Pioneer of Modern Highway Construction

After leaving BPR, Rex Whitton returned to Kansas City, MO, where he accepted a position as consultant to the engineering firm of Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff . He retired in 1975. The following year he told FHWA News, the agency newsletter, that he and his wife enjoyed driving to auction sales for antiques. However, they avoided the freeways he had helped to build. He never liked driving on them, he said, and now enjoyed "driving on the little back roads, keeping a map of each one we travel."

Rex Whitton passed away at age 82 on July 7, 1981, after a long illness. The passing of the man who had rescued the Interstate System was little noticed around the country. However, an obituary in AASHTO Quarterly noted, "His national reputation as a pioneer of modern highway construction not only brings honor to his memory, but also to a profession he dearly loved."