History of highways and streets in Waco, TX

The city where "north" runs two directions

At the time of writing, Waco is the 24th-largest municipality in Texas (population about 150,000) and the 13th-largest metro area (305,000).  But in 1870, Waco was tied with Dallas as the fourth-largest city in Texas (population 3000, behind only Galveston, San Antonio, and Houston).  Having the only bridge over the Brazos River caused Waco's population to surge; by 1900 it had reached 21,000 (trailing only San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Galveston, and Ft. Worth).  Waco's ALICO Building was completed in 1911; at the time it was the tallest building in Texas.  In 1913 an electric inter-urban railway began carrying travelers between Waco and Dallas.  Waco's future seemed bright, but (like Galveston) the city's history has been punctuated with significant setbacks, interspersed with periods of revitalization.  This page focuses on the history of Waco's highways and transportation infrastructure.

Waco's street layout/organization

The concept of rotating a street grid -- to align with, say, local topography or a railroad, etc. -- was not a novel idea.  In the many cities that have done that, planners almost always consider "grid north" to be the direction that most closely corresponds to "cardinal north".  However, since Waco's grid was rotated exactly 45 degrees, city officials had two equally-valid options: they could have decided that "grid north" would correspond to northeast on the compass, or else they could have determined that "grid north" would be to the northwest.

Which option did they choose, and why?

Waco planners made the decision to refer to compass-northwest as "north".  I suspect this was related to the fact that, in the minds of the early settlers, the direction that corresponded to "upstream on the Brazos" was referred to as "north".  The reason I believe that is because the community located on the opposite side of the river was called "East Waco" (rather than "North Waco").*  So if northeast (across the river) was considered "east", then it stands to reason that northwest (upstream along the river) would have been thought of as "north".

*The term "North Waco" actually refers to an area northwest of downtown (between there and the Lake Waco dam).

When was that decision made?

I am assuming this was right around 1900 (which, perhaps not coincidentally, was the timeframe when Waco started to pave its streets).  The reason I say that is because, on a map dated 1891, none of the labels for the numbered roads contained a "North" or "South" prefix.  However, a map dated 1913 did include directional prefixes on the numbered streets.

What marks the dividing line between "North" streets and "South" streets?

Waco officials decided that Austin Avenue would function as the division between north and south streets*.  That was an appropriate choice, since Austin was Waco's original "main" street**, and it aligned with Waco's Suspension Bridge (which was the first bridge to span the Brazos, built in 1870 so that people traveling between Waco and East Waco would no longer have to ford the river or use the ferry).  

*However, as the city streets were extended outward in subsequent years, Austin ended near Valley Mills Drive.  So, starting at Valley Mills and heading west, it is Franklin Avenue which defines the division between north and south addresses.  But not far west of there Franklin merges with Waco Drive (US 84), which then takes over as the dividing line.  However, at that point it becomes a matter of little consequence (at least in terms of navigation), because in West Waco and in the City of Woodway very few roads include a directional prefix (it is hardly necessary because very few roadnames carry across both sides of US 84).

**An 1850 plat map of Waco Village actually had Austin Av. labeled as "Main Street".  Today Waco has a different road that is called "Main Street": it's in East Waco, about ten blocks long, and entirely residential.  I have no idea why this road was given the name "Main".

Heading the other direction (across the river into East Waco), the division between north and south streets is Elm Avenue.  That is relevant to addressing, but it is pretty much irrelevant for navigation, because almost no street names were carried across to both sides of Elm.

What forms the division between "East" and "West" streets?

Just as the Brazos River separates Waco from East Waco, it also demarcates the division between east and west addresses.*

*However, addresses west of the river do not include a "West" prefix.  And the only addresses east of the river that include the "East" prefix are on roads that extend across both sides of the river... and as it turns out there are very few of those.  Waco Drive is one of those few roads, so addresses on the east side are formatted as "### E. Waco Dr".  Similarly, there is a neighborhood (just across MLK Blvd. from McLane Stadium) where the street names "Webster Avenue", "Clay Avenue", and "Ross Street" were carried across to the east side of the river, and therefore those all carry the "East" prefix.  Like Waco Drive, Herring Avenue also has a bridge over the river, but as far as I can tell no properties on the east side have a Herring Av. address, so the point is academic.

Did planners make a good move in deciding that "Waco north" would be to the northwest (rather than to the northeast)?

