Highway development in Nebraska originally rested entirely with the counties until 1917, when the Legislature accepted the provisions of a federal law and appropriated money to match federal funds for highway construction, beginning the state highway system. The route now designated U.S. 281 extends from Mexico to Canada and runs through east-central Nebraska from Webster County in the south through Boyd County in the north. By the mid-1920s all sections of this highway had been laid out in Nebraska, and the number 281 was first applied to its entire length in the state in 1933. In 1929-1930, a section beginning four miles south of O’Neill and continuing to the south fork of the Elkhorn River became part of a series of federally directed projects testing construction methods for bituminous roads, which were covered with a mixture of oil, sand, and gravel several inches thick. Although that road surface had rarely been used in Nebraska before then, the experiment proved so successful that this bituminous mat became the principal type of paving used in the state until the 1950s. On March 30, 1960, U.S. 281 was formally dedicated as the national American Legion Memorial Highway.