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Kansas celebrates 50 years of Interstates

Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller

1964 Asphalt Paving on I-70

In 1964, engineers from Europe made a number of trips to Kansas to watch construction on the world's largest asphalt project on I-70 when the section from Salina west to Wilson was under way. Six asphalt plants turned out 1,650 tons of asphalt and aggregate an hour.

Another item of interest on this project was an innovation called an "automatic grade line guide," a form of a traveling string line, developed by a former Kansas Highway Commission Engineer. This helped the contractor build a smoother roadway and made the process faster, resulting in overall savings to the state and the traveling public. Contractors still use an enhanced version of this procedure today on paving projects across the state.