316.

88

Roger Fillion, “Signs of Times: State Has Eye on Brand New Look,” Rocky Mountain News, December 22, 2005, http:// www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article /0,2777,DRMN_23916_4333723,00.html.

“Burlington Plans Centennial Bash,” Rocky Mountain News, May 7, 1988. CDOT public relations files.

100

“Colorado: Welcome Centers,” http://colorado.com/ WelcomeCenters.aspx

101

“Historic Marker Program,” http://www.coloradohistory. org/RIPsigns/index.asp. “The Colorado Roadside Interpretation Program,” CDOT files.

102

1

Marion C. Wiley, “The High Road,” 1976, published by the Colorado Department of Highways, p. 23.

CDOT INSIDER employee newsletter, May/June 2003

2 103

Ibid.

CDOT INSIDER employee newsletter, January/February 2006, p. 3

1975, Pub. L. 94-83, August 9, 1975, and Pub. L. 97-258, 4(b), Sept. 13, 1982 6

Harvey Atchison, oral interview conducted by author, January 2010.

7

Marion Wiley, The High Road (Denver: Colorado Department of Highways, 1976), 61.

8

Letter from Jack Kinstlinger to Joanne Ditmer, November 3, 1978, in Vail Pass folder of CDOT Office of Public Information.

9

Karen Stufflebeam Rowe, Eva LaDow, and Steve Moler, “Glenwood Canyon 12 Years Later,” Public Roads 67: 5 (March/April 2004), U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Public Roads,” http:// www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/04mar/04.htm.

3

Sally J. Pearce, “The Colorado Scenic and Historic Byways Program,” 3. Unpublished document.

104

CDOT INSIDER employee newsletter, March/April 2008, p. 4

4

State of Colorado. Executive Order B 045 89, Colorado Historic and Scenic Byways Commission. CDOT public relations files. 1

105

Pearce, “The Colorado Scenic and Historic Byways Program,” 9.

106

CDOT INSIDER employee newsletter, January/February 2004, p. 6-7

5

CDOT INSIDER employee newsletter, January/February 2007, p. 3

6

Ken Papaleo, “The Roads Less Traveled,” Rocky Mountain News, August 22, 1999.

107

CHAPTER 5: “IN PRODUCTIVE HARMONY”: BEGINNINGS OF Environmental Planning

“Five Scenic, Historic Byways Selected,” Pueblo Chieftain, October 4, 1989.

108

Pearce, “The Colorado Scenic and Historic Byways Program,” 16.

109

1

CHAPTER 4: MAINTENANCE, THE FACE OF COLORADO STATE TRANSPORTATION Much of the information for this chapter came from primary historical research on the topic of maintenance at Colorado’s state transportation agencies 1928-2006, conducted by the following CDOH/CDOT employees: the late Dave Fraser, longtime CDOH/CDOT maintenance superintendent and Staff Maintenance Superintendent; Gerald Watson, a 40-year CDOH/CDOT employee who served many years as the Pueblo Maintenance Section 4 Superintendent; Sylvia Currie, longtime employee of CDOT Pueblo Maintenance Section 4; and the late Jerry Lutz, longtime Pueblo Maintenance Section 4 employee who was the Senior Foreman at Trinidad during his final years prior to retirement.

CDOT is indebted to these four individuals for their work to document transportation maintenance history in Colorado and for their final product, a PowerPoint presentation containing nearly 500 slides, including many historic photographs, entitled “History of the Colorado Department of Transportation.” This presentation was completed in 2006.

2

10

Richard F. Weingroff, “Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969” (2009), pdf, 2–3, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Highway History,” http://www.fhwa.dot. gov/highwayhistory/nepa/index.cfm Mark Rose and Bruce Seely, “Getting the Interstate Highway System Built: Road Engineers and the Implementation of Public Policy, 1955–1985,”Journal of Policy History 2: 1 (1990): 34–38; Raymond Mohl, “Stop the Road: Freeway Revolts in American Cities,” Journal of Urban History 30: 5 (July 2004): 678. Weingroff, ”Addressing the Quiet Crisis,” 8.

