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Today in Interstate History

Lady Bird Johnson, speaking to participants in the Landscape-Landmark Tour and observers at the Dumfries Wayside Shelter on I-95 in northern Virginia. Photo courtesy of FHWA.

May 11, 1965

Lady Bird Johnson embarked on a "Landscape-Landmark Tour" of Virginia, primarily along I-95. The First Lady undertook the tour to promote her husband President Lyndon B. Johnson's cleanup and beautification proposals for Interstate System routes and other federal-aid highways. The first day of the tour included a ceremony at the Dumfries Wayside Shelter in northeastern Virginia. During the visit to that Interstate rest area, Mrs. Johnson was praised as "[t]he inspiration for the President's program" by fellow tour participant and Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton.