Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956
Eisenhower signs the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗He signed it in a hospital room, as one of 27 documents that day. No photograph of the moment is known, and there was no signing statement.
Walter Reed, 29 June 1956
On his final day at Walter Reed Army Hospital after surgery for ileitis, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Public Law 84-627, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
It came without fanfare, without an official photograph and without a presidential signing statement; the Eisenhower Library has not been able to identify everyone present. The bill was one of 27 documents split across two work sessions to conserve his strength.
The signing pens went to highway advocates, including Senator Albert Gore Sr.
Title I and Title II
Title I expanded the already designated Interstate System from 40,000 to 41,000 proposed miles, authorized an accelerated construction program, and set the ordinary federal share at 90 percent. It authorized $25 billion in federal funds for Interstate construction across 1957–1969.
Title II, the Highway Revenue Act of 1956, created the Highway Trust Fund and a pay-as-you-go system crediting federal fuel and other highway-user taxes to highway work.
Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks announced that $1.125 billion would go to the states immediately.
It did not create the Interstates
Congress had authorized the system in 1944 and 37,700 miles were designated in 1947. The 1956 law funded, expanded and accelerated a network already twelve years old on paper.
The financing was not the administration's own design either. Eisenhower's advisory committee under Lucius D. Clay had proposed bonds issued by a federal corporation; Congress rejected that and adopted the trust fund instead.
The official name adopted in 1956 was the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The Eisenhower designation came decades later.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited Date corrected
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Date corrected. The research places this at 1956-06-29.