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Today in Interstate History

October 12, 1956

Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, about two months after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the bill creating the post of Federal Highway Administrator (see August 3), announced that Bertram D. Tallamy was the choice for that new role. Tallamy had been serving as the chairman of the New York State Thruway Authority since 1950. In discussing the selection of Tallamy as the first-ever Federal Highway Administrator, Weeks characterized the New Yorker as "one of the world's greatest builder of roads" and "uniquely" qualified to administer the emergent Interstate System program. Tallamy would officially assume his new position early the following year.