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Carving out a section of roadbed for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, circa 1939.
Credit: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
In the heart of the Great Depression, critics scoffed at Pennsylvania's ambitious proposal for a limited access, "dream highway" linking Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. But from 1938 to 1940, an army of workers funded by the Public Works Administration laid a four-lane divided highway across 160 miles of rugged terrain.