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POLKTON, N.C. – The State Highway Patrol honored Patrolman George Thompson, who was on the job one day in 1929 when he was killed after a car struck his motorcycle in Wadesboro, N.C.

The accident marked the first highway patrolman to die in the line of duty.

80 years to the day after his death, the highway patrol saluted Thompson by naming a bridge along Highway 74 in Polkton in his honor.

The gesture was especially touching for Thompson’s relatives.

“I don’t think I would ever expect anything like this to happen, but if there was a deserving gentleman, he was. And I am just so filled with pride,” Mary Thompson-Reavis, Thompson’s niece, said.

The State Highway Patrol traditionally dedicates bridges after troopers who have died in the line of duty.