construction, and maintenance of a memorial highway to connect Mount Vernon, in the State of Virginia, with the Arlington Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River at Washington." After the law's passage, BPR issued yet another report advocating the river's edge route. On January 25, 1929, the bicentennial commission decided the highway should follow the river route. Expansion into the current parkway The parkway's original name was the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. But Congress renamed it the George Washington Memorial Parkway in 1930, and authorized its extension to the "Great Falls of the Potomac River". The idea for a large George Washington Memorial Parkway came from Rep. Cramton, who introduced legislation in January 1929, to construct a larger system of roads and parks. In the US Senate, the bill was amended by Sen. Carter Glass to include a bridge across the Potomac at the Great Falls. Congress enacted the "Act of May 29, 1930" (46 Stat. 482)—more commonly known as the Capper-Cramton Act—to establish the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Act appropriated $13.5 million to acquire land and build a Parkway on the Virginia southern shoreline from Mount Vernon to the Great Falls" (excluding the city of Alexandria), and to also build a parkway on the Maryland northern shoreline from Fort Washington, Maryland, to the Great Falls of the Potomac (excluding the District of Columbia). A bridge across the Potomac at or near the Great Falls was also included in the final bill. Included in the parkway were to be lands to extend the park and playground lands of the National Capital Parks system, and for the acquisition and preservation of the Patowmack Canal and a portion (below Point of Rocks) of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The George Washington Memorial Parkway was built in stages between 1929 and 1970. The first segment, the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, stretches from Arlington Memorial Bridge to Mount Vernon and was completed in 1932. That segment of highway was informally opened on January 16, 1932. The dedication ceremony was headed by President Herbert Hoover who became the first person to drive it, leading a small party of 12 cars across the Arlington Memorial Bridge and down the George Washington Parkway to Mount Vernon as a kick-off for Washington's 200th birthday celebration. Due to a lack of lights, ongoing construction and poor connections on the Virginia side, the bridge and highway were only open during