The official yearlong celebration of the 75th anniversary in renaming Seventh Street Pike after General Douglas MacArthur began Monday night at the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners meeting.

Mayor Edward D. Hozza Jr. read from the Feb. 9, 1942, minutes of the commissioners meeting dedicating the 7-mile-long road to MacArthur, who was then heading the United States’ war effort in the Pacific Theatre.

With the anniversary committee present at the meeting, Hozza told how the then-two-lane artery, with its history dating back to the 1700s as the “Road from Allentown to Egypt,” was renamed out of a deep sense of patriotism and pride for the men and women led by MacArthur in battle.

“On Feb. 9, 1942, in an emotional and patriotic gesture, then-commissioners made the motion: ‘The entire piece of State Highway known as the Seventh Street Highway running through Whitehall Township be officially given the name of MacArthur Road,’” Hozza read.

Hozza continued, “Subsequently, on April 13, 1942, just three weeks after Douglas MacArthur being named commander in chief of the Pacific Theatre, Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners passed Ordinance 394, which mandated that the public street heretofore known as Legislative Route 555 from the Hokendauqua-Egypt line northwardly to the Egypt-Cementon line be hereinafter designated as MacArthur Road.”

At the Monday night meeting, a PowerPoint presentation was made, depicting the road from decades past and showing stores such as Two Guys from Harrison to the present-day Lehigh Valley and Whitehall malls.

Hozza said MacArthur Road and the businesses on the road are the engine that drives the economy, its taxes significant for the township, school district and county. The future looks bright, he said, as businesses expand and new stores and restaurants look to locate to MacArthur Road, where 40,000 vehicles traverse daily.

The next event on the 75th anniversary committee’s schedule is a gala, set for April 22 at Whitehall Mall. Visit macarthurroad75.com for details.