Texas Highway Department

The agency's worst early years came under Miriam Ferguson. A 1923 law had staggered the commissioners' terms, but after her 1924 election she appointed all three members of a reorganized commission. In November 1925 Attorney General Dan Moody sued, alleging "sweetheart" contracts worth millions and kickbacks; the courts voided many contracts and the commissioners resigned. In 1936 Governor James Allred proposed moving millions in road money to old-age assistance, which the department defeated at the cost of a reorganization and probably of engineer Gibb Gilchrist. After 1945 it began urban expressways, and by 1949 a farm-to-market road program.

What the plaque says

Texas Highway Department Established April 4, 1917 Early 20th century Texas farmers demanded all-weather access to markets just as automobiles revolutionized transportation for all travelers. Good Roads promoters envisioned a central state agency to organize safe, consistent routes. In 1916 the federal government offered matching funds to build a statewide highway system. In 1917, legislators created the Texas Highway Department, and Texans registered 195,000 automobiles. Agency employees worked in the Capitol, then the 1917 Land Office, and soon the agency opened district offices across the state. In 1921 federal officials approved a 2,900-mile Texas system, ensured by a one-cent-per-gallon state gas tax after 1923. During the Great Depression, federal relief funds stimulated massive road building. Engineers also promoted a new headquarters, and in 1933 completed this state highway building. From here, DeWitt Carlock Greer (1902-1986) served as state highway engineer, 1940-1967, and commissioner, 1969 to 1981, when legislators named the building for him. That year, as the agency's role expanded to public transportation, it managed 71,000 miles of highways for 12 million Texas vehicles. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• The Woman Suffrage Movement in Texas — steps away
• Site of Tenth Street Methodist Church — steps away
• African Americans in the Texas Revolution — steps away
• Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton — steps away