1957: The I-87 Northway and the Adirondack Forest
What follows is The Northway and the Adirondack Forest: A Highway Location Study, published August 31, 1957 by the New York State Department of Public Works. The 333.49-mile-long Adirondack Northway, Interstate-87, has origins in the construction of the Major Deegan Expressway in the 1930s and was completed to the Canadian border in 1967.
The Northway (Interstate Route 502 [now designated I-87]) gets its name by traversing the area once known as the “Great Northern Wilderness.” Vital to the national defense network, it is being designed and constructed in accordance with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 as a joint Federal-State venture.