Expressway gave a taste of the future
ST. LOUIS • In the late 1940s, the city’s only freeway was the Oakland Express Highway along Forest Park, from Skinker Boulevard to Vandeventer Avenue. Car ownership was growing quickly, and motorists clamored for relief from downtown gridlock.
Progress in concrete began with the short-lived Third Street Highway, called the Interregional, from Washington Avenue at the Eads Bridge south to Gravois Avenue and 12th (Tucker) Boulevard. Only 2.3 miles long, it took seven years to build. A turf-minded state senator got the Legislature to delay it. Condemnation lawsuits in crowded neighborhoods consumed more time. Some of the buildings in the way dated to the 1840s.
Construction workers begin grading downtown for the Third Street Highway, known as the Interregional, in November 1952. This scene looks north from Third and Spruce streets. It was the first major highway project in St. Louis after World War II. When completed three years later, it ran only 2.3 miles from Washington Avenue at Eads Bridge, south to Gravois Avenue at 12th (now Tucker) Boulevard. By then, the state Highway Commission already was planning much bigger things. Barely a decade later, the Interregional became the path for Interstate 55 into downtown, but it gave relief to motorists trying to get in and out of downtown, and it gave them a taste for speedier superhighways. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch)
