-
Mar 28, 2024 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW By the way, in spite of its prevalence throughout the South, the wisteria we see covering helpless trees, old buildings, fence rows, and anything else that stands still long enough, is NOT a native flower. It’s usually Chinese or Japanese wisteria that has escaped from someone’s yard. Our native wisteria (American wisteria, or Wisteria frutescens) is less showy, with smaller blooms, but it’s much better to have around your home. It’s less invasive than the imported vines.
-
Nov 9, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW The focus of the Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York was transportation. After all, Futurama was the brain child of General Motors, and corporate sponsorship was the foundation of the exhibit. The exhibit’s designer, Norman Bel Geddes, envisioned the road network of 1960 with 14-lane superhighways crisscrossing the nation. That really WAS unbelievable in 1939.
-
Oct 12, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW James E. “Big Jim” Folsom Sr. (1908-1987) served two full terms as governor of Alabama, from 1947 to 1951, and from 1955 to 1959. Like many people in public office, Big Jim Folsom did a few not-so-good things, and he also promoted quite a few good things – though they weren’t always successful at the time.
-
Sep 28, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW Giving highways throughout the United States standard numerical designations was a radical idea in the 1920s. But, as we know, this was growth and progress, and it was inevitable. By the way, a good read about good roads is “Getting Out of the Mud: The Alabama Good Roads Movement and Highway Administration, 1898-1928,” by Martin T. Olliff (2018).
-
Sep 21, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW In 1926, the Bureau of Public Roads of the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated “national” highways as part of a new 80,000-mile transportation system for our country. The Public Roads Bureau received approval and agreement from the state highway departments of all 48 states. Remember, we hadn’t yet brought Alaska and Hawaii to the statehood table.
-
Sep 14, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW As we all know (and as the History Channel calendar reminds us, with “This Day in History” notes that we love to read), the American Revolution officially came to an end when representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783. This treaty marked our status as a free country, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its thirteen American colonies.
-
Sep 7, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Carl Fisher |Annie Crenshaw |“Fisher Island”
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW By the way, “Fisher Island” is named for our optimistic highway entrepreneur, Carl Fisher. Just south of Miami Beach, Fisher Island is one of the wealthiest and most exclusive residential areas in the United States. It’s built on a site that was part of “the old Vanderbilt estate” (another one of Fisher’s investments), and a municipal trash dump. By the time he died in 1939, Carl Fisher had made and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. And, he had given us HIGHWAYS.
-
Aug 31, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW In 1909, with his partner and friend, James Allison, and several other businessmen, Carl Fisher invested in a race track as a testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The investors’ idea was that, as cars from different manufacturers competed against each other on the new track, spectators would see each automobile’s advantages and (hopefully) head down to the sale rooms for a closer look and possible purchase.
-
Aug 24, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW One of the men behind the revolutionary transcontinental roads of the early 1900s in our country was Carl Fisher. We wouldn’t have the Lincoln Highway or the Dixie Highway without him. Don’t recognize his name? Carl Fisher was an entrepreneur who not only created and promoted our first highways, but invested in tourism and travel in a BIG way.
-
Aug 17, 2023 | 
thegreenvillestandard.com | Annie Crenshaw
BY ANNIE CRENSHAW The Good Roads Movement that began with bicyclists went on to promote farm-to-market roads, then highways that linked cities, then highways that connected states. Unbelievable! Our country would never be the same. In 1908, the call for better roads spread like wildfire across the nation when Henry Ford’s affordable (no pun intended), mass-produced “Model T” sparked off a tremendous trend in new automobile ownership. EVERYBODY began to get cars.
