This website showcases the history of license plate issuance for all the State Police and Highway Patrol agencies in the United States of America from the earliest days of motoring to the current century.
Created by hobbyists Norm Ratcliffe and Allan Cooper in March of 2006, this website has grown from an informal idea to the world's largest single repository of police motor vehicle registration plate information anywhere.
The formation of many of America's state law enforcement agencies took place at the same time as the formation of America's car culture. Police patrol went from horseback to horseless carriage in a very short time at the beginning of the 20th Century where many agencies were getting started out of the gate with tackling new motor laws.
State police and highway patrol agencies began to obtain motorcycles and patrol cars and found ways to make them stand apart from the burgeoning number of civilian motor vehicles on the road. To ensure that their vehicles appeared to evoke the same air of authority as their officers, many agencies equipped them with the "uniform" of livery and the "badge" of the license plate.
This website delves as far back as records go and examples exist of these "badges" worn on the bumpers and fenders which carried patrolmen and state troopers in their duties from coast to coast and from decade to decade.
While many of the actual badges and patches of those earliest enforcers of state law have been preserved and showcased, the license plates of their "mechanical partners" were rarely retained or preserved.
This makes this segment of law enforcement collectibles so deeply challenging and interesting. It is a segment of law enforcement collectibles that has been in "low light" for a long time, but has seen a surge of interest lately as many of these agencies celebrate their milestone anniversaries with special and distinctive license plates for their marked patrol vehicles.
We welcome you to browse the information of the agencies that interest you the most and explore those you may not have considered.
The page of each agency is formatted from oldest to newest and where possible, features a period photo of the patrol vehicle of the time.
This website has only been successful as a result of YOU! You the visitor who becomes a contributor of photos and information for which we are missing. We always make sure to provide proper credit to those who have contributed, and if any credit is missing, please notify either one of us to give our contributors their due.
Come on in and Enjoy !
2023 marked a historical moment for the Delaware State Police. They used the occasion to get out of their long-standing rut of only using regular passenger car license plates on their attractive fleet and made a bold move to design and deploy a far more fitting reflection of the dignity of the agency. Having initially rolled-out a 100th Anniversary license plate with 1923 as the registration number (front of vehcile use only) they went further to have an actual registration plate made of a more permanent nature.
Similar in design but with an emblem paying homage to DSP's fallen and a registration number beginning with ST followed by the vehicle number.
Yours truly played a distant background role in all of this which is described on the DSP page.
This now only leaves, Arizona California, Connecticut, and Oregon who needs to shake-off the boring and get their own agency license plates as well !
Back in the Spring of 2023, the widow of the late and very great Lt. Jim Walsh of the New Jersey State Police had the state police/highway patrol license plate collection of her late husband auctioned off on the State Trooper Plates Facebook group page.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol license plate that was part of that collection was a 1961-1973 issue number THP-805.
The plate was won by Jason Duffield of Michigan who discovered in short order that it was the license plate seen on the photo of this THP patrol car that was submitted to the website some years ago by Bradford Pusser.
The discovery continued that the photo was from the August 12 1967 crime scene where McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser (of "Walking Tall" fame) and his wife Pauline were shot at on a country road while responding to a disturbance. Sheriff Pusser was wounded, but tragically, Pauline was killed.
This license plate that was already of great value was bolstered even higher by being a piece of Tennessee law enforcement history!
When the Iowa State Highway Safety Patrol was formed in 1935, the agency used a curious "sign plate" on the patrol cars of their modest fleet.
The device was an 8 1/2 inch by 14 inch piece of thin black metal with the words IOWA over PATROL in white. The letters of those two words were festooned with 99 (the number of counties in Iowa) red "Cat's Eyes" glass beads.
Up until a few month's ago, the use of such a plate on ISHSP cars was in question, however James Wheeler of the Corn State himself found a SUPERB photo taken in the Winter of 1936 of an ISHSP patol car and two of its Patrolmen, that not only shows the "Cat's Eyes" sign plate in use but also a 1936 Iowa OFFICIAL license plate # 23 !
A photo for the theme of this website clearly does not get any better than this.
Raquel was able to fix the tone and edit-out some of the "noise" to make the picture as perfect as possible. A BIG THANKS to James for sharing such a treasure with us!
We are still a not-for-profit website dedicated to providing a free and comprehensive reference tool for the hobbyist and historian. We bring to you this website at our cost, solely for the showcasing of historical and hobby interest for this interesting subject and to foster interest in others for the same enjoyment. However if you appreciate the resource and want to help us offset our costs to keep bringing this website free to all, we have a DONATE function available on all pages where your monetary contribution will be gratefully accepted. We also rely on your feedback as well as your contributions of photos and information to make this site even more successful than it already has become. If you see something on the road or anywhere else in your travels that we don't have showcased: Please capture the image and send it to us!
