This week's Throwback Thursday takes us back to April 2007. This is a
rather unique concrete sign for the Shunpike, which is a county road in
Dutchess County, New York (Dutchess CR 57 for those playing at home).
The sign was along the eastbound lanes of US 44 east of Millbrook, and
at last check, they are still there. Over time, some of the letters on
the sign have fallen off, but you may be able to make out that
Stanfordville is 7 miles away. I believe that the other town in question
is Bangall.
In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...
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