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  • McCarthy Album 11, Photograph 173

    Caption: "Jefferson Davis Highway. U.S. No. 1. Virginia. July 20, 34." Grace McCarthy is standing next to a U.S. Route 1 sign along a highway in Virginia. The Jefferson Davis Highway project was begun by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). As auto tourism increased across the U.S., so to did the need for roads on which to drive. Private interests such as the UDC began to develop routes across the country, but with no central administrating organization the routes were haphazard and confusing. The UDC planned a route that was to stretch from Virginia across the southern U.S. to San Diego, but the entire route never materialized. The federal government stepped in to impose a numbering system on various routes across the nation. That portion of the planned Jefferson Davis Highway through Virginia was numbered as U.S. Route 1.

    Date: 7/20/1934