The Bankhead National Highway ran from Washington, D.C. to San Diego, California, as the nation’s first all-weather, coast-to-coast highway. Its southern route skirted the western mountains and was largely free from ice and snow, allowing reliable year-round travel. It was named for Alabama Senator John H. Bankhead, author of the Federal Highway Act of 1916, which provided federal aid to states for highway construction. In April 1919, when the Bankhead Highway Association met at Mineral Wells, an “All Texas” route from Texarkana to El Paso was approved along with a few branches. The primary route coincided with Texas Highway No. 1, and at about 900 miles, the Texas 1 Bankhead made up nearly one-third of the national road’s total length. The Texas Bankhead later became part of the route called the “Broadway of America.” After numbered national highways replaced names in 1926, the route from Texarkana became part of US-67 to Dallas, where it joined US-80. Those federal highways were often realigned and by the 1960s gave way to Interstates 30 and 20, which merged with I-10 in far West Texas. Despite these changes, much of the early Bankhead in Texas survives as state and county roads linking towns bypassed by the interstates, and both the Bankhead name and miles of Bankhead pavement from the 1920s remain in public memory.