The Story of
Johnny Highwaycone

Everybody knows you need roads and highways to ride the bus to school in the morning, but have you ever stopped to think about all the other ways you depend on our nation's great network of highways that stretch all the way from one coast to the other?

Highway maintenance and construction crews depend on highway cones for building roadways safely.

Highway cones weren't always as plentiful as they are today. If you look at old pictures or paintings of the countryside, you might not see any highway cones at all.

But years ago, Johnny Highwaycone decided to wander across the countryside, perhaps knowing that someday we would need highways and--therefore--highway cones, sowing highway cone seeds everywhere he went.

At first there were only fields to plant the highway cones in.

Johnny Highwaycone planted the highway cone seeds everywhere, and soon they began to grow.

When the cones grew big enough, people saw them and exclaimed, "Now I can build highways safely! I will join a highway construction and maintenance crew and do my part to cover this great nation with asphalt and concrete!"

Excitedly, people all over the country joined together and built highways. Now the buses could drive children to school in the morning and the trucks could deliver shoes and milk!

But Johnny Highwaycone knew that the country needed even more highway cones, so construction and maintenance crews could build subdivisions and suburbs, too, and make sure everybody had all the roads they needed. So he continued to walk from coast to coast, planting even more highway cone seeds on every step of his journeys.

Each spring, the new baby cones start to sprout, eagerly awaiting the day when they will grow up to be big cones and can do their part to improve traffic safety.

So, when you take the bus to school or are riding in your parents' car, and you see a line of bright and colorful highway cones, remember Johnny Highwaycone and be thankful for his tireless efforts to improve our nation's transportation infrastructure.