Texas Highway Department
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established April 4, 1917 Early 20th century Texas farmers demanded all-weather access to markets just as automobiles revolutionized transportation for all travelers. Good Roads promoters envisioned a central state agency to organize safe, consistent routes. In 1916 the federal government offered matching funds to build a statewide highway system. In 1917, legislators created the Texas Highway Department, and Texans registered 195,000 automobiles. Agency employees worked in the Capitol, then the 1917 Land Office, and soon the agency opened district offices across the state. In 1921 federal officials approved a 2,900-mile Texas system, ensured by a one-cent-per-gallon state gas tax after 1923. During the Great Depression, federal relief funds stimulated massive road building. Engineers also promoted a new headquarters, and in 1933 completed this state highway building. From here, DeWitt Carlock Greer (1902-1986) served as state highway engineer, 1940-1967, and commissioner, 1969 to 1981, when legislators named the building for him. That year, as the agency's role expanded to public transportation, it managed 71,000 miles of highways for 12 million Texas vehicles. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Created on April 4, 1917, as automobiles were revolutionizing travel and farmers demanded all-weather roads to market, the Texas Highway Department set out to organize a statewide system backed by federal matching funds. A one-cent gas tax after 1923 and New Deal relief funds during the Depression fueled massive road building, and in 1933 the agency completed this headquarters building. From here DeWitt C. Greer led the department for decades; the building was later named in his honor.
Why it matters
The department turned a patchwork of local roads into a modern highway network, embodying the automobile age's reshaping of Texas commerce, geography, and daily life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century, the automobile was rewriting the rules of American life, and Texas — vast, spread out, and heavily agricultural — felt the change acutely. Farmers needed dependable, all-weather roads to move their crops to market, and a new generation of drivers wanted routes they could actually count on. But roads were a patchwork, built and maintained locally, with no one in charge of the whole.
This was the Progressive Era, a time when Americans increasingly looked to organized, expert-led government agencies to solve problems that were too big for any town or county. The "Good Roads" movement captured that spirit, pushing for a central authority to plan safe, consistent routes across an entire state.
The federal government gave the effort a powerful nudge in 1916 by offering matching funds to states that would build a coordinated highway system. The stage was set for Texas to create something new — just as the number of automobiles on its roads was exploding.
People & events
On April 4, 1917, Texas legislators created the Texas Highway Department, and the timing tells the whole story: that same year, Texans registered 195,000 automobiles. A flood of new drivers had arrived, and now there was an agency charged with giving them somewhere reliable to drive.
The department started small and scrappy, its employees working first in the Capitol, then in the 1917 Land Office, before district offices spread out across the state. In 1921 a 2,900-mile Texas highway system won federal approval, and after 1923 a one-cent-per-gallon gas tax gave the work a steady source of funding — the users of the roads helping to pay for them. When the Great Depression struck, federal relief money poured into road building, putting people to work and paving the state at an unprecedented pace. In 1933 the agency completed the very headquarters building this marker commemorates.
From that building, one figure looms especially large: DeWitt Carlock Greer (1902–1986), who served as state highway engineer from 1940 to 1967 and later as a commissioner from 1969 to 1981. His decades of leadership left such a mark that the legislature named the building in his honor. By the time his commission service ended, the agency was managing tens of thousands of miles of highway for millions of Texas vehicles, and its mission had grown to embrace public transportation as well.
Its place in the American story
The rise of the state highway department is one of the defining American stories of the twentieth century — the moment when driving stopped being an adventure and became simply how people got around. Every state built an agency like this, and together they knit the country into the road network we now take for granted.
Two national threads run straight through this Texas story. One is the partnership between federal and state government: federal matching funds launched the system, and New Deal relief dollars accelerated it during the Depression, showing how Washington and the states could build something enormous together. The other is the idea of the dedicated user tax — the gas tax that tied the cost of roads to the people who drove on them, a funding model that spread nationwide.
And there is the human element: a career public servant whose steady hand across three decades helped turn a young agency into a modern institution. The building named for him stands as a reminder that great public infrastructure is built not only of concrete and asphalt but of long, patient stewardship.
If you visit
Look up. The reason to visit is the 1933 headquarters building itself, completed at the height of the Depression-era road-building boom and later named for the engineer who led the department for a generation. Take in its architecture and imagine the maps, surveys, and plans that once spread across desks inside as an entire state was being connected.
You're in central Austin, close to the seat of Texas government, so this marker slots easily into a day spent exploring the city's civic landmarks. As you read it, think about the ordinary miracle it represents — that you can now drive from one end of Texas to the other on paved, marked, all-weather roads, something that simply did not exist before agencies like this one.
It's a fitting stop for anyone who arrives by car, which is nearly everyone. The very road that brought you here is part of the legacy this building set in motion.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · DeWitt Carlock Greer
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