Naming a highway after the president of the Confederate States of America makes sense in the heart of the South.
Augusta and Aiken's stretch of U.S. Highway 1 have several markers identifying the road as Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, including over the Fifth Street bridge.
But if the history of Jefferson Davis Highway starts in the South, it doesn't end there.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy launched plans for a coast-to-coast highway commemorating Davis in 1913. It was common in the years just before World War I for private organizations to name a stretch of highway for their cause. The transcontinental Lincoln Highway, for instance, was proposed in 1912 by industrialist Carl Fisher, who also developed Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach.
UDC President-General Mrs. Alexander B. White wanted a similar route through the South and announced the project at the group's 1913 convention.
In her annual report, she recommended "that the United Daughters of the Confederacy secure for an ocean-to-ocean highway from Washington to San Diego, through the Southern States, the name of Jefferson Davis National Highway."
Via T
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