Lowell K. Bridwell (14 June 1924 – 21 November 1986) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

. He was a correspondent for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

and the

Ohio State Journal ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'' was a daily morning newspaper in Columbus, Ohio published by the Scripps Howard company. It was formed in 1959 by the merger of ''The Columbus Citizen'' and ''The Ohio State Journal''. It shared printing faciliti ...

from 1946 to 1950. He was director of the

Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...

from 1967 to 1969.

Biography

He was born on June 14, 1924 in

Westerville, Ohio Westerville is a city in Franklin and Delaware counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. A northeastern suburb of Columbus, the population was 39,190 at the 2020 census. Westerville is the home of Otterbein University. Westerville was once known a ...

. His father worked for the

Anti-Saloon League The Anti-Saloon League (now known as the ''American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems'') is an organization of the temperance movement that lobbied for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. Founded in 1893 in Oberl ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he briefly attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

in the late 1940s and early 1950s, married Margaret Bridwell, a physician. He was a

Scripps-Howard The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

reporter in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

then

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. During his time as a reporter in the 1950s he wrote many stories about first local and then national interest, and drew the interest of

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

during the

second red scare McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

. His brother Charles Bridwell also worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the time in the Columbus field office and refused to spy on his brother for Hoover, thus ending his career in the FBI. Years later, Lowell became well known as the reporter who wrote an exposé debunking Walter Williams, who claimed to be the last surviving

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

veteran.United Press International (September 3, 1959). Texan's Civil War Role in Doubt As Records Indicate Age Is 104. ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' After covering

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

's run for the presidency in 1960 as a reporter, he joined the administration

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bu ...

in April 1962 as assistant to Under Secretary for Transportation Clarence Martin Jr., (under President Kennedy) before being appointed Acting Deputy Federal Highway Administrator on January 20, 1964, under President Johnson a post he held until becoming Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation (Operations) on July 2, 1964. He worked at the

from March 23, 1967 until the end of the

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

administration on January 20, 1969. During this time billions of dollars of highway funds were used to build America's highways from coast to coast. From 1972 to 1981, Bridwell was the executive director of the Westside Highway Project. Between 1981 and 1984, he was appointed Secretary of the

Maryland Department of Transportation The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) is an organization comprising five business units and one Authority: * Maryland Transportation Authority (Transportation Secretary serves as chairman of the Maryland Transportation Authority) * M ...

, and taught at the Univ. of Maryland during the 1980s. He died on November 21, 1986 in

Columbia, Maryland Columbia is a census-designated place in Howard County, Maryland. It is one of the principal communities of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. It is a planned community consisting of 10 self-contained villages. Columbia began with ...

References

External links

Lowell K. Bridwell bio
via Department of Transportation {{DEFAULTSORT:Bridwell, Lowell K. 1924 births 1986 deaths State cabinet secretaries of Maryland People from Westerville, Ohio 20th-century American politicians Administrators of the Federal Highway Administration United States Department of Commerce officials Kennedy administration personnel Lyndon B. Johnson administration personnel Ohio State University alumni