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In 1953, Governor William Umstead sat in his car for three hours in traffic after the Carolina vs. State College football game at Kenan Stadium. At that time Stadium Drive did not exist and NC 54 was the only road back to Raleigh. On the Monday morning after the game, the Governor declared that another road needed to be built before the Duke game which was only eleven weeks away. Engineer Joe Hakan was instructed to meet an engineer from the State Highway Commission at Mason Farm road within half an hour. He arrived to find prison laborers and equipment waiting to build the road. He quickly walked along and placed stakes at every fifty feet. By the time he got to about 250 feet into the woods, he could hear the chopping of wood and bulldozers behind him. By the end of the day, all the stakes for the new road were in place and half of the highway was cleared of timber. Manning Drive had been "planned" in a day. [12].
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