3

American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, The States and the Interstates: Research on the Planning, Design and Construction of the Interstate and Defense Highway System. Washington, D.C., 1991, 199–200.

Accessed via interlibrary loan.

4

Section 4(f ) of the DOT Act, as amended, is now Section 303 of Title 49, United States Code. As noted, the language is also incorporated into Title 23 as Section 138. However, it is still called Section 4(f ) and remains a key component of the Federal Highway Administration’s environmental stewardship responsibilities.

5

Title 1, National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as Amended. U.S. Congress, Pub. L. 91-190, 42 U.S.C. 43214347, January 1, 1970, as amended by Pub. L. 94-52, July 3,

Matthew Salek, “Denver’s 470 Saga: The Story of I-470, C-470, E-470, W-470, and the Northwest Parkway,” http:// www.mesalek.com/colo/denvers470.html.

Chapter 6: It Has Always Been About the People 1

Colorado State Patrol website, “History” section.

Interview with Russ Mayer, Wheat Ridge, CO, 2009 and 2010.

2

Much historical information for this chapter came from the 1976 Colorado Department of Highways publication “The High Road,” which was researched and written by Marion C. Wiley, a 1971 retiree as the chief of highway administrative services for the Department. The book was published as a Bicentennial project by the State Department of Highways’ Division of Highways.

107

Eastbound I-70 travelers in Mesa County get this spectacular view of the Book Cliffs as they drive through the aptly-named Grand Valley at the northern edge of Grand Junction. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

108 108

Colorado State Transportation historical timeline

15th c. -18th c. Spanish explorers ventured from Mexico through the San Luis Valley and around the San Juan Mountains.

on January 1, 1910. The Commission was charged with responsibility of establishing a network of state primary roads.

c. 1820 Traders cut the Mt. Branch of the Santa Fe Trail through the Arkansas River Valley.

1910 C.P. Allen served as the first chairman of Colorado Highway Commission. The city of Denver experimented with various roadsurfacing materials along Speer Boulevard.

1859 -1876 Stage lines, mining companies and private individuals invested and built toll roads across Colorado territory. Toll road construction continued until the end of the 19th century.

1899 On May 10, David Brunton took the first drive on the streets of Denver and is remembered as Colorado’s first automobile owner.

1913 The Colorado General Assembly passed legislation reorganizing the State Highway Commission into the State Highway Department and provided a funding source—vehicleregistrationfeesvaryingfrom $2.50 to $10 depending upon the vehicle’s horsepower—to improve the 4,380 miles of a primary road system laid out by the original Highway Commission.

1915 There were 5,844 miles designated on the state highway system. Less than half (approximately 2,600 miles) had been constructed and only 196 miles had been surfaced. More than 200 bridges had been built, primarily by the counties with the assistance and direction of the Colorado Highway Commission.

1916 Passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act provided federal matching funds for state highway projects.

1916 The new automobile road over Wolf Creek Pass was opened to traffic.

1905 The Colorado Good Roads Association was formed in Denver.

1909 Colorado State Legislature created the first State Highway Commission. Three members (C.P. Allen of Denver, Thomas Tully of Durango, and W.H. Willey of Holly) were appointed to Commission, taking their posts

109

Wolf Creek Pass, 1916

1917 The State Legislature passed the Highway Act reorganizing the Highway Commission into the State Highway Department and creating a State Highway Fund to distribute state and federal funds for the development and maintenance of the state’s highway system.

1918 First concrete pavement laid in the state from Denver to Littleton along Santa Fe Drive (Federal Aid Project/F.A.P-1). The total cost of paving came to $73,939.74.

