US route endpoints in
Port Arthur, TX

US 59 was commissioned in 1934 to run from the Canada border to Port Arthur.  The US 69 designation arrived the next year, south from Kansas City.  Then in 1939, US 59 was rerouted to go south and west from Tenaha (as it does today), so US 96 was commissioned to replace the old segment of US 59 between Tenaha and Port Arthur.  That same year, the US 287 designation was extended into Texas.  It meets US 69 at Woodville, and overlaps with it to Port Arthur.  So, although US 59 was the first of the US routes to serve Port Arthur, it is also the only US designation that was ever removed from there.

Initially, highway traffic between Beaumont and Pt. Arthur used the road that is today designated as TX hwy. 347 (Twin City Highway).  In the Griffing Park neighborhood, the route did a couple jogs and traffic ended up heading south on 9th Avenue, reaching TX hwy. 87 at 16th Street (now known as Gulfway Drive).  This route was probably used by US 59 and US 69, but that did not last long: today's road (Woodworth Boulevard/Memorial Boulevard) was built between 1935 and 1938.  So US 96 and US 287 probably never used the old route.

But that uncertainty is not relevant to the question of endpoints, because initially the US routes did not end at their junction with TX 87.  Instead, they turned southwest on Gulfway and headed towards the downtown area, overlapped with TX 87.  After about two miles, the US route designations ended at Houston Avenue, while TX 87 continued southwest out of town, as illustrated on this map:

At the time of that map, US 69-96-287 came in on Woodworth (at upper right), but the map shows how traffic was directed to turn onto 16th (today's Gulfway).  The * at far left marks where the US designations ended.  Why at Houston?  Probably because that road provides access to the downtown area, the courthouse, and city hall.  In fact, for a time there was a signed business loop off Gulfway, formed by Houston, Procter Street, and Woodworth.  These first photos show the last southbound signage on the route:

Those were posted for the benefit of traffic heading southeast on Woodworth.  That seems like a pointless place to post reassurance markers, since the US routes end right there at Gulfway.  In fact, one wonders if those signs were originally intended to be posted on the other side of Woodworth, for traffic heading the opposite direction, because there were no northbound reassurance markers for nearly two miles...

Research and/or image credits: Nathan Edgars; Karin and Martin Karner; Dale Sanderson; Stephen Taylor