Page:America's Highways 1776–1976.djvu/501

 a designated forest highway system except in North Dakota. Nine other States had no national forests or purchase units, and, consequently no forest highway system.

Since 1960, the direct Federal highway construction program has continued at about the same program level. Beginning with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1958, forest highway funds have been authorized for each of the succeeding years at the level of $33 million. Historically, funds for the forest highway system have been authorized and appropriated from the general fund. However, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 directed that, beginning with the fiscal year 1972, the forest highway funds would come from the Highway Trust Fund. This Act amended the definition of the term “forest highway” to require all forest highways to be on the Federal-aid system. This change eliminated the former Class III forest highway designation which included those highways designated as forest highways which were not on the Federal-aid system.

McKenzie Highway (Oreg. FH-22) in Willamette National Forest is a modern design and has numerous safety features.

The history of the BPR’s direct Federal construction program is a record of the work of three generations of highway engineers, many of whom devoted their entire professional careers to this service. By the very nature of the work, they accepted hardship and personal privation for the love and challenge of the work. Arthur E. Loder, Assistant Chief Engineer of BPR in 1918 aptly described their lot.

Much of the work is located at high altitudes where heavy snow remains until late in the spring. The streams carrying away the melting snow remain at flood stage making them difficult to ford until the last of June and in some cases even later. In such places the snow may begin to fall again in September and often stops field work before October. Although the work is located in every climate from the torrid desert, through regions of excessive rainfall and high timberline altitudes to the frozen forests of Alaska, the average season for efficient work is short. Under these conditions work must be organized and rushed as fast as possible while conditions permit.

Although the locating engineer’s work, with its interesting problems and the call of mountain and forest, is so fascinating that he is rarely content thereafter to live in the plains, his existence is a busy one and his hardships real. He soon learns to regard as a luxury his bed made by pounding the earth with an ax to remove the 495