End of US highway 97 |
Mileage: in 1989 AASHTO listed a figure of 701 miles for US 97... however, that included the mileage of US 97's associated alternate route. According to the state subtotals on AASHTO's 1989 spreadsheet, mainline US 97's actual end-to-end total at the time was 663 miles. That closely matches our own 2020 measurement, which yielded 664.7 miles.
Claim to fame: US 97 was the only US route designation that the state of Alaska ever applied for (read more about that proposal). But it was never signed in Alaska, so the north terminus of US 97 has always been at the Canada border a few miles north of Oroville. This 1950s shot was taken looking south at the historic customs houses:
Claim to fame: US 97 was the only US route designation that the state of Alaska ever applied for (read more about that proposal). But it was never signed in Alaska, so the north terminus of US 97 has always been at the Canada border a few miles north of Oroville. This 1950s shot was taken looking south at the historic customs houses:
Heading the opposite direction, here is the north beginning of US 97 (viewed from the Canada border), the first US 97 sign (immediately after clearing customs), and a "Welcome to Washington" sign:
That last image shows the first southbound US 97 trailblazer, and here are some additional shots of that:
The original US 97 ran entirely along the west bank of the Okanogan and Columbia rivers, all the way from Oroville to Wenatchee. The highway has been upgraded over the years, and in three different stretches US 97 has been rerouted onto newer segments along the east banks of each valley. The old segments are still driveable, and one of them -- the stretch between Chelan and Wenatchee -- is now signed as Alternate US 97.
Historic "Klamath Falls Junction" is no longer visible (except maybe during periods of extreme drought), because it is submerged beneath the waters of a reservoir (Emigrant Lake). By the time of this map, US 97 had already been changed to follow its modern route south out of Klamath, and US 99 had been rerouted above the level of the future reservoir, but the old highway routings (and US 97's old endpoint) were still shown:
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Originally US 99 followed what is now OR 66 south and east out of Ashland. At the entrance to Emigrant Lake Park, OR 66 traffic now uses a newer road that skirts the reservoir, but old 99 continued down into the valley, following what is now the main entrance road (Emigrant Lake Road). Here is a park brochure, marked up with the approximate routes of the old highways:
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The other signs in that photo referenced destinations on US 99. One cannot use much of that old segment of US 99 today, because it soon disappears underneath the "highway saddle dike" -- one of several earthen impoundments that hold back the reservoir. But on the other side of the dike, one can still find segments of the old roads -- particularly when the water level is low, as it was at the time of these photos. This first one was looking along what was once southbound US 99:
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The old highway was still quite visible there, although it gets more obscured by silt deposits as the elevation drops. Ahead, that aligns with what is now OR 273 (also called "Old Siskiyou Highway", which in turn leads to the town of Siskiyou at I-5's exit 6).
The Klamath Falls Junction endpoint lasted only a few years; in 1934 the south end of US 97 was shifted to its modern route: south from Klamath, ending at US 99 in Weed: |
These photos were looking the opposite direction (southbound on old US 99); to the left was the old south beginning of US 97:
Note the exit number: that is a long way from San Diego. There are only two interstates that are long enough through a single state to have exit numbers that high: this one (I-5 in CA) goes up to exit 796, and I-10 in Texas goes up to exit 880.
Research and/or photo credits: Paul Dienhart; Chris Elbert; Tom Fearer; Alex Nitzman; Mark Roberts; Dale Sanderson; Michael Summa
Page originally created 2001;
last updated Sep. 12, 2022.
last updated Sep. 12, 2022.