1919: Oregon passes the nation’s first per-gallon tax on gasoline. It’s only a penny, and it’s only one state, but you know where things go from here.

New York City started collecting registration fees on those new-fangled motor vehicles in 1901, and the state of Missouri took that road two years later. By 1914, every state collected registration fees (.pdf), and approximately 90 percent of the dough was going to road construction and maintenance.

Still, horseless carriages had a greater need for pavement than horses hauling carriages, and the long-distance capabilities of automobiles and trucks suggested a network of well-built intercity highways to rival the railroads. In Oregon, the state highway commission (created in 1913) started a “Get Oregon Out of the Mud” campaign for better roads in 1917.

Republican state legislator Loyal Graham (.pdf) sponsored the measure that made Oregon the first state in the nation to make road users pay at the pump to build and maintain those roads. Early projects included the Pacific Highway from the Washington state line to California and the Columbia River Highway along that mighty river.

The first gasoline tax was 1 cent a gallon (12.6 cents in today’s money). Gasoline in those days sold for about 25 cents a gallon, which would be a bit more than $3 these days.

Colorado and New Mexico followed Oregon within six weeks to initiate per-gallon taxes. North Dakota followed later in the year. When New York finally joined the procession 10 years later, all 48 states had imposed taxes of 1, 2 or 3 cents per gallon. The federal government levied its first gasoline tax in 1932: a penny a gallon (16 cents today).

Nine decades after its inception, the Oregon gasoline tax is 30 cents imposed by the state, with up to 8 cents more in city and county taxes, and 18.4 cents for the feds. That could add up to 56.4 cents, depending on where you buy. The U.S. average is 48.1 cents a gallon, including the federal levy.

Oregon is still a leader in new ways to tax vehicle use. It ran a 300-car pilot program from 2006 to 2007 to test the idea of equipping all new vehicles with GPS and then taxing them by miles driven. The idea has also been bandied about in Washington state, Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Minnesota, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and — until President Barack Obama nixed it in 2009 — the federal government.

The future will undoubtedly be interesting.

Source: Various

Top image: Oregon’s gasoline tax funded commercial and scenic highways, like the Columbia River Highway. This panoramic view looks east from Crown Point in the Columbia River Gorge. (Oregon State Archives )
Map: American Petroleum Institute

An earlier version of this article appeared on Wired.com Feb. 25, 2009.

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