End of historic US highway 466 |
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Summa
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At its maximum extent, US 466 was approx. 526 miles in total length.
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In 1933, the US 64 designation had just been extended west to Santa Fe. Almost immediately AASHO began receiving requests to extend the route all the way to the West Coast from highway officials in New Mexico, Arizona, California (and even North Carolina, where the east terminus of the route is located). AASHO raised the objection that US 64 would have to be dual-signed with US 66 for hundreds of miles, but nevertheless they put the proposal to a vote at their August meeting:
The majority of the committee voted to not extend US 64, but instead to create a new US route designation only along the segment that was separate from US 66 (note in the following description, the control point "Blythe" was erroneous; it should have read "Barstow"):
Thus US route 466 was born, although AASHO had not checked whether their solution was acceptable to the states involved. California for one was not exactly elated about the idea...
...but it was not long before they relented and accepted AASHO's proposal. Thus US 466 was born: officially commissioned in 1933, effective the first day of 1934. But instead of an east terminus in Barstow, US 466 was defined to begin at a different junction with US 66: for the next 35 years or so, its east end was in Kingman.
This was the first "US 466" to actually be authorized and signposted (some maps from the early planning years of the US highway system show a different route 466 in New Mexico, but that was a proposed number only, never actually signed).
This was the first "US 466" to actually be authorized and signposted (some maps from the early planning years of the US highway system show a different route 466 in New Mexico, but that was a proposed number only, never actually signed).
c. 1936, CalTrans
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As shown on that map, the west end of US 466 was in Morro Bay. This photo was taken from underneath the CA hwy. 1 overpass, looking east on Atascadero Road, which is now CA hwy. 41. Before that freeway was built, CA 1 was routed along Main Street (the road running across the photo), and US 466 began on the other side of the stop sign:
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Elbert, Mar. 2005
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Here, we are looking the opposite direction (west on Atascadero at Main); the pickup was at the historic west end of US 466:
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Elbert, Mar. 2005
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At the time, US 466 was a little over 500 miles in length. From the time of its inception, it was overlapped with US 91 between Las Vegas and Barstow CA (a distance of about 150 miles). Then in 1935 the US 93 designation was extended southward through Vegas to Kingman, so that segment of US 466 was also dual-signed (another 100 miles). In 1964, when California eliminated the US 466 designation from most of the state, the entire remaining portion of the route (Kingman to Baker) was overlapped with other US routes. Arizona may have stopped signposting their portion of the superfluous route in 1969, but all three states made it official with AASHO in 1971; here is that agenda item from their December meeting minutes:
Research and/or photo credits: Chris Elbert; Dale Sanderson; Michael Summa
Page originally created 2000;
last updated Dec. 7, 2023.
last updated Dec. 7, 2023.
