 In 1949, Governor Okey L. Patteson oversaw the creation of the Turnpike Commission which was the start of the planning of what was to become the West Virginia Turnpike.Two years earlier, the state legislature had appropriated funds to study the feasibility of building a superhighway comparable to similar projects being planned and constructed in other states.Early proposals showed a highway stretching from Parkersburg to Princeton, while another map diagrammed a route from Wheeling to Princeton.