Minnesota Drivers Strike Gold on this Stretch of Interstate

It’s not the Yellow Brick Road, but there is some enchantment in recent news from the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

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If you like history, you should love this. Even if history isn’t your thing, you’ll probably still find this interesting. The Minnesota Department of Transportation recently completed a historical “re-do” if you will when they placed “Golden Stripes” on the West Bound lanes of I-90 near Blue Earth Minnesota.

The “Golden Stripes” aren’t really stripes but gold tinted sections of cement on Interstate 90 marking the location where I-90 was originally joined together from the East Coast and West Coast. The interstate runs from Boston to Seattle and the original golden sections of Interstate were placed when the section was completed in 1978.

In 2006 there was a re-paving project here in Minnesota that partially paved over some of the Golden sections of I-90. In July of this year, crews with the Minnesota D-O-T began placing the colored parts of the roadway again. The East Bound lanes will have golden tinted cement sections added next year.

The Golden sections were to pay homage to the “Golden Spike” that was laid down where the transcontinental railroad comes together in Promontory Utah, the spike was placed when the railroad was finished in 1869.

For some, the newly laid roadway is good to see because they remember when the original sections were in place and what they represented. For others, it’s fun and interesting to see because they’ve heard about the tinted sections of roadway and maybe even read the dedication markers that are posted in the area, but they’ve never really seen the “Golden Stripes” in full color.