January 2nd remains a date in Connecticut history that is bound to provoke strong feelings among the state’s road warriors: On this day in 1958, the Connecticut Turnpike — better known today as Interstate 95 — first opened to the public. The course of the well-traveled highway largely paralleled the path of U.S. Route…
Tag: abraham ribicoff
December 16: First Connecticut Stretch of Interstate 84 Opens
By the 1950s, overcrowded highways became an increasingly familiar annoyance to Connecticut commuters as the state basked in post-WWII economic prosperity and the increase in population — and automobile traffic — that came with it. At the time, most of Connecticut’s inland east-west travel utilized U.S. Route 6, an old and overburdened road that…
November 6: JFK’s Last-Minute, Late-Night Rally in Waterbury
The first week of November 1960 was a grueling one for Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was finishing up the last stretch of his rigorous — and ultimately successful — campaign for President of the United States against Republican Richard Nixon. In the early morning hours of November 6, after a full…