Yellow brick road
The actual road is believed to be one in Peekskill, New York, where L. Frank Baum attended Peekskill Military Academy. According to a local legend, the Yellow Brick Road was derived from a road paved with yellow bricks near Holland, Michigan, where Baum spent summers. Ithaca, New York, also makes a claim for being Frank Baum's inspiration. He opened a road tour of his musical, The Maid of Arran, in Ithaca, and he met his future wife Maud Gage Baum while she was attending Cornell University. At the time, yellow bricks paved local roads. Yellow brick roads can also be found in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Albany, New York; Rossville (Baltimore County), Maryland; Montclair, New Jersey (Parkhurst Place and Afterglow Way); Bronxville, New York (on Prescott and Valley roads); Chicago, Illinois; Liberal, Kansas; Sedan, Kansas and Chittenango, New York, as well as a school in Abington, Pennsylvania, and abroad in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Kansas Turnpike
In June 1956, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was signed into law, granting funding to the nationwide Interstate Highway System. Without its Oklahoma link, the Kansas Turnpike was in danger of being bypassed by the Interstate System entirely. However, at the end of 1956, the Bureau of Public Roads and the state of Kansas agreed to route I-35 along the turnpike south of Emporia and I-70 along the piece east of Topeka. The state insisted on a separate Emporia–Kansas City alignment, and the mileage that would have been used to build I-35 from Wichita to Emporia via Newton was instead used for Interstate 35W (now Interstate 135) from Wichita via Newton to Salina. Oklahoma's first piece of Interstate 35, from the state line to U.S. Highway 177 at Braman, opened April 22, 1958.