US route wannabes: Minnesota's rogue routes of 1934

Some 1934 maps showed new US routes in Minnesota and/or extensions of US routes.  This was due to a series of errors and misunderstandings involving AASHO, MNDoT, and commercial map publishers.  By 1935 all of these misprints had been corrected.  I will explain in more detail below, but first I will jump ahead to the final analysis:

• There was never a US 59 running through Rochester and southeastern Minnesota.  (The only US 59 that was ever signposted is the one that runs along the western edge of the state.)
• US 65 was never signposted north of the Twin Cities.
• US 212 was never signposted east of St. Paul (i.e. never to Stillwater).
• US 218 was never signposted northwest of St. Paul (and probably never even north of Owatonna).

Background
In the original US route system (implemented in late 1926), US 10 had a split route in Minnesota between St. Cloud and Moorhead.  US 10-N followed what is now vanilla US 10 (through Little Falls, Motley, Wadena, and Detroit Lakes).  US 10-S essentially followed what is now the I-94 corridor (through Sauk Centre, Alexandria, and Fergus Falls).  Split routes quickly proved to be confusing to the driving public, and soon AASHO was encouraging the state DOTs to eliminate them (either by giving one of the branches an "Alternate" banner or else assigning one of the branches a completely different number).  MNDoT agreed and attempted to come up with their own solutions.

October 1933, first proposal
At the time, the north terminus of US 55 was in Minneapolis.  MNDoT contacted AASHO to suggest that the US 55 designation be extended northwest from there, replacing US 10-N (and US 10-S would then become simply US 10).  Incidentally, the same letter proposed some additional changes:

• Extend US 8 west along what would later become the easternmost segment of US 212, subsuming the existing US 212 from Montevideo to its western terminus in South Dakota.
• Move the US 61 designation to serve Minneapolis - St. Cloud - Little Falls - Brainerd - Bemidji (thus replacing US 371 in its entirety).
• Instead of ending in Minneapolis, extend US 65 along the former US 61 (through Duluth and along the North Shore).
• Extend the US 53 designation north from Duluth to the city of Virginia, and then replace US 169 from there to International Falls (this particular change was eventually approved).
• Notably absent from this proposal (and all others that followed) was the idea to change state highway 59 (which ran north and south both directions out of Rochester MN) to US highway 59.  That suggestion appears to have been sent to AASHO by local interests, but I have not seen any official proposals (or indication of support) from MNDoT.

In their response to MNDoT's ideas, AASHO expressed concern about US 61 being west of US 65, as well as US 8 running south of US 12 (they suggested swapping the US 8 and US 12 corridors west of Minneapolis).  ​

---

October 1933, second proposal
MNDoT addressed some of AASHO's concerns as follows:

• Truncate US 8 short of Minneapolis, instead extending it due west through Anoka, then to St. Cloud, then replacing US 10-N to Moorhead.
• US 210 had been numbered as such because of its connection with US 10 at Motley.  But since US 10 would become US 8 under this proposal, MNDoT suggested changing US 210 to US 208.
• Remove the US 212 designation from the Montevideo - Willmar corridor, instead extending it west via Granite Falls - Olivia - Glencoe - Chaska (this particular change was eventually ​approved).

In its response, AASHO was favorable to the US 8 proposal, and expressed no concerns about MNDoT's other ideas, although everything would be contingent upon approval at an upcoming committee meeting.

November 1933 proposal
MNDoT expressed their desire to extend US 212 further east from Chaska, through the Twin Cities and to the Wisconsin border at Stillwater.  AASHO's response again indicated favorability, but again contingent upon approval.

January 1934 proposal
MNDoT contacted AASHO again, noting that Minneapolis interests were opposed to removing the US 8 designation from their city, so instead this time it was the US 218 designation that MNDoT proposed as a replacement for US 10-N (it is unclear why they suggested that, instead of going back to the earlier US 55 proposal).  They also included some other ideas in this letter:

• Extend US 65 north to a junction with US 71 at Littlefork.
• Instead of truncating US 169 at its junction with US 53 in Virginia, extend it northeast to Tower.
• Create the US 261 designation as a connection between Minneapolis and Hastings.
• Even though this latest proposal had US 218 (instead of US 8) running through Motley, MNDoT still wanted US 210 to be changed to US 208 (rather than, say, US 318).

AASHO's response simply noted that the suggestions would be brought up at their June meeting.  Ultimately none of those five proposals were accepted.  I have not seen a letter expressly denying them, but since only one of them (the extension of US 65) was illustrated on Minnesota's 1934 map, I interpret that to mean that AASHO must have communicated that those other four specific changes would not be accepted during their upcoming meeting.  AASHO also must have pulled back the curtain on some of their broader-scale plans, most notably the extension of US 52.  At the time the northwest terminus of US 52 was in Indiana, but AASHO was about to extend the route in both directions in order to absorb and replace some shorter routes.  Specifically in Minnesota, US 52 would replace US 55 southeast of the Twin Cities, and US 10-S northwest of there.  That change was accurately portrayed on MNDoT's 1934 map.  However, AASHO must not have completely closed the door on some of MNDoT's other proposals (such as the US 65 extension), because in May they published a map which prematurely and erroneously included some of their other suggested changes.  

