October 10, 1908: The 1st Highway

October 10, 1908: The Long Island Motor Parkway opens. It is the world's 1st highway, the first road designed exclusively for automobile use, the first concrete highway in the United States, and the first to use overpasses and bridges to eliminate intersections.

It was funded by William Kissam Vanderbilt II, the great-grandson of ferry and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, and an auto racing enthusiast who created the Vanderbilt cup race in 1904.

The road was originally planned to stretch for 70 miles, in and out of New York City, as far as Riverhead, the seat of Suffolk County, and the point of division for the north and south forks of Long Island. Only 45 miles were constructed, and on October 10, 1908, a 10-mile-long section opened as far as modern Bethpage.

It hosted races in 1908 and on the full road in 1909 and 1910, but an accident in the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup, killing two riding mechanics, led the New York State legislature to ban racing except on race tracks, ending its career as a racing road.

By 1911, the road was extended as far east as Lake Ronkonkoma. Its western stretch was also extended from Great Neck, Nassau County to what is now the Fresh Meadows neighborhood of Queens.

Roadway design advances of the 1920s rendered the road obsolete less than 20 years after construction. At the same time, Robert Moses was planning the Northern State Parkway. In 1929, the owners and some Long Island officials proposed that New York State should buy the road, and integrate it into the state parkway system, despite its narrow roadway (varying from 16 to 22 feet wide) and steep bridges not meeting new standards. Moses opposed the idea, stating that the Long Island Motor Parkway had been "a white elephant for the last twenty years."

The completion of the Northern State Parkway signaled the end for the road. In 1937, the portion of the Long Island Motor Parkway in Suffolk County was donated to Suffolk County. In July 1938, the remainder of the parkway's land was given to Nassau County and the Long Island State Parks Commission.

Most of the road in Queens is a bicycle trail from Cunningham Park to Alley Pond Park. The Nassau County roadway has been redeveloped, or turned into a right of way for Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) transmission lines.

Pretty much all of what's left looks something like this. 

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October 10, 1908 was a Saturday. Game 1 of the World Series was played at Bennett Park in Detroit. The Chicago Cubs led 5-1 going to the bottom of the 7th, the Detroit Tigers took a 6-5 lead into the 9th, then the Cubs scored 5 in the 9th to win, 10-6. Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown was the winning pitcher. The Cubs won the Series in 5 games.

Professional basketball barely existed. It was too early for a new hockey season to begin. Among the college football games played that day were these:

* Army beat Trinity College of Hartford, Connecticut, 33-0 on The Plain at West Point, New York.

* The Carlisle Indian School beat Syracuse, 12-0 at Archbold Stadium in Syracuse, New York.

* Rutgers lost to Lehigh, 12-0 at Lehigh Field in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

* Princeton and Lafyette played to a tie, 0-0 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* The University of Pennsylvania beat Pennsylvania State University: Penn 6, Penn State 0 at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* Navy beat Dickinson College, 22-0 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland. Like the Carlisle Indian School, Dickinson was based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

* In a Washington vs. Baltimore matchup, Georgetown beat Johns Hopkins, 22-4 at Georgetown Field in Washington.

* In what would later become a major rivalry, the University of Michigan and Michigan State Agricultural College played to a tie, 0-0 at College Field in East Lansing. MSAC became Michigan Agricultural College in 1909, Michigan State College in 1925, and Michigan State University in 1955.

* The University of Chicago beat Indiana, 29-6 at Stagg Field in Chicago.

* And in an intra-State rivalry, Kansas beat Kansas State, 12-6 at McCook Field in Lawrence, Kansas.

And in English soccer, South-East London team Woolwich Arsenal, later to be Arsenal F.C., the North London team I would one day support, beat Manchester City, 3-0 at the Manor Ground in Plumstead.