It was named for local businessman and philanthropist Elton Bryson Stephens, Sr., who chaired the Birmingham and Jefferson County Freeway and Expressway Committee.

It runs through the Red Mountain Expressway Cut, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

The latter work was delayed by intransigence from the Jefferson County Board of Education, which denied crews access to the Shades Valley High School campus until the Alabama Department of Transportation secured replacement land for that condemned for highway use.

[2] Originally ending at 2nd Avenue North, its connection with I-20/I-59 and Carraway Boulevard was completed in the 1980s over the site of Birmingham’s grand Terminal Station demolished in 1969.

In 2020 a countdown clock was placed in the same position counting down to the 2021 World Games to be hosted in Birmingham.