Current and historic US highway endpoints in Jacksonville, FL
US 90 is shown coming in on "Enterprise St" (which is now known as Beaver Street), meeting US 1 at Myrtle Avenue. US 90 probably did not end there, but rather was signed along Adams Street, ending at Main Street, near the City Hall and Courthouse. US 17 came in on Main Street, and probably ended at the same intersection. The perspective in this image is south on Main:
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US 90 probably began to the right on Adams, while US 17 probably ended there. That was likely US 17's only endpoint in Jax, because already by 1932 it had been extended south out of town. However, maps from the mid-1930s indicate that highway traffic had been shifted off Adams, and onto Bay Street instead. So at that time, it seems likely that US 90 would have ended on Bay at Main. This image was taken two blocks ahead, still looking south on Main:
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US 90 probably began to the right on Beaver. That was the last map to show US 90 ending in Jax; in 1950 the designation was extended about 15 miles west, to its current terminus in Jacksonville Beach. However, it was approximately the same time that the US 23 designation was extended to a new endpoint in Jax, which was two blocks north of US 90's former endpoint:
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Originally both directions of US 23 used State Street, and the designation ended at its junction with US 17 on Main. Today State serves as the westbound counterpart to Union Street, and Main is the southbound counterpart to Ocean Street. According to a late-2001 article in Jacksonville's newspaper, the terminus of the US 23 designation is still officially at US 1-17. Apparently there was once an "End" sign, but it was knocked down and never replaced. A state transportation engineer was quoted as saying: after they were done with a project to resurface State and Union streets, a new "End" sign (and also a "Begin" sign) will be posted. However, this had not happened by the time I was there in 2003, and still not as of 2015. At the time of my visit, the sign shown in the photo below was the only one that even mentioned US 23 downtown:
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Historically, southbound US 17 was to the south on Main, but now it is straight ahead. The first confirming assembly is visible in the distance, shown close-up here...
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...although that is somewhat recent: back in 2003, one had to drive over a mile before finding a confirming marker:
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Research and/or photo credits: Robert Droz; Karin and Martin Karner; J.P. Nasiatka; Alex Nitzman; Dale Sanderson
Page originally created 2003;
last updated Oct. 25, 2022.
last updated Oct. 25, 2022.