Independence Pass auto road, 1924

1919 Colorado was one of four pioneering states to pass a one-cent per gallon gas tax with revenues to be allocated to the state road fund.

1921 The Legislature repealed the fouryear-old Highway Act. In May, Major L.D. Blauvelt was appointed as state highway engineer.

East Denver maintenance yard, 1930s

110

old wagon road over Hunter’s Pass on what would later become SH 82.

1927 At the urging of Colorado Governor Clarence J. Morley, the Mt. Evans highway was completed by the highway department and opened for traffic to elevation 14,124’, just below the 14,264’ summit of the mountain. It is the highest elevation for a paved highway in North America.

1927 The federal government established a modern highway numbering system.

1928 The State Highway Department hired 250 maintenance employees and assigned them to 125 locations across Colorado.

1929 The first automobile crossed Loveland Pass on Sept. 29.

1921 A Division of Maintenance was established by the Colorado Highway Commission.

1929 The Colorado state highway system had grown to 9,203 miles, of which 4,725 were graded and drained, 3,839 were gravel, 13 were bituminous concrete, and 339 were cement concrete.

1922 The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads approved Colorado’s first federally-aided road system covering 3,332 miles.

1930 On October 26, Major L.D. Blauvelt died. In December, Charles D. Vail was appointed state highway engineer.

1924 The highway department completed the “Million Dollar Highway,” today’s US 550, in Southwestern Colorado. The first automobile crossed Independence Pass on a reconstructed route roughly following the

1930s During the Great Depression, federal work projects helped Colorado construct and maintain the state highway system.

1935 Highway Department employees were

joined by 44 new co-workers selected from among 7,500 applicants to become the first members of the Colorado State Highway Courtesy Patrol. The Patrol became a division of the Highway Department.

1938 Colorado expanded the state highway system to nearly 12,000 miles. The road over Berthoud Pass, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s U.S. Hwy. 40, was completed.

1939 Work on the current Monarch Pass was completed.

1940 The original highway (U.S. Hwy. 6) over Vail Pass was completed.

1944 The Federal Highway Act of 1944 authorized route designation and preliminary design of an eventual interstate highway system.

Ski Trip, 1940s

1945 Charles Vail passed away in January.

1946 Mark U. Watrous became the Chief Engineer after surviving a court battle contesting the civil service examination and his appointment.

1947 The first National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was approved by the federal works administrator. In Colorado, approved routes included all of I-25 from the Wyoming border to Raton Pass; all of I-80S (now I-76); and I-70 from Denver to the Kansas border.

Valley Highway, 1958

111

1958 The Valley Highway opened through central Denver.

1958 Construction began on I-80S between I-80 near Julesburg and I-70 in the Denver area, linking the two longest interstate highways in the nation. I-80S was renamed I-76 in Colorado’s centennial year of 1976.

Shep, the Boulder Turnpike Dog

1948 Work commenced on Denver’s Valley Highway on the route of what would later become I-25 through the Denver metro area.

1950 Grading and ballast work began on 10.7 miles of the Denver-Boulder Turnpike.

1963 In August, Mark Watrous retired as chief engineer. Governor John A. Love appointed Charles E. Shumate to lead the Department of Highways as chief engineer. Initial boring of the westbound Straight Creek tunnel through the Continental Divide along today’s I-70 route began in October.

1952 The entire Denver-Boulder Turnpike opened to through traffic. The toll for the entire route was 25 cents. Shep, the Turnpike’s mascot dog, became nationally famous from 1952-1964.

1953 The state legislature passed a new law reorganizing the Highway Department and renaming it the Colorado Department of Highways.

1956 Congress passed the Federal Interstate Highways Act. Among the approvals was the section of I-70 from Denver to the Utah border.

1957 U.S. Bureau of Public Roads approved the I-70 route designation from Denver west to Utah.

112

Eisenhower Tunnel construction village, 1960s

1964 Federal funding expanded the Valley Highway (I-25) and I-70. The first 2.6 mile section of I-70 opened along what is today’s elevated portion from I-25 to the east.

