History
A freeway along the I-296/US 131 corridor was proposed in the 1950s. The 1955 "Yellow Book", an early proposal for what would become the Interstate Highway System, contained an inset of the proposed freeways in and around the Grand Rapids area including a north–south freeway near the downtown area. Designated as part of the Interstate Highway System in 1957, I-296 construction was funded by the federal government.
The US 131 freeway was opened at 10 a.m. on December 17, 1962 between Pearl Street and the then-I-196/US 16 freeway north of downtown. This freeway section encompassed all of I-296 which would connect I-196 north of town with I-96 downtown. (The I-96 and I-196 designations were later flipped west of Grand Rapids.) M-37 was relocated in Grand Rapids to utilize I-96 around the northeast side of town instead of I-296/US 131 in 1969. The last state map to show the I-296 designation was published in 1979, as the 1980 map lacks any reference to the designation. Other maps, like the one published by the Kent County Road Commission, occasionally show I-296.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 296
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“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)