| Jay Paul Bowker |
| HOME PAGE |
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Jay Paul Bowker, 96, a highway engineer who helped plan and develop the interstate highway system, died May 13 at Asbury Methodist Village in
Gaithersburg of complications from a stroke.
In 1935, Mr. Bowker joined what was then the Bureau of Public Roads -- now the Federal Highway Administration -- as a student highway engineer.
He served in the Army during World War II and participated in the battle for Okinawa in 1945.
Returning to the Bureau of Public Roads as a highway engineer, he was involved for the next several years with the interstate highway system,
known officially as the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Construction began in 1956, when Congress and President Dwight D.
Eisenhower approved the Highway Trust Fund.
Mr. Bowker retired in 1974 as chief of highway systems staff in the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Highway Planning.
He was born in Auburn, N.Y., and grew up in the District. After graduating from Western High School, he received a degree in civil engineering
from the University of Maryland in 1934. He was a member of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, his place of residence before he moved
to Sarasota, Fla., in 1991. He returned to Maryland in 2002.
Survivors include his wife of 69 years, Lois Huffman Bowker of Gaithersburg; three children, Ann Bowker and Janet Bowker Miller, both of Bethesda,
and James Bowker of Rockville; a brother; and two grandchildren.
-- Joe Holley