Frank Thomas Sheets - 2008

HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES 2008

Mr. Sheets was born in Ohio on October 5, 1890, but his family moved to Springfield, Illinois, so that his father, Edgar could take a job as Superintendent in the Illinois State Highway Department. Frank Sheets also joined the Highway Department at the age of 17 as a clerk. He started his studies in highway engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1911, and then returned to the Highway Department upon his graduation in 1914. By 1916 he was the Assistant Maintenance Engineer of the Highway Bureau of Maintenance.

His boss at the time was B. H. Piepmeier, who would move on to head the Missouri Highway Department during the formative years of the U.S. Highway system. Mr. Sheets headed the Illinois Division of Highways from 1920-1932. During his tenure the state came from “out of the mud” to break the record four times for miles paved in a year by any state. The Division’s work under his command included the completion of hard surface pavement on all of Illinois State Bond Issue Route 4 between Chicago and the McKinley Bridge by the end of 1926. When U.S. 66 was commissioned and routed on SBI 4, Illinois could boast of being the only state with hard roads along the entire length of its share of the highway.

Mr. Sheets also served as President of the American Association of State Highway Officials and a member of its Committee of Five that created the original U.S. Highway map and numbering system. He fought against the regional interests that wanted the highway connecting Los Angeles and St. Louis to continue east through Kentucky and Virginia. He and his fellow committee members won the battle for a single numbered highway  onnecting Chicago to Los Angeles, and thus they created the highway we now “preserve and promote.”

From 1927-1932, The Division of Highways under Mr. Sheets continued to improve Route 66 with wider pavements, grade separations, and the change in routing that brought such beloved towns as Litchfield and Hamel into the Route 66 community.