Interstate travel by car wasn’t always as smooth and easy as it is today. Going as far as 200 miles could often take half a day, as you moved along narrow, two-lane roads, jammed with congestion and lined with stop signs and traffic signals.  

On June 29, 1956, that began to change when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act, authorizing a seamless 41,000-mile interstate network over publicly owned rights of way that would carry cars nonstop throughout the country at greatly increased speeds. It’s a network we still travel on today, obeying the same rules, paying the same price and moving at the same speeds.