History
The first farm to market road in Texas was completed in January 1937, connecting Mount Enterprise and the former community of Shiloh in Rusk County. The route was 5.8 miles (9.3 km) long and was constructed at a cost of $48,015.12. This route is now part of Texas State Highway 315. The first highway officially designated as FM 1 was authorized in 1941, connecting US 96 near Pineland to a sawmill belonging to the Temple Lumber Company.
In 1945, the highway commission authorized a three-year pilot program for the construction of 7,205 miles (11,595 km) of farm-to-market roadway, with the cost to be shared equally by the state and federal governments. As the program grew, efforts were made by legislators from rural areas, including State Senator Grady Hazlewood of Amarillo, to expand the farm-to-market road network in the late 1940s. The funding was to have come from an increase in the gasoline tax, as proposed by State Senator Grover Morris in 1947; however, this measure was stymied by lobbyists, who indicated that such funding should go to arterial routes. Nonetheless, the popularity of the program and the perceived need to connect the vast, isolated central and western areas of the state prompted the passing of the Colson-Briscoe Act in 1949, sponsored by State Senator E. Neveille Colson and State Representative Dolph Briscoe. This legislation appropriated funding for the creation of an extensive system of secondary roads to provide access to the rural areas of the state and to allow farmers and ranchers to bring their goods to market, reserving a flat $15 million per year plus 1 cent per gallon of gasoline sold in the state for local highway construction. In 1962, the Texas legislature increased this amount to no less than $23 million annually, through federal fund matching, and expanded the farm-to-market system from 35,000 to 50,000 miles (56,000 to 80,000 km). The system now accounts for over half of the mileage in the Texas Department of Transportation system.
Read more about this topic: Farm-to-market Road
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