The Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) was established in 1893 and was a precursor to the modern-day Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
The federal agency was created within the Department of Agriculture and was primarily tasked with researching and gathering information on road construction and maintenance across the United States.
Its name was changed to the Office of Public Roads (OPR) in 1905. It was transferred to the newly created Department of Agriculture’s Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering in 1915.
