Posted 11/09/2008 03:11:00 PM by Douglas

Progress is never easy, especially when you're building an interstate highway. This story chronicles the heartbreak of I-40 through Amarillo, which opened 40 years ago this week.

In reality, I-40 displaced many Amarillo residents and workers by the time it opened here 40 years ago on Nov. 15, 1968. And many small towns suffered death-by-bypass.

The then-Texas Highway Department acquired about 770 parcels of Amarillo land - 500 of which included homes or businesses - so that I-40 could slice through the city on a much-disputed central route.

"The highway killed a lot of businesses, and it helped new businesses flourish," said 76-year-old Robert Templeton, an Amarillo lawyer who represented property owners in interstate-related eminent-domain cases. "People don't remember that Amarillo Boulevard was the main thoroughfare then, just like I-40 is today."

And then there's this:

Dubbed "Reese's Run-around" for its designer, the late Highway Department District Expressway Engineer Byron Reese, the interchange of I-40 and Interstate 27 became the last stand for two widows who lived with their daughters in Taylor Street homes condemned by the government in the fall of 1963.

"Every day, inexorable progress inches toward the white houses," the Amarillo Globe-Times reported.

Gilvin-Terrill Contractors crews worked around them for months, but at some point, each day delayed would cost the company a day's payroll, newspaper reports said.

Accompanied by a doctor and two nurses, Potter County Sheriff Jim Line and six deputies wrested the women from their homes on May 4, 1964. It was, the late sheriff said, "the most depressing job I have ever had to handle."

Eminent domain means progress for the masses, unless it's your house getting bulldozed.