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100 years of US routes: 1926-2026
US route endpoints in
1927-1979
The photo below is looking north on 3rd Avenue at Washington Avenue:
Castleman, 2004
The tower in the foreground is the Milwaukee Road Depot; the bend in the distance is where the road goes over the Mississippi River. This downtown intersection has marked the endpoints of several US routes over the years:
c. 1927, Rand McNally
US 12 was formerly routed along Washington. Originally US 55 came in from the south (like the red truck) and ended at this intersection (it is turning west onto historic US 12). Then in 1934 the US 55 designation was eliminated, but US 65 (which until then had been routed into St. Paul instead of Minneapolis) was changed such that it followed the former route of US 55 and ended at this same intersection:
c. 1940, Rand McNally
Meanwhile, the US 8 designation had been extended south to this point as well; it came in from the north on 3rd:
c. 1956, Gousha
This photo is looking at the same intersection from the opposite direction (the skywalk from which the photo above was taken is visible):
Morrison, May 2007
That is the former end of US 8, and straight ahead was historically the beginning of both US 55 and US 65.
When the modern freeways started to appear, US 8 and US 65 had a few transitional endpoints before those routes were truncated out of the downtown area altogether. In 1969 US 65 was moved from 3rd Av to a couplet consisting of 4th Av (southbound) and 5th Av (northbound), so initially its endpoint was on 5th Av at Washington:
c. 1972, MNDoT
But that lasted only a few years, until US 12-52 was moved off Washington and onto a couplet formed by 3rd St (westbound) and 4th St (eastbound). At that time US 65 was truncated by one block, such that it ended on 5th Av at 3rd St:
c. 1975, MNDoT
That map also illustrated how the routing of US 8 was changed: it extended east one block on Washington, then south again on 4th Av, ending at 4th St. But by 1979 both US 8 and US 65 had been cut short such that neither route entered the city center.
Research and/or image credits: Monte Castleman; Jeff Morrison; Dale Sanderson
Page originally created 2004;last updated Jun. 06, 2025.
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