Minnesota Highway Department's infamous May 1934 map
Unfortunately MNDoT went rogue by opting to include some of their proposed route changes on their 1934 map.  This was printed in May prior to AASHO's June meeting, during which these suggested routes would be rejected.  One of these errors was a "US 59" running north and south out of Rochester to the borders of Wisconsin and Iowa:

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 59" south of Rochester

Incidentally, some of these maps show US 59 crossing the border into Iowa, but I have never seen an Iowa map (government or commercial) corroborating a "US 59" in the northeast part of that state.

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 59" north of Rochester

---

Another erroneous route was US 65 north of the Twin Cities.  For some reason the map showed US 65 ending at jct. US 210 in McGregor.  As originally proposed, US 65 was to extend all the way up to US 71 at Littlefork, but on this map the route north of McGregor was shown as state highway 65:

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 65" south of US 210

The Twin Cities inset showed US 65's planned route northward from its actual terminus in downtown Minneapolis:

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 65" north of Minneapolis

That same inset map also showed the US 212 designation extending through St. Paul to Stillwater:

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 212" east of Minneapolis

And finally, the map also showed US 218 extending north of Owatonna, through the Twin Cities, and up to jct. US 210 in Brainerd.  It is unclear why the US 218 designation was not shown to replace the remainder of the US 371 designation between Brainerd and Bemidji:

MNDoT, c. 1934, "US 218" north to Brainerd

Collateral damage
These errors were not confined only to MNDoT's map.  They were also shown on some commercial maps (which is understandable since publishers relied heavily on state maps for source material).  For example, here is a 1934 Rand McNally that showed US 65 north of Minneapolis; US 212 to Stillwater; and US 218 north of Owatonna:

Rand McNally, c. 1934

On that map US 218 was shown ending in the Twin Cities (instead of continuing up to Brainerd), and US 65 was shown to end at US 210 in McGregor.  That same map also showed "US 59" in the southeastern part of the state.  And there was at least one more 1934 commercial map (Gallup) that also showed those same errors, including US 212 to Stillwater, and US 59 along the Rochester corridor:

Gallup, c. 1934, "US 59" through Rochester

Gallup, c. 1934, "US 218" north to Brainerd

There were some slight differences.  For example, in that last image, US 218 was shown following an alignment independent of US 10 / US 371 between Brainerd and Becker.  US 169 was shown northeast of Virgina, ending at Tower.  And in this next image, US 65 was shown continuing north of US 210 at McGregor and going all the way up to US 71 at Littlefork (even though the road was shown as incomplete to the south of Littlefork).  But the bottom line is, there were plenty of 1934 maps that erroneously showed US route extensions in Minnesota which were never signposted and never approved by AASHO.

Gallup, c. 1934, "US 65" north to Littlefork

Communication and decisions through the rest of 1934 and into 1935
At the time of this writing (Jan. 2021) some of the relevant documents were missing from the database I used for research.  Nevertheless, I believe I have been able to piece together most of what happened with regard to the routes in question. 

• Officials with AASHO and MNDoT had a meeting on May 21, which must have been shortly after MNDoT had published their map.  According to a June 12 letter from MNDoT, it was during that May meeting AASHO when revealed that, instead of a new US 59 designation in southeast Minnesota, that route would become part of US 63, which was to be extended northward from Iowa.  They also at least hinted that US 218 would not be extended north of the Twin Cities.
• AASHO held their annual meeting on June 22.  Numerous changes to US routes were made across the country, but unfortunately I have not yet seen the meeting minutes.  On August 20 AASHO sent a letter to MNDoT, requesting Minnesota's mileages along the new and/or changed US routes.  MNDoT responded on September 7, and their letter reveals a few of the decisions AASHO had made in June.  Among them: US 63 was extended north through Rochester.  Rather than designating that route as US 59, that number was instead used on a new route that ran through western Minnesota.  US 65's north terminus was in Minneapolis (not north of there).  The north terminus of US 218 apparently was to remain in Owatonna.
• After AASHO's June 1934 meeting (and at least as late as September), it seems that US 212 was expected to extend east not just to Stillwater, but also all the way across Wisconsin (using today's state highway 64), ending at its junction with US 41 in Marinette.  I have not seen any documentation retracting that decision, but I do know that by the time MNDoT's 1935 map was printed, US 212 did not even make it further east than the Twin Cities, much less anywhere in Wisconsin.
• Also on MNDoT's 1935 map, US 65 was shown to end in Minneapolis (with state trunk highway 65 extending north from there); US 218 ended in Owatonna (with TH 218 extending north of there).  US 63 was shown in southeastern Minnesota, and the new US 59 was shown in the western part of the state.  

In other words, the 1935 map corrected the mistakes shown on the 1934 map, on which MNDoT had made some erroneous assumptions about the US route decisions that AASHO would make later in 1934.  So, even though some maps suggest otherwise, US 59 only existed in western Minnesota, never in the southeastern part of the state.  US 65 never went further north than Minneapolis; US 212 never went east of the Twin Cities; and US 218 never went north of Owatonna.

Sources:
AASHO Route Numbering Archive
MNDoT historic state highway maps
Rand McNally 1934 atlas
​Gallup 1934 atlas (physical copy)