Interstate 40 - North Carolina
Interstate 40 represents one of the original four interstates approved for the state of North Carolina in 1956. The original alignment traveled 219 miles east from Tennessee to the merge with Interstate 85 in Greensboro. The pre-existing freeway of U.S. 421 from Winston-Salem eastward, built between 1949-50, was included in Interstate 40's alignment. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act authorized construction on Interstate 40 first through Pigeon River Gorge in Haywood County in 1958. Work followed on a 34.3-mile section of freeway through Burke and Catawba Counties in 1959.
By 1966, 119.4 miles of Interstate 40 were open to traffic, followed by the 1968 opening of the 22-mile Pigeon River Gorge alignment leading west to Tennessee, the most expensive project in North Carolina history at the time. These completions led to the 1968 request to the Bureau of Public Roads for additional Interstate mileage within North Carolina. The approved request extended Interstate 40 from Greensboro east to Raleigh and Interstate 95. Work followed soon thereafter with a section of new freeway opening in the Raleigh area by December 1971.
A third extension of Interstate 40 followed in April 1978 with an approval for a new freeway from Interstate 95 near Raleigh to Wilmington. Interstate 40 would not be completed east to Interstate 95 until 1989 however, but opening of the entire alignment to Wilmington would follow shortly on June 29, 1990.
Interstate 40 enters the state at Waterville along the Pigeon River Gorge. Both the freeway and river parallel one another south and east to junction U.S. 276 at Cove Creek.
Interstate 40 North Carolina Highway Guides
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