Paul L. Troast

Who was Paul L. Troast?

Paul Lyman Troast was a wealthy building contractor from Passaic, New Jersey, chairman of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority during its construction, and one-time failed gubernatorial candidate.

According to a letter to the editor written by his daughter, Kathleen Troast Pitney: "Governor Driscoll appointed three men to the Turnpike Authority in the late 1940s -- Maxwell Lester, George Smith and Paul Troast, my father, as chairman. They had no enabling legislation and no funding. They were able to open more than two-thirds of the road in 11 months, completing the whole in less than two years. . . . When the commissioners broached the subject of landscaping the road. . . . the governor told them he wanted a road to take the interstate traffic . . . off New Jersey's existing roads. Since 85 percent of the traffic at that time was estimated to be from out of state, why spend additional funds on landscaping?"

In 1953 Troast won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey. Time wrote "county bosses ... pushed him through a bitter, party-splitting primary last April.