In some ways it was definitely the right decision.  To illustrate one of the ways, we will use an example of driving north on 25th Street (although we could choose just about any road between 9th and 34th).  As we head towards North Waco, we leave the area where the roads were surveyed based on the Waco grid, and we enter the area that was surveyed according to McLennan County's angle of orientation.  At that point (specifically at Grim Avenue, in the case of 25th) the alignment shifts a bit closer to compass-north: instead of heading 45 degrees west of true north, we are now heading only about 30 degrees west of true north.  So the idea of heading "north" becomes a little more accurate as soon as we align to the angle of the county.  If city planners had instead decided to call that direction "west" in the Waco grid, then the description "west" would become even less true to compass-direction as soon as we exit the Waco grid (instead of being 45 degrees north of true west, we would be about 60 degrees off).  This interactive map may be helpful in terms of visualizing the different areas of Waco that were surveyed with differing orientations:

Did that decision result in any confusion?

Absolutely!  Even though Waco planners probably made the best decision about which direction would be considered "north", it nevertheless causes widespread confusion about directions in the city.  As one perplexed Waco newbie put it in 2022, "Compasses don't seem to work exactly right here", and Waco directions "...are wherever we dang well want them to be".

At the end of this article, we will come back to some other examples of confusing things in Waco, but for now let's switch gears and take a look at the history of highway designations through the city.

History of Waco highways

It is interesting to think about 5th being one of the main traffic routes through Waco, especially considering that today a long segment of 5th is largely closed to vehicles through the Baylor campus.  Imagine US 81 traffic going past Old Main and Burleson Hall, turning at the corner of Speight in front of the Carroll Library!

Anyway, southbound US 81 continued southwest on Speight.  At what is now called Richter Avenue, traffic made a short jog and then resumed southwestward via Bagby Avenue.  Historic maps label that corridor variously as "Belton Road" (1891), "Pat Neff Highway" (1920), "Austin Highway" (1930), and "Old Waco-Temple Road" (1949).  Nowadays Bagby's name changes to "Old Temple Road", and south of Hewitt it is bisected and/or subsumed by Interstate 35.

Thin dashed lines were used to indicate new roads which were proposed or under construction.  An eastward extension of Elm Av. (connecting with future Bellmead Dr.) was shown as future highway 7 and 31.  The east edge of the inter-urban railway corridor (future Hillsboro Dr.) was labeled as future highway 2.  Connecting to that was another planned highway (future Loop Drive).

Waco's major highway projects of the mid-1930s

• LaSalle Av. and Valley Mills Dr. were built/extended, and they both connected to Waco's traffic circle.

• US 77-81 traffic was moved from Old Dallas Rd. onto New Dallas Highway.  In East Waco this new highway curved to the south; along that stretch it is called Loop Drive.  This highway crossed the Brazos via a 1934 bridge, and then aligned with LaSalle.

• Also in 1934, the US 84 designation was extended through Waco.  Traffic coming from the northeast was directed along a new highway called Bellmead Drive (which subsumed part of what was formerly called "Corsicana Road", now called Harrison St).  Where Bellmead met Loop Drive, US 84 traffic was directed south and west with US 77-81 along LaSalle to the Circle.

• Upon reaching the Circle, US 77, US 81, and US 84 all diverged.  US 77 was moved from Old Robinson Rd. to its current alignment on Robinson Drive.  US 81 continued southwest from the Circle via an extension of LaSalle, which became the new Temple Highway (that segment has since been almost entirely subsumed by I-35).  US 84 traffic was directed northwest onto the new Valley Mills Drive, and then southwest along a new extension of Franklin Av. (becoming Woodway Drive).

• US 77-81 and US 84 were also given Business routes that passed through downtown Waco.  From the curve where New Dallas Hwy. becomes Loop Dr, a new road was built right alongside the inter-urban railway.  This was called Hillsboro Drive, and originally it connected with Elm Av. at the same intersection as Clifton St.  Hillsboro has since been changed such that it curves south to meet Elm about a block east of that intersection.  However, if you look at aerial photos you can still see the original alignment (and even some of the old pavement) running through the parking lot for Jasper's BBQ.  Business 77-81 was signed along Hillsboro.

• Elm Av. was extended northeast, becoming the aforementioned Bellmead Drive.  Business 84 was signed along this extension, meeting Business 77-81 at the intersection of Elm and Hillsboro.