1968 The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture ordered the alignment of Interstate 70 near Vail along the existing U.S. Hwy. 6 route.

Department reorganization gave Charles Shumate the title of Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Highways.

1969 The final segment of I-25 in Colorado, 21 miles between Walsenburg and Trinidad, was completed and dedicated.

1973 On March 8, the westbound Straight Creek tunnel bore, officially named the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel, was dedicated.

1975 Charles Shumate retired as executive director. Jack Kinstlinger was appointed his successor.

1976 I-225 opened on the east side of the Denver metro area.

1976 On Colorado Day Weekend, the Big Thompson Canyon flood devastated a section of U.S. 34, claiming 145 lives.

1984 The Colorado State Patrol, a division of the Colorado Department of Highways, was moved to the newly-created Colorado Department of Public Safety, ending a direct relationship with CDOH and its predecessor agencies that began in 1935, when the Colorado State Highway Courtesy Patrol was first formed.

1985-88 Construction of the first three phases of the Centennial Parkway, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s C-470 route around the southwestern portion of the Denver metro area, was underway.

C-470/Santa Fe under construction, 1980s

1978 On Vail Pass, the Department of Highways dedicated the full four-lane configuration of I-70 after five years of construction.

1979 The eastbound I-70 bore opened through Continental Divide. The tunnel was named in honor of former U.S. Senator and Colorado Governor Edwin C. Johnson. This combined engineering triumph was officially known as the Eisenhower-JohnsonMemorialTunnelscomplex.

1980 Construction began on the final link of I-70, a 12-mile segment through Glenwood Canyon.

1982 Joseph Dolan was appointed executive director, succeeding Jack Kinstlinger.

1984 An accident on I-25/I-70 interchange, locally known as the Mousetrap, received national attention when a load of torpedoes spilled onto the freeway.

Big Thompson Flood aftermath, 1976 113

1987 Work began on reconstruction of I-25/I-70 interchange. Lowell B. Jackson assumed the executive directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job, succeeding Joseph Dolan. A. Ray Chamberlain succeeded Jackson later that year.

1991 The Colorado Department of Highways become the Colorado Department of Transportation with passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) by the U.S. Congress.

1992 The I-70 Final Link, a 12-mile portion of freeway through Glenwood Canyon, was completed in October. Dedication ceremonies were held in the Hanging Lake Tunnels.

Berthoud Pass, 1990s

1994 Guillermo V. Vidal was appointed CDOT Executive Director.

1999 Through Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes (TRANS), Colorado voters allowed CDOT the authority to issue bonds to fund 28 strategic corridor transportation projects, including the $1.67 billion T-REX project designed to alleviate congestion on southeast Denver interstate corridors. T-REX was Coloradoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest single transportation project ever constructed.

1999 Thomas E. Norton was appointed CDOT Executive Director.

2006 The T-REX project was dedicated and completely opened well ahead of schedule.

2007 Russell George was appointed CDOT Executive Director.

2008 The global economic crisis had a strong negative effect on CDOT funding.

2009 The Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery (FASTER) bill was passed with funds earmarked for bridge repairs and reconstruction. It marked the first dedicated funding increase for CDOT since 1991.

2009/10 CDOT received nearly $400 million in federal American Reinvestment & Recovery Act (ARRA) funding which was used to advance projects in all sections of the state.

114

Paving on the edge, San Juan Mountains, 2008

The bright sun highlights clean geometric lines and artwork of the Richmond Hill Road bridge over US 285 in the foothills southwest of Denver.

This bridge provides another grade-separated intersection that helps traffic flow smoothly along the important 285 corridor. (Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Archives, Denver).

