Interstate Interrupted

March 3, 1971

Though the legal wrangling was far from over, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively pulled the plug on plans to construct Interstate 40 through historic Overton Park. By sending the case back to a Memphis judge for further review, the justices, in a precedent-setting 18-page opinion, gave a huge victory to Citizens to Preserve Overton Park. But it wasn’t for another decade that the project died, officially, when the U.S. Secretary of Transportation canceled the project and transferred funds to build the freeway to other projects.