The Akron Expressway experienced its first traffic jam before it even opened.
More than 50,000 people attended a street party 60 years ago to celebrate the completion of a 2.5-mile section of Akron’s “super road.”
Residents finally could see concrete results after nine years of planning and construction, including the removal or demolition of homes and other buildings in the expressway’s path, and the uprooting of 500 families.
The Akron Chamber of Commerce scheduled a gala gathering Aug. 6, 1954, to dedicate the controlled-access highway between East Cuyahoga Falls Avenue to the north and Perkins Street to the south. The section cost $9 million to build — about $80 million today — and included a 1,500-foot-long bridge over the Little Cuyahoga Valley. The gray, truss-style bridge cost $3 million alone (about $26.4 million today).
“You’ve been hearing Expressway for nine long years,” the Beacon Journal announced. “Maybe you’ve been watching them build the city’s first super road. Well, the time has come, Mr. and Mrs. Greater Akron Motorists. Starting Friday, you’ll be driving over the first long stretch of Expressway.”
Federal, state and local funds paid for the massive project. In the 1950s, elected leaders gave bipartisan support to improvements in public infrastructure. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, was U.S. president; Frank Lausche, a Democrat, was Ohio governor; William H. Ayres, a Republican, was Akron’s congressman; and Leo A. Berg, a Democrat, was Akron’s mayor.
The 50 mph expressway was a new concept in local transportation. Citizens didn’t need to navigate busy intersections with stop signs and traffic signals. The super road was built for speed.
Motorists could enter and exit along ramps at Cuyahoga Falls Avenue, Tallmadge Avenue, Glenwood Avenue and Perkins Street.
“They must remember that this is a highway for fast-moving traffic to move north and south in a hurry,” highway engineer Iver Schmidt explained. “Too many intersections would spoil it.”
Officials reminded Akron residents that pedestrians were not allowed on the expressway.
“We don’t want people crossing it on foot,” Schmidt said. “We’re sorry there aren’t fences to keep them out.”
The exception, of course, was the ribbon-cutting ceremony. A massive crowd turned out for the grand opening. Business, industry, labor and government dignitaries filled a review stand set up at the south end of the expressway bridge.
WADC announcer Harold “Red” Hageman, the event’s emcee, introduced John S. Knight, the president and editor of the Beacon Journal.
“Akron is a city which does things in a big way,” Knight told the audience. “This dedication ceremony tonight opening a magnificent new highway is no exception.”
Knight praised the federal, state and city governments for cooperating on the project, and singled out Lausche for his efforts to improve highways in Ohio.
In turn, the governor cited the big crowd as proof of “the national interest in better highways.”
“Each of us is realizing more every day how important fast transportation to our destinations has become,” Lausche told the crowd. “We’ll spend $275 million a year for the next eight years to make it easier and safer to travel in this state. And for each $1 you spend, you’ll get multiple in return.”
Taking over the microphone, Mayor Berg thanked the state and federal administrations for helping Akron achieve “this memorable project,” and touted the expressway, which cost Akron residents 25 cents for every $1 spent, as one of the “greatest bargains in municipal improvements that our city ever had the good fortune to acquire.”
Berg concluded: “Akron’s future depends in a large part upon the expressways.”
At 8:05 p.m., a mile-long parade began to march north. Veterans, high school bands, beauty queens, majorettes, drill teams, color guards, parade floats, Hot Stove League baseball players and Soap Box Derby racers participated in the revelry.
Reporters asked spectators for their opinions on the road.
“It’s wonderful,” said Merle Kearns, who lived on Adams Street. “The expressway goes right by my door but I still like it. It will eliminate a lot of traffic on other streets in the area.”
Jack Leymon, who lost his Kirkwood Avenue home to the expressway’s advance, remained upbeat.
“I figure I had to make way for progress,” he said. “Now I can get to the Falls much faster. I sure wouldn’t have missed this opening.”
Beardsley Avenue resident Harry Morehead was a rare dissenting opinion, criticizing the expressway as just “another highway for cops to catch speeders on.”
The celebration concluded with a chamber-sponsored $1,000 fireworks display that lit up the night sky over the bridge. After the crowd cleared, the Akron Expressway really got rolling.
Gleeful motorists rode back and forth along the 2.5-mile stretch of road. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged Cuyahoga Falls Avenue and Perkins Street all weekend as drivers waited their turn to travel the six-lane highway.
“They did a lot of gawking that might have slowed up operations,” Police Capt. Harry Whiddon explained. “It’ll be 10 days before traffic on the expressway gets normal.”
Section by section, construction continued for 10 years. Drivers tried out each new segment of the Akron Expressway until the west leg was completed in 1964.
“Akron, before long, may be one of the easiest cities in the country to get into and out of, and its intercity connections probably will be among the best in the land,” the Beacon Journal reported in 1954.
Copy editor Mark J. Price is author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.