115 115

index

A

Arapahoe Basin, 45

Bonnema, Janet, 92

Canyon Echoes, 77

Adams, Alva, 11, 84

Atchison, Harvey, 73

Boulder Turnpike, 31

Carlson family, 58

Agate Pass, 26

Autobee, Robert, 9

Boulder, CO, 31

Carson, Rachel, 70

Aguilar, CO, 50

Avalanche, 24, 56, 58, 59

Breckenridge, CO, 45

Castlewood Canyon Bridge, 30 Central City, CO 43, 50

B

Bridges, 9, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 44, 62, 74, 89, 94, 96

Battle Mountain, 13, 29

Broomfield, CO, 31

Allen, Weldon, 93

Battle Mountain Road, 13

Brooks, Lawrence, 4

Charles E. Shumate Materials Laboratory, 87

Allenspark, CO, 50

Baxstrom, Roy L., 4

Brunton, David W., 10

Chesney, Ambrose W., 4

Alpine Loop, 50

Bell, Rodger, 4

American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), 40

Benjamin, Rodney A., 4

Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), 19, 27, 54, 56, 70

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 44

Burghardt, King, 29

Clean Air Act, 80

Burlington, CO 49, 58, 59

Clean Water Act, 80

Burbridge, Alfred T., 4

Clear Creek Canyon, 33, 95, 96

Black Hawk, CO, 50

C

Colorado & Southern ‘Fish Train’, 37

Blauvelt, Major Louis D., 7, 17, 20, 40, 84

C-470, 78, 79, 87, 95

Blizzards, 54

Campgrounds, 38, 48

Blue Star Memorial Highway, 47

Canon City, CO 10, 50

Alamosa, CO, 65 Alberta Snow Slide, 25 Allen, Charles P., 12

American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 35 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 77 Ammons, Elias, 16 Ammons, Teller, 44 Anderson, Flodie, 93 Antonito, CO, 55, 65

116

Bergen Park, CO, 42 Berthoud Pass, 45, 47, 55, 59, 80, 86, 95, 99 Big Thompson River, 10

Camp Hale, CO, 45

Chamberlain, A. Ray, 7

Colorado Automobile Club (CAC), 11 Colorado Contractors Association, 86 Colorado Council for the Arts, 50

Colorado Day, 16

Colorado State Highway Commission, 12

Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), 34

Elwood Pass, 24

Colorado State Highway Courtesy Patrol 86

Denver Republican, 11

Ethridge, Lori, 60

Denver Tourist Bureau, 38

Colorado State Parks, 50

Evergreen, CO 95

Denver Union Water Company, 12

Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 35, 41, 47-50, 58-60, 62, 63, 69, 72, 79-81, 83, 87-89, 91, 92-100

Colorado State Patrol, 59, 65, 86, 95

Denver, CO, 9-11, 14, 17, 18, 26, 31-34, 38, 39, 42-45, 50, 53-55, 64, 69-75, 78, 79, 84-96

F

Colorado Division of Wildlife, 50

Continental Divide, 10, 12, 16, 17, 20, 33, 43, 44, 47, 64, 87, 92

Dillon, CO 44

Federal Highway Act, 16, 39, 47

Dingfelder, George, 65

Coolidge, Calvin, 19

Dolan, Joe, 7

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), 34, 49

Copper Mountain, CO, 28, 75

Dotsero, CO 32, 34

Federal Transit Administration (FTA), 34

Colorado Highway Commission, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 24, 28, 40, 79

Cortez, CO, 50

Downing, Roderick L., 31, 93

Finehout, Ernest J., 4

Crest House on Mt. Evans, 43

Dunham, Alfred M., 4

Colorado Highway Department, 16, 43, 44, 47, 55, 83, 84, 86

Fink, Ed, 93

Cummings family, 58

Durango, CO 12, 15, 50, 57, 59, 60, 84, 86

Fitzsimons Army Hospital, 47

D

Durango-Silverton highway, 38

Colorado Department of Highways (CDOH) 17, 19, 30, 49, 70, 86, 91 Colorado Department of Public Safety, 86

