DALLAS · READING THE ROAD
I-635’s laser openingA ribbon with a burn mark.
LBJ Freeway · Reported January 1969
A Texas Instruments laser opened an almost ten-mile section of Dallas’s LBJ Freeway. The January 1969 magazine report shows how a small piece of new technology helped celebrate a much larger road project.
Explore the storyALMOST TEN MILES OF NEW ROAD
The new freeway reached east from US 75
Behind that brief burn was a $27 million freeway section. The magazine rounds its length to ten miles and reproduces a newspaper account giving 9.85 miles. It ran from US 75, the North Central Expressway, east and south to Barnes Bridge Road in Mesquite. Construction had begun in April 1964. Route, cost and construction
Those endpoints are more informative than the ribbon. This was a substantial addition on the northeast side of Dallas, with a connection to an established expressway at one end and a new approach into Mesquite at the other. It was one section of a larger loop. The magazine still described the eventual route around the county to the Thornton Freeway in future terms.
Once the ribbon was severed, the first cars crossed the new pavement under clear skies. A Department of Public Safety helicopter monitored traffic, according to the report. The machines in the photograph could be packed away; the interchange at US 75 would remain a place where drivers had to choose their route. The much later High Five construction photographs show that same crossing being rebuilt on a very different scale.
LIGHT WITH A SPECIFIC JOB
A new technology makes a public appearance
A laser makes this photograph feel thoroughly of its time. Theodore Maiman’s team demonstrated the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in May 1960. Writing for the American Physical Society in 2009, photonics researcher Thomas Baer explained that a laser can concentrate optical energy intensely enough to change or cut a material. The ribbon’s burn illustrates that principle on a small, visible target. The magazine does not identify this machine’s laser type or power. Laser history and focused energy
Texas Instruments supplied the device, and representatives of nearby cities and chambers of commerce attended. The ceremony brought highway building and local technology into the same photograph. The choice of a laser made the opening unusual without changing what drivers needed from the road: usable pavement and connections to the places they were going.
The LBJ Freeway’s other experiments were less ceremonial. A separate February 1970 feature on high-mast lighting examined equipment intended to illuminate its interchanges night after night. One beam cut a ribbon; the other lighting system had a continuing job.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
Sources & further reading
Original TexasFreeway commentary draws on the complete magazine feature and the supporting sources below. Selected photographic details support the analysis; the original JPEG remains available in the viewer and this source list.
- Texas Highways, “A Laser Opening,” January 1969. Complete one-page feature and photograph inspected. The surviving scan has no visible printed page number. Open the complete original scan. January 1969 identifies the issue, not an established ceremony date.
- Thomas M. Baer, “Why We’re Celebrating LaserFest,” American Physical Society, November 1, 2009. Scientific retrospective used for the 1960 demonstration and the concentration of optical energy; it does not identify the Dallas apparatus.
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About this article: TexasFreeway presents selected historical images for commentary, analysis and education under fair use. Images remain credited to their respective sources. Their inclusion here does not grant permission for reuse elsewhere.
Supporting online sources checked October 3, 2026.
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A DIFFERENT KIND OF RIBBON CUTTING
I-635 opens with a laser and a burning ribbon
There is a warning sign on the machine, a ribbon stretched across the foreground and a crowd dressed for a freeway dedication. The small flare at the ribbon is the event everyone has come to see. Dallas’s LBJ Freeway was getting an opening ceremony with a piece of equipment that would have been impossible only a few years earlier.
The January 1969 Texas Highways report describes Highway Commissioner Jack Kultgen pressing a button on a nearby speakers’ platform. A laser supplied by Texas Instruments burned through a four-inch-wide acetate ribbon. The magazine called it the first use of a laser for a ribbon cutting in Texas. The magazine account
The equipment changes the usual photograph of officials holding scissors. Look at the box in front of the crowd and the sign beside it. The beam itself is difficult to see in this reproduction. Its effect on the ribbon gives the camera something to record.
A ceremony built around the machine
The apparatus occupies the foreground while the assembled officials look toward the ribbon. Keeping the warning sign, ribbon and crowd together shows how the laser became the center of the dedication photograph.
Selected photographic detail from the complete magazine scan.
Photograph courtesy Dallas Times-Herald; reproduced in Texas Highways.
Texas Highways ·
Magazine source