Interstate 24 in Kentucky

Interstate 24 in Kentucky

Interstate 24 (I-24) is part of the Interstate Highway System that runs 316.36 miles (509.13 km) from Pulleys Mill, Illinois, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. In Kentucky, the Interstate runs in a northwest-to-southeast alignment in the western part of the state through the Jackson Purchase and Pennyroyal Plateau regions, from the Ohio River at the Illinois border to the Tennessee line near Fort Campbell and Clarksville, Tennessee. The Interstate runs for a total of 93.37 miles (150.26 km) in Kentucky, serving Paducah and providing access to other cities via U.S. and state routes. It also crosses the Tennessee River and Cumberland River near Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. Unlike many Interstate Highways, I-24 does not closely parallel any U.S. Route in Kentucky. Whitehaven, a historic house in Paducah built in 1865, is used as the western Kentucky welcome center. When the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was passed, no Interstate Highway was allocated for western Kentucky, and the road that became I-24 was planned to run between Nashville and Chattanooga. Around this time, Kentucky officials began lobbying for an Interstate Highway in this region, and the state, along with Tennessee, Illinois, and Missouri began to advocate for a new Interstate between Nashville and St. Louis. After many years of debate, the states reached an agreement for the highway's alignment in 1963, and the following year, the federal Bureau of Public Roads approved an extension of I-24 into Kentucky. Construction on I-24 in Kentucky began in 1967 and was completed in 1980, making it the last mainline Interstate Highway in the state to be finished. In 2018, a section of I-69 was routed onto a concurrency with I-24 as part of an extension of this Interstate into Kentucky.

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Coelophysis.

Interstate 24 in Kentucky

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