• From that intersection, Business 77-81-84 followed the former mainline 77-81 along Elm Av, crossing the river via the Washington Av. bridge.  But while mainline US 77-81 had formerly turned south on 5th, the new Business 77-81-84 continued straight on Washington, then turned south on 18th St.

• At Franklin, Business 84 diverged by turning southwest on Franklin, rejoining mainline US 84 at the junction of Franklin and Valley Mills.

• Business 77-81 continued south on 18th on a 1935 viaduct over the railroad*.  At the Baylor Av. intersection, traffic was directed onto Circle Road, which had been extended north from Speight.  South of Speight, Business 77-81 followed the former mainline US 77 to the traffic circle, where there was a junction with both the new mainline US 77 to Robinson and the new mainline US 81 to Temple.

*18th became one-way southbound in 1962, when a viaduct was built for 17th, which then became the northbound counterpart.

Following are a few photos that were taken during this timeframe.  This first one was looking south on New Dallas Hwy. (right about where the Waco Drive overpass is today).  Mainline US 77-81 traffic was directed to the left onto Loop Drive.  Business 77-81 was directed to continue straight ahead on Hillsboro Drive:

Despite the lack of "Business" tabs on those assemblies, that was actually Business 77-81-84 in East Waco, looking northeast on Elm*.  At this junction Business 84 continued straight ahead on Elm, becoming Bellmead Dr, and rejoining mainline US 84 at the junction with Loop Drive.  Business 77-81 traffic split off to the left on Hillsboro Dr, rejoining mainline US 77-81 at New Dallas Hwy.

*Some websites claim the location of that photo is unknown, but I am certain about my statement above because the house visible on the extreme left edge of the photo still exists at 1318 Renick St.

That illustrates the view looking north on Valley Mills.  Today the road curves off to the right and becomes Lake Shore Drive.  But at the time of that postcard, Valley Mills carried TX 67, which curved left, crossed over the South Bosque River arm of old Lake Waco, and then continued through Speegleville on its way to the town of Valley Mills.  By the time of the photo below (taken from essentially the same perspective), the designation had been changed to TX 6, but the old bridge was still in use:

And what lies 1000 feet beyond the interchange?  Well, that's the city boundary where one leaves Waco and enters Woodway.  Usually there is nothing tangible in the field that corresponds to city borders, but at this particular boundary there is a narrow brick-inlaid strip running across Bosque; signs are posted there noting the end/beginning of state maintenance.

As to the question of why TXDOT maintains that segment of Bosque, I do not have an answer.  But since we're already on a tangent about Bosque Blvd, there's another interesting thing I want to mention: originally Bosque did not go as far southwest as it does today.  Instead the road angled onto what is now called Fish Pond Road, but a 1920s map indicates that the entire corridor was originally known as McGregor Road.  Today Old Fish Pond Rd. ends near the shoreline of Lake Waco.  But back when it was the original Lake Waco, slackwater did not go that far upstream, so the road continued on its original path into the valley of the South Bosque River and used a bridge known as McLennan Crossing on its way to the town of McGregor (this was prior to the existence of modern US 84).  The 1920s map below is slightly transparent, allowing a modern basemap to faintly show through.  The light blue area on the left indicates the pool of today's Lake Waco.  The location of the old McLennan Crossing bridge is shown at lower left; I used red lettering to label the roads with their current names:

From there, old highway 6 curved left (west) to cross the South Bosque arm, eventually connecting with the segments discussed above.

Now, back to other Waco highways: the photo below was taken looking north on Hillsboro Dr (Business 77-81).  The lower overpass was New Dallas Hwy, which was carrying mainline US 77-81 traffic:

(Note: that lower overpass was closed to traffic around 2020 and completely removed in about 2024; all traffic now uses the former frontage roads.)  The top overpass is Waco Drive, which was built as a bypass of the old Business 84 routing along Franklin-18th-Washington-Elm-Bellmead.  When Waco Drive opened to traffic in 1955, US 84 was re-routed to follow its current path through Waco.  Since this returned a mainline US highway to the downtown area, apparently it was decided that the US business routes were no longer necessary.  US 84's original routing along Bellmead became Spur 299 (but only as far as Loop Drive / US 77-81), and US 84's old route along Franklin became Spur 298 (but only as far as Valley Mills / TX 6).  Former Business 84 along Franklin between Valley Mills and 18th was turned back to city maintenance, as was most of former Business 77-81 / Loop 2 along Washington, Elm, and Hillsboro.  Instead, Loop 2 was extended north a couple blocks on 18th, in order to connect with the new US 84 at Waco Drive.