Colorado Game, Fish & Parks, 48 Colorado Good Roads Association, 11, 12, 19

ColoradoHighwaysMagazine,16,19, 20, 28, 40, 41, 42, 45 Colorado Historical Society, 10, 49, 50

Colorado Tourism Board, 49, 50 Conifer, CO, 42

David family, 58 DeBoer, S. R., 47

E

Colorado Legislature, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 27, 31, 40, 54, 62

Deer Park, CO, 42

East Riverside Slide, 95

Deer Trail, CO, 47

East Riverside Snowshed, 60

Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade, 47

DeKalb, Arthur, 4

Echo Lake, 42

Del Norte, CO, 41

Eckley, CO, 49

Colorado Springs, CO 10, 17, 37, 42, 47, 53, 66, 95

Dempewolf, Victor J., 4

Edwards, CO, 49

Denver Chamber of Commerce, 13

Edison, Donald R. 4

Colorado State Federation of Garden Clubs, 47

Denver Mountain Pars, 42

Ehrhart, Thomas J., 16, 17

Denver Post, 13, 42, 53

Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels, 33, 64, 87

Estes Park, CO 50

Falk, Jerome, 4

Flash Floods, 61, 67, 94 Florence, CO, 50 Florissant, CO, 50 Ford, Henry, 11 Forster, Paul, 4, 95 Francis, Edwin A., 43 Frank, Thomas J., 4 Franktown Road, 30 Fraser, Adam, 4

117

G

Harding, Karla, 92, 95

Interstate 225 (I-225), 32, 34

L

Gasler, Rydell, 4

Harding, Warren G., 19

Interstate 270 (I-270), 32

La Junta, CO, 40

Gasoline tax, 17

Heald, Asa Willard, 4, 85, 94

La Manga Pass, 65

Gateway Welcome Centers, 49

Hendricks, Charles V., 4

Interstate Highway Act of 1956, 32, 69, 72

George, Russell, 6, 7

Herach, Myrtle, 53

Ironton Park, 60

Lamar, CO, 16

Georgetown, CO 44, 55

Hicken, Carl L., 4

Leadville, CO, 10

Higgins, R.H. ‘Bob’, 19, 54

J

Ledford, Ray, 59

Glenwood Canyon, 28, 34, 49, 63, 74, 77

Highway Advisory Board, 44, 54

Jackson, Lowell B., 7

Lee, Jack, 99

Highway of Legends, 50

Jackson, Melvin A., 4

Lincoln Highway, 16, 42

Glenwood Springs, CO, 34, 37, 63

Holly, CO, 12, 40

Jeffrey, William, 19, 26, 27

Lincoln Highway Association, 16

Glidewell, William H., 4

Hunter, Willard, 4

Jensen family, 58

Littleton, CO, 12, 16, 55

Hutton, Pam, 93

Jensen, Randy, 87

Litvak, Dianna, 69

Golden, CO 64, 86, 93

Johnson, Edwin C., 27, 33

Lizard Head Pass, 61

Gore Creek, 28, 74

I

Johnson, Walter Pyke, 41

Lochnikar, Joseph J., 4

Gore Range, 44

Idaho Springs, CO, 37, 47

Jones Pass, 86

Lopez, Eladio, 4, 95

Gorrell, Richard, 4

Imel, Eddie J., 4

Grand Junction, CO, 55, 84

Information Business Signs Program/LOGO, 48

K

Loveland Basin, 45

Kahl, Henry, 4

Loveland Pass, 33, 44, 45, 47, 58, 86

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), 35

Klein, Dack, 59

Lukow, Kandace, 93

Internal Improvement Fund,10

Kishbaugh, Terry L., 4

M

Knous, Lee, 31

Gunnison, CO, 9, 85

Interstate 25 (I-25), 16, 30, 32, 34, 35, 70, 73, 78, 95

MacDonald, Thomas H., 19

Krouth, Joseph ‘Dutch’, 4, 85, 94

Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS), 64

H

Interstate 70 (I-70), 20, 32, 34, 44, 47, 49, 55, 58, 63, 64, 70-72, 74, 75, 77-79, 85, 87, 95

