<P> In December 1918, E.J. Mehren, a civil engineer and the editor of Engineering News - Record, presented his "A Suggested National Highway Policy and Plan" during a gathering of the State Highway Officials and Highway Industries Association at the Congress Hotel in Chicago . In the plan, Mehren proposed a 50,000 - mile (80,000 km) system, consisting of five east--west routes and 10 north--south routes . The system would include two percent of all roads and would pass through every state at a cost of $25,000 per mile ($16,000 / km), providing commercial as well as military transport benefits . </P> <P> As the landmark 1916 law expired, new legislation was passed--the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 (Phipps Act). This new road construction initiative once again provided for federal matching funds for road construction and improvement, $75 million allocated annually . Moreover, this new legislation for the first time sought to target these funds to the construction of a national road grid of interconnected "primary highways", setting up cooperation among the various state highway planning boards . </P> <P> The Bureau of Public Roads asked the Army to provide a list of roads that it considered necessary for national defense . In 1922, General John J. Pershing, former head of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during the war, complied by submitting a detailed network of 20,000 miles (32,000 km) of interconnected primary highways--the so - called Pershing Map . </P> <P> A boom in road construction followed throughout the decade of the 1920s, with such projects as the New York parkway system constructed as part of a new national highway system . As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highways system . By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways . </P>

Who compiled the first list of national roads