In 1959, Loop 232 was created, following what is now Loop 340, from US 84 (Bellmead) to FM 2491 (Elk Road; these are essentially the conditions shown on the 1961 TXDOT map.)  In 1960 it was extended down to SH 6 (Marlin Hwy).  That same year, Loop 340 was created, running from US 84 in Woodway to US 77 south of the Circle.  In 1964 this was extended north to connect with Loop 232, thus eliminating that designation.  In 1968 Loop 340 was extended west to FM 3051.

​In 1966, Loop 2 was removed from Circle Road, and instead extended down 18th to LaSalle (US 77-81).  This change was a result of I-35 being built through Waco: since there was no grade separation at Circle Road, Loop 2 had to be re-routed onto a road that did cross the interstate.

That was looking roughly east; the campus just beyond the interchange is TXDOT's Waco District headquarters.  Clearly Elm and Bellmead were closed during construction, and Elm never fully regained its functionality as an arterial.  For the next 50 years it was still technically possible to follow the original US 84 by driving northeast on Elm and connecting to Bellmead, but not without passing through a bewildering tangle of overpasses, underpasses, exit ramps, and frontage roads.  And now (ever since the I-35 rebuild) it is no longer possible to follow even that complicated approximation of US 84's original routing.

Circle Road was also impacted. A former arterial carrying north-south highway traffic, it was bisected by I-35, leaving behind two disconnected, seemingly-inexplicable diagonal side streets running through an otherwise gridded road pattern.  And south of the Circle itself, the former path of US 81 was completely subsumed by the massive interstate corridor.  Speight Av (the pre-1930s route of US 81) was also bisected by I-35.  Taken as a whole, I-35 created a formidable linear barrier through Waco that somewhat isolated the southeast part of town.

In 1970, US 77-81 traffic was redirected to use I-35.  The old route along New Dallas Hwy / Loop Dr / LaSalle) became Loop 491, and was signed as Business 77-81.  That was a strange decision, since that route was actually built to bypass the business district.  Loop 2 along 18th was truncated to I-35, because the remainder (from I-35 down to LaSalle) became the route for mainline US 77 traffic to exit the freeway and get to the Circle.

In 1984, TX 6 was rerouted to follow Loop 340, and its former path connecting with New Dallas Hwy was designated as Loop 484.

In 1990 the Loop 491 designation was eliminated; it is now just Business 77.

In 1993 the US 81 designation was eliminated south of Ft. Worth, so the original US route through Waco no longer serves the city.

In 2000, a massive statewide I-35 expansion project began.  In 2010 this project began to impact the Waco area in earnest, as construction got underway to expand the entire freeway between Austin and Hillsboro to at least three lanes in each direction by 2017.

That was just one of many changes that happened as a part of the I-35 rebuild.  And that brings us back around to the introductory topic of this page: disorienting directions in Waco.  When I-35 was built through the city, it became a factor that compounded the confusion.  I-35 is sometimes referred to as "the Main Street of Texas" because it connects several of the major cities in the state, including San Antonio, Austin, and DFW.  It does not run due north-south, but rather angles slightly northeast-to-southwest (mirroring the orientation of the Balcones Escarpment).  Thus, as I noted earlier, "north" towards Dallas is not the same direction as "Waco north" up the Brazos.  So let's think about how the angle of I-35 interacts with the angle of Waco's street grid.  When someone is traveling northeast on, say Waco Drive or Franklin, they are said to be moving "east" through Waco's grid.  However, that direction-of-travel is approximately parallel to northbound I-35.  In other words, "Waco east" is roughly the same direction as "I-35 north".  And the corollary is also true: to head southwest on Waco Drive or Franklin is to move "west" through Waco's grid; yet that direction is roughly parallel to southbound I-35, which heads south towards Austin.

Another amusing example of confusion involves Valley Mills Drive.  Valley Mills is practically the only major road in Waco that is aligned along anything remotely close to the cardinal points.*  If you were to show someone a map of Waco, and you pointed to Valley Mills and asked which direction that road runs, the answer would be pretty obvious: the road is aligned reasonably close to east-west.  However, in the context of Waco's grid, if you are heading away from the Circle on Valley Mills, you are actually running slightly closer to "