Plans have begun for a 2017 event celebrating the 75th anniversary of MacArthur Road, Whitehall Township’s major commercial artery.

Alice Lieberman is heading a committee to recognize the busy road, officially named MacArthur Road in the early 1950s in tribute to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who spearheaded the country’s World War II campaigns in the Pacific against Japan.

Lieberman, during a presentation Monday night at the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners workshop meeting, said the committee of approximately 14 persons has met once, and another meeting will be held later this month to seek out ideas on how to celebrate the highway.

Commissioners President Phillips Armstrong suggested the committee could look to hold an event in fall 2017 in conjunction with the township’s festival, which includes township offices, businesses, Whitehall-Coplay School District and the public.

While ideas are being discussed, one idea to attract the public’s attention is to have a banner across the road to recognize the historic naming of MacArthur Road.

In the early 1920s and 1930s, the road was a two-lane concrete highway linking the City of Allentown to Mickleys and other small villages to the north.

Until the name was changed, the road was called Seventh Street Pike since it met Seventh Street in Allentown on the south end of Whitehall.

Currently, PennDOT has signs on the highway noting it is Route 145, a state road.

MacArthur Road’s transformation as a major commercial hub began with the opening of Route 22 in the 1950s. Then, Two Guys came to the northern sector of MacArthur Road and successfully challenged Sunday Blue Laws, which prohibited Sunday openings of retail businesses.

With most of the mom-and-pop stores, such as Green Lantern Restaurant and John Kaspar Auto Sales, now gone, malls and chain franchises have settled in the Lehigh Valley.

Kleckner and Sons, an appliance store, has remained, its brick structure unchanged over the decades.