Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway was named for Jefferson Davis (1808-1889). He was an American soldier, U.S. Congressman, and Secretary of War in the cabinet of U.S. President Franklin Pierce. He is best known as the president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861-1865).
The Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway designation name was originally intended to be used on a nationwide highway early in the 20th century, as part of the National Auto Trail movement. In that era, it was common for private organizations to identify a route, give it a name, and promote its use and improvement. In 1912, highway pioneer Carl G. Fisher had announced his plans for a "coast to coast" rock highway to be called the Lincoln Highway; the route was announced in September 1913.
The Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway was conceived in 1913 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (U.D.C.). As was the common practice among the named trail organizations, the U.D.C. developed an official marker to be displayed on poles and trees, consisting of three bands, six inches wide or red, white, and red, with the letters "J D H" four inches high, placed one below the other in the center of the stripes. A metal marker was later designed to carry the markings.
The eastern terminal marker was placed at the Virginia end of the 14th Street Bridge which crosses the Potomac River from Washington, DC (depositing the driver into Crystal City in Arlington). Another monument marking the northwestern terminus of the Jefferson Davis National Highway was unveiled near the Peace Arch at Blaine, Washington in the northwestern U.S. near the border with Canada.
While portions of the many named roads of that era still bear the designations, a national system of numbering became the primary designation for the U.S. highway system in 1926. All the transcontinental named routes, including the Lincoln Highway and the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, were split among several numbers when the American Association of State Highway Officials adopted the U.S. numbering plan in November 1926. The Jefferson Davis National Highway was split among U.S. 1, U.S. 15, U.S. 29, U.S. 80, U.S. 90, U.S. 99, and others.
While the numbering system did not rigidly follow the named roads, much of the Lincoln Highway later became U.S. Highway 30 and U.S. Highway 66 and the National Road later became U.S. Highway 40.
Much of U.S. Highway 1 in Virginia still bears the designation. The section near the western terminus is now U.S. Highway 99. In Alabama, the segment of U.S. Highway 80 from Selma, to Montgomery is the most famous part of the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway today. On this road, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the 1965 Voting Rights March that helped prompt Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. In 1996, the U.S. Department of Transportation designated the Selma-to-Montgomery Scenic Byway an All-American Road under the National Scenic Byways Program. As a National Historic Trail, the Selma-to-Montgomery stretch of U.S. 80 has become an international symbol of freedom.
In Virginia, between the City of Colonial Heights and City of Petersburg, the bridge on the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway which carries U.S. 1 and U.S. 301 across the Appomattox River was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge.
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