Today marks the 176th anniversary of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar’s inauguration as the second president of the Republic of Texas. He’s known as the “Father of Texas Education,” he set aside land to build what would later become UT-Austin in 1839 and helped plant the seeds for the Texas public school system.
So, today's Wayback Wednesday will honor his namesake, Lamar Boulevard, one of the most congested roads in the state. Below you can see a silent newsreel of the roadway in its infancy, when crews were building out the overpass at Third Street 55 years ago in the fall of 1959. Above, we’ve got a photo gallery of Lamar through the years – from its dirt road days in the 1940s to its present day parking lot status.
While traffic troubles are persistent on the roadway, the city has begun its public input process on the corridor between Riverside Drive and Ben White, seeking suggestions before an overhaul of the area to reduce congestion.
This footage is from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, a massive depository of archival footage from Texas' history which is available in its entirety online.
