In 1917, the idea of using painted center lines on rural state highways was conceived and/or put into action in at least three states (Michigan, Oregon, and California), apparently completely independent of one another. At some point in 1917, a white highway center line was painted along "Dead Man's Curve" on what is now County Road 492 in Marquette County, Michigan, under the direction of Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer, who served as engineer-superintendent of the Marquette County Road Commission. Sawyer was inducted posthumously into the Michigan Transportation Hall of Honor in 1973.