Bankhead Highway in Aledo
Aledo, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Commonly referred to as the "Broadway of America," the Bankhead Highway linked cities and towns throughout the nation as one of the first transcontinental highways of the 1920s. In the wake of the first World War, the American government sought to ensure proper defense and military transportation through an extensive national highway system. Senator John Hollis Bankhead of Alabama, along with the National Good Roads Congress, organized the Bankhead Highway Association in 1916. This paved the way for modern American tourism, commercial travel and daily transit. The Bankhead Highway extends more than 900 miles within the state of Texas, from Texarkana to El Paso, totaling about one-third of the National Road's complete length. Initially, the City of Aledo was located one mile south of the Highway, which stretched from east to west through Parker County. The route currently establishes the northern boundary of the future city limits of Aledo. The segment of the Bankhead Highway which connects Watherford to Aledo, remains the most frequently utilized and longest, continuously-named portion of the entire road. Amidst the growing addition of new housing developments, one can still find remnants of old diary farms, as well as rows of sycamore trees planted in memory of WWI veterans. Today, the Bankhead Highway represents an important transitiion from the 19th century to the modern age. It is one of the most significant infrastructure developments in American History, connection people and communities from across the nation. (2015)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Nicknamed the "Broadway of America," the Bankhead Highway was one of the first transcontinental auto routes, organized in 1916 as the nation looked to move troops and goods more reliably after the First World War. Stretching more than 900 miles across Texas from Texarkana to El Paso, it helped launch modern tourism and commercial trucking. Near Aledo, travelers can still spot old dairy farms and rows of sycamores planted in memory of the community's World War I veterans.
Why it matters
The Bankhead Highway marks the moment America began paving its way into the automobile age, tying distant towns together and turning the open road into an engine of commerce and travel.
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Related people
- · John Hollis Bankhead
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Aledo United Methodist Church
Aledo, TX
This congregation traces its start to 1878, when Methodists acquired a share of a small frame hall in the settlement of Alma, considered the forerunner of Aledo. When the Texas & Pacific Railway crossed Parker County in 1879, the building was moved to the new town rising along the tracks, and the church grew through a century of expansions, mergers, and new sanctuaries. As the first congregation in town to own its own building, it became a cornerstone of Aledo's civic and spiritual life.
City of Aledo
Aledo, TX
The country around Aledo passed from Comanche and Kiowa hunting grounds to farms and ranches after the U.S. Army built Fort Worth in 1849 and Parker County was organized in 1856. The town itself was born when the Texas and Pacific Railroad laid track in 1879, first called Parker Station and renamed in 1882 for a railroad official's Illinois hometown. Long a farm-and-mill trading center, it grew again in the mid-20th century as workers from Fort Worth's bomber plant sought small-town living, and it incorporated as a city in 1963.
Annetta Cemetery
Aledo, TX
Community founder A. B. Fraser was a Confederate soldier who chose exile in Central America over swearing loyalty to the Union, and it was there his daughter Anneta was born in Honduras. Back in Texas by the 1870s, he built a store and freight station west of Fort Worth and named it for her; when the Texas and Pacific Railroad arrived in 1880 it adopted the name as Annetta. The cemetery that grew up here holds hundreds of graves — civic leaders, farmers, and, in a poignant testament to pioneer hardship, thirty-five infants buried between 1882 and 1910.
Franco-Texan Land Company Building
Weatherford, TX
Built around 1870, this two-story brick storefront was the beating heart of Weatherford's money and politics as the frontier gave way to the railroad age. It housed the first bank west of Dallas, opened by cattle-fortune banker James Couts, and later the law offices of Samuel Willis Tucker Lanham, who would become governor of Texas. In the 1890s it served the troubled Franco-Texan Land Company, which speculated on the vast stretch of country the Texas and Pacific Railway opened between Weatherford and El Paso.