California Highway Commission
The California Highway Commission was established in 1895 and continued until 1978 as the primary state highway bureaucracy in California.
Their first noticeable efforts centered on the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road over the Sierra Nevada mountains. A series of municipal bond issues beginning in 1910 allowed the Highway Commission to grade and pave as much of the new California state highway system as quickly as possible.
A 1933 statute read in part:
In 1978, the California Transportation Commission replaced and assumed the responsibilities of four independent bodies: The California Highway Commission, the State Transportation Board, the State Aeronautics Board, and the California Toll Bridge Authority.
