About this item
November 1, 2018, marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Interstate 95 in its entirety in Delaware. Its construction was part of the largest public works project in American history, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, signed into law by Pres. Dwight Eisenhower. The bill allotted for a nationwide 41,000-mile "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways." The federal government would pay 90 percent of the construction cost. However, the federal money was slow to arrive. The State of Delaware proceeded on its own, using secured revenue bonds that would be repaid by tolls charged to drivers. On November 15, 1963, Pres. John F. Kennedy was part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the Mason-Dixon Line that officially dedicated the initial 11-mile Delaware Turnpike, a stretch of highway between the Maryland state line near Newark and the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
About the Author
I spent ten years living in various locations throughout the United States. When I returned home to Delaware, my nomadic experience inspired me to write. I wanted to show the great and unique history of my home state in vintage photographs, so I contracted with Arcadia Publishing and produced 4 books related to the First State: The DuPont Highway, America's first divided highway; Along the Kirkwood Highway, Along the Christina River, and Newark Then & Now, a retrospective of my home town. My first fiction, A Life Told to None, is set in Newark and includes many childhood experiences. The novel is a mystery without a murder, or more direct, why did a friend commit suicide? The Umpire is a semi-autobiographical novel, the story of my pursuit to become a professional baseball umpire. Seacrest is a novel set in Maryland just prior to the U. S. involvement in World War 1 and it reveals a little known fact, German saboteurs were in America. And due for release in late November, 2017, The Katie Dugan Case, a historical fiction mystery novel set in Wilmington, Delaware in 1892 and loosely based on an actual unsolved murder and the suicide of Louis du Pont. Whether my books are fact or fiction, I hope to entertain as well as inform and leave the reader with a satisfying experience.
