Road Scholar Report
The US numbered Highway System
Thanks to the Modern Federal Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything, unless steel guardrails and signs are your thing. Just about each exit on the interstate highway system looks and sounds and smells just like the next one. This progression of "State of the Art Highways" has its place in America for fast trips, freight hauling and the like but it is not the most appealing place for the motorcycle rider. Even though the Eisenhower Interstate System is 99% complete with more that 45,000 miles of slab, there exists another older form of Interstate Highway system in the US that I personally find more pleasurable to travel. It is called the US Highway system but is actually a group of state highways that retain the same identification across state boundaries. The Eisenhower Interstate System has consumed some of the old US Interstate system, but most remain and you might want to consider riding them when possible.
In the early days of automobile travel almost all roads in the US were named, and most were named after the wagon trails that had been carved by some pioneering spirit of the past. The "National Old Trails Road" and the "Lincoln Highway" set the standard of the time. By 1925 the Trails Association had listed over 250 routes. Some of these you might have heard of since they ran through Kansas. The "New Santa Fe Trail", "Atlantic-Pacific Highway", "National Roosevelt Midland Trail", "Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway", Union Pacific Highway" and the "Victory Highway" were all ways to cross Kansas. Many early highway names changed from time to time to honor a different place or individual or group.
Most of the association's meetings were political, deciding on whom to honor, federal of confederate, man or woman, living or deceased instead on how to improve the roads. Many parts of these roads were indeed trails. Needless to say motorcycle travel would have been tough. In 1924 the Reno Evening Gazette commented: …the transcontinental highway associations, with all of their clamor, controversy, recrimination and meddlesome interference, build mighty few highways…In 9 of 10 cases these associations are a common nuisance and nothing else.
In 1910 there were half a million vehicles in the US. By 1920 there were 10 million, by 1930 there were 26 million and without a network of highways most of these vehicles were not traveling very far from home. Long distance travel and freight hauling was still overwhelmingly by railroad.
In 1923 some folks from the Mississippi Association of State Highway Departments adopted a standard for highway signing. They decided on the round, octagonal, diamond, square and rectangular shapes that are still in use today. Before that a skull & crossbones was a favorite warning. Signs such as DRIVE SLOW - DANGEROUS AS THE DEVIL and DANGER GO SLO were common.
In 1924 the annual meeting of AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) was held to discuss "How shall interstate highways be named and marked?" A subcommittee was formed with a member from each state to layout an interstate highway system. The representative from Wisconsin doodled on a bar napkin a sort of shield that the board accepted, and is still used today. Wisconsin in 1917 passed a law to number all of their highways and disregard their names, ahead of their time, wouldn't you say? The joint board convened on May 27th, 1924 in the Baltimore Hotel in Kansas City to finalize the naming / numbering convention for interstate highways and to begin the process of laying out the highway system for the entire nation.
As expected the states, the Trails Associations and the big cities all fought over some major political issues. Use names, not numbers, my state does not have enough highways; we don't want a highway to Cleveland! And so forth. More meetings were held in major cities and a consensus was quickly agreed that future highway needs could be foreseen that would be sufficient for a long period of years. After finally getting Kansas to give up their highway names, after fighting over the various signage designs, and after reducing the committee size to five plus the US Agriculture Secretary, the map was completed. They decided on 8 major east/west and 10 north/south routes. Numbers were then added to the next most important routes, 32 highways in all covering 50,100 miles.
The Joint Board's report and map had expanded the total mileage to 75,800 miles and had determined a naming convention: North/south roads are numbered odd from east to west. East/west roads are numbered even from north to south. Principal N/S routes are two digits ending in 1 or 5. Principal E/W roads are two digits ending in zero. Three digit roads are short sections, cut-offs, and crossovers. Alternate routes are 100 plus the principal route. Branches are sequential, first being 1XX, then 2XX and so on. This was complete on October 26th, 1925, less that a year and a half, which is pretty amazing considering today's glacial speed at which our politics operate. The new roads were named and the sign guys were very busy. The Board's final report stated that absolute consistency was neither possible nor desirable.
Of course some Cities, States and Trails Associations threatened and fought and went kicking and screaming the new convention was completed at 96,626 miles in November 1926 with the final adoption on US66 for the Chicago-LA road. The 1926 atlases were mostly wrong due to the last minute US66 and other minor changes. Finally admitting defeat, the Lincoln Highway Association on September 1, 1928 disbanded and the Boy Scouts of America laid 3000 concrete posts along each mile of the road, each containing a small bronze bust of Abe and the words: "This highway dedicated to Abraham Lincoln". It travelled through Kansas.
- E/W highways EVEN numbers, major roads end in ZERO, starting with US10 near the Canadian border.
- N/S highways ODD numbers, major roads end in ONE, or FIVE, starting with US1 near the Atlantic Ocean.
- Three digit roads are less important than two digit roads and have some number significant with the main road they are associated with.
- St. Louis has the most major routes passing through the city. US40, US50, US60, US61.
- US6 was the longest road at 3,365 miles, from Provincetown MA to Long Beach, CA.
(Eisenhower Interstate highways have the same N/S & E/W rules except they start their numbers from the south I-10 in Texas and the west I-1 in California.)