Category: Signage

US highway history of Denver, Colorado

6/29/2017

(Most recently updated 4/28/2018.) Today, Denver is served by seven different US routes: US 6, US 36, US 40, US 85, US 87, US 285, and US 287...

Get your very own map showing all current and historic US routes!

...but when the US highway system was first commissioned in late 1926, only three routes went through Denver. AASHO officials acknowledged the city's importance by placing it at the junction of a major north-south route (US 85, which ran from a Canadian port of entry almost to Mexico) and a transcontinental east-west route (US 40, which connected Atlantic City NJ to the San Francisco Bay Area):

c. 1927, Rand McNally

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Colorado actually does sign some US routes along interstates, but...

6/2/2017

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(updated June 2019)

Colorado is somewhat infamous for not signposting its US routes where they are concurrent with interstates. This is more than just signage policy: CDoT route logs actually divide US routes into segments, and these segments are discontinuous in cases where the US route shares pavement with an interstate. So in a sense, CDoT considers US routes to be non-existent wherever their implied route is on an interstate. This notion has resulted in at least one very strange sign, shown here:

Sanderson, May 2017

That was taken looking west on I-270 at its interchange with I-25. Straight ahead on the Boulder Turnpike is the east "beginning" of US 36... that is, assuming one disregards the 1300-mile segment of US 36 behind the camera. (Incidentally, heading the opposite direction, there is a "Begin I-270" assembly, but it is not accompanied with an "End US 36" sign.)

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Vintage highway sign photos

1/25/2017

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In 2009 my father and my uncle found these photos -- taken by my paternal grandfather during the 1950s -- and gave them to me, knowing I would appreciate them. That was about 20 years after I had begun taking road sign photos of my own, and until then I had the mistaken notion that I was the first in my family to have this strange hobby. Is it possible that this sort of thing can be passed down through bloodlines?

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How long is US highway 20, really?

1/4/2017

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US 20 is the longest highway in the country. In late 2016, officials from both endpoints (Oregon and Massachusetts) posted twin signs, one at each terminus of the highway (photos and more info on the US 20 page). While that was a really great idea, it is unfortunate that the distance listed on those signs (3365 miles) is off by a non-trivial amount.

Wayne Brunelle, Nov. 2016

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US highway history of Denver, Colorado

Colorado actually does sign some US routes along interstates, but...

Vintage highway sign photos

How long is US highway 20, really?

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