KOA, Denver Radio, 89

Hadley, CO, 49

Interstate 76 (I-76), 32, 67

Maintenance Training Academy, 64,100

Hanging Lake Tunnels, 63, 77

Interstate 80 (I-80), 16

Maloney, James E., 7, 12, 84, 98

Glaser, Harland C., 4

Gold Belt Tour, 50

Granite, CO, 16 Great Depression, 31, 43, 56, 85, 98 Great North and South Highway, 16 Greeley, CO, 66, 84, 95

118

La Veta, CO, 50

Losey, Alan E., 4

Kinstlinger, Jack, 7, 73

Manitou Springs, CO, 37

N

P

Mapes III, John A., 4

Nail, Sharlene, 4, 95

Pagosa Springs, CO, 53

Regional Transportation District (RTD), 34

Marshall Pass, 27

Nathrop, CO, 16

Patterson, M. J., 10

Ridgway, CO, 50, 59, 85

Martin, Harold D., 4

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 69, 70, 73, 74, 81

Peak to Peak Highway, 50

Rifle, CO, 16, 49, 63

Penrose, CO, 95

Riverside Slide Snowshed, 24

National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, 71

Peterson Field, 47

Rockfall, 61, 63, 67, 95, 99

National Incident Management Systems (NIMS), 64

Pierson, Howard, 4 Pikes Peak, 10, 38, 42, 43, 45, 53, 61

Rocky Mountain Center on the Environment, 74

Mather, Charles, 4 Mayer, Russ, 88 Mears, Otto, 10, 12, 19, 23 Meeker, CO, 16 Mesa Verde National Park, 38 Mette, John A., 4 Miller, Robert F., 4 Million Dollar Highway (U.S. 550), 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 43 Misner, Eldon, 4 Moffat Tunnel, 17 Monarch Pass, 19, 25, 26, 27, 44, 85 Montrose, CO, 61, 85, 97 Morley, Clarence J., 42 Morrison, CO, 42 Motor Club of Colorado, 41 Mount Epaulet, 42 Mount Evans, 19, 42, 43 Mount Evans Highway (SH 5), 43 Mudslides, 61

National Industrial Recovery Act, 44

Placerville, CO, 16

National Old Trails Highway (U.S. 40), 16

Platte Valley Drive Road, 31

National Register of Historic Places, 29, 30

Pope, Roger R., 4

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 34, 69, 73 Nederland, CO, 50 Nelson, Harry G. ‘Gus’, 4 New Deal, 27, 44 North Denver Civic Association, 70 Norton, Thomas, 7, 92 Norwood, CO, 16 O Obama, Barack, 35 Odenbaugh, Norman, 4 Ouray, CO, 20, 24, 50, 59, 85, 86, 95 Owens, Bill, 48

Platte Canyon, 37 “Playground of America”, 38 Poncha Springs, CO, 85 Powderhorn Ski Area, 45 Public Works Administration (PWA), 27

Rocky Mountain Highway Association, 12 Rocky Mountain Motorists Club, 41 Rocky Mountain National Park, 38, 43, 44, 80 Romer, Roy, 49 Romero, CO, 55 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 27 Ross, A. A., 16

