It was August 2, 1956. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed the Federal Highway Assistance Act of 1956 just 1 month earlier on June 29. In Jefferson City, Missouri, SW O'Brien picked up the phone and called the US Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) headquarters in Washington. As a District Engineer for a BPR office in Missouri, O'Brien has watched as the Missouri State Highway Commission awarded a $ 1.1 million contract to the Koss Construction Company of Des Moines, Iowa, just after 10 a.m. to lay 13.3 miles off the sidewalk. concrete 24 feet above it. US 66 in Laclede County.
