Throughout its nearly 60-year history, the Interstate Highway System has served the United States of America far beyond its original purposes. From its original purposes of uniting the country and aiding defense to more mundane (but equally important) ones like carrying goods across the country, the Interstate Highway System has firmly entrenched itself as one of the greatest feats of engineering the world has ever known . . Record-breaking bridges, tunnels and pavement lengths have all been built from the vast expanse of the IHS FACT. As Dwight D. Eisenhower, then president, stated: “Together, the combined forces of our communications and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear: United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts” (http://todayinsci.com/Events/Transport/HighwayInterstate-Quotations.htm February 22, 1955) The history of the Interstate Highway System begins with several false starts. The Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 granted $75 million to states based on population and distance of roads built. Politics was left in ruins with the outbreak of the Great War. In 1921, with the so-called “Phipps Act,” the bill was resurrected and funded General John J. Pershing’s planning of “interstate routes” across the country. This “Pershing map” would later serve as a guideline for much of the IHS. The Transcontinental Motor Convoy of 1919 followed one of these routes. Crippled by frequent breakdowns, lack of vehicle compliance, and inexperienced members, it eventually reached the West Coast. Among the soldiers in the convoy was Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, who recorded the entire event. The lack of sufficient roads put the United States on the map and instituted the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1976. This allocated $175 million for the processes of "resurfacing, rehabilitation and rehabilitation of those lanes of the Interstate System which are in use for more than five years and which are not on toll roads." (-http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/intmaint.cfm) Initially set at a 90-10 federal-state funding rate, projects were gradually moved to a more manageable funding rate 75 -25. Known as the Interstate's 3R needs, resurfacing, restoration and rehabilitation. A fourth "R" was added in 1981 with the introduction of the rebuild. Reconstruction was vital to improve those roads that had long fallen into disrepair. Bridges, tunnels and the vast system itself were greatly affected by the 1981 law that also allowed federal funding to remove and replace elements where necessary.