Pueblo Chieftain, 16

Rotary plow, 55, 57

Pueblo, CO, 10, 13, 16, 61, 84, 85, 87

Roth, Wray N., 4

R

S

Rabbit Ears Pass, 47

San Juan Mountains, 19, 85

Railsback, Glen S., 4

San Juan Skyway, 50

Raton Pass, 40

Santa Fe Trail, 11, 40, 42

Red Cliff Arch Bridge, 28, 29

Scenic & Historic Byways, 49, 50, 51

Red Mountain Pass, 10, 59, 60, 61, 85

Royal Gorge Bridge, 10

119

Schoch, Lisa, 37 Shafroth, John, 11

State Highway Department, 13, 24, 26, 27, 31, 40, 41, 44, 48-50, 54

Shaw Creek Rest Area, 49

Steamboat Springs, CO, 45

Shoup, Oliver, 17

Stekr, David, 4

U

Volturo, Louie S., 4

Shrine Pass Road, 85

Sterling Democrat, 10

U.S. Forest Service, 19, 25, 28

Vona, CO, 59

Shofner, Gene M., 4

Straight Creek, 33, 86, 92

University of Colorado, 31

Vondy, Kenneth M., 4

Shumate, Charles E., 7, 33, 73, 85, 86

Stratton, CO, 59

U.S. Bureau of Roads, 42

Switzerland of America, 38

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 70

W

U.S. Highway 6, 44, 58, 96

Wahlers, Jennifer, 23

Silverton, CO, 12, 24, 50, 60

Victory Highway, 16, 42

Twin Lakes, CO, 16

Vidal, Guillermo V., 7 Virginia Dale, CO, 48, 49

Sisneros, Richard, 65

T

U.S. Highway 24, 29, 42, 47

Walling, Milton, 4

Ski Broadmoor, 45

Taylor, Edward T., 16

U.S. Highway 40, 16, 42, 45, 47, 59

Walsenburg, CO, 50

Snowball Excursions (Train), 37

Tenmile Creek, 74, 75, 76

U.S. Highway 50, 42, 44

Watrous, Mark U., 7, 85

Snowstorms, 54, 55, 65, 67, 88

Tennessee Pass, 55

U.S. Highway 85, 66, 79

West, Charles, J., 4, 94

South Frisco, CO, 74

Tenth (10th) Mountain Division, 45

U.S. Highway 160, 25

Wheeler Junction, CO, 28

South Platte River, 32

Thanksgiving, 58, 59, 63, 91

U.S. Highway 550, 23, 59

Whitlock, Wayne, 4

St. Vrain River, 10 Stacey, Greg, 59, 97

Threatened & Endangered Species Act, 80

State Advertising & Publicity Committee, 45

Tourism, 15, 16, 19, 20, 35, 37-40, 43-45, 47-51

State Highway (SH) 5, 42

Tourist Oriented Directional Signs (TODS), 48

Wich, Ernest E., 4 V

Wiggins, CO, 49

Vail Pass, 47, 49, 85

Wiley, William M., 12

Vail, Charles D., 7, 26, 44, 85

Will, Ted, 4 Wilson, James, 95

Townsend, William O., 4

Vail, CO, 20, 27, 28, 31, 44, 45, 74, 75, 76, 84, 86

Trail Ridge Road, 43, 44

Valdez, Jr., David J., 4

Wolf Creek Pass, 15, 24, 25, 53, 54, 85

State Highway (SH) 83, 30

Transportation Expansion Project (T-REX), 20, 34, 35

Valley Highway, 32, 34, 69, 72, 89

State Highway (SH) 103, 42, 49

Trapani, Ralph, 34

Van Wyl, Mark, 4

Works Progress Administration (WPA), 27, 44

State Highway (SH) 112, 41

Trimble, James E., 4

Vasquez Pass, 86

World War I, 11, 16, 17, 54, 84

State Highway (SH) 115, 94

Trinidad, CO, 16, 40, 49, 50

Victor, CO, 50

World War II, 31, 45, 47, 56, 85, 89

State Highway (SH) 8, 42 State Highway (SH) 17, 65 State Highway (SH) 82, 60

State Highway (SH) 340, 49 120

Tully, Thomas H., 12, 13, 15

Van Patter, Dennis, 53, 83

Winter Park, CO, 45, 95

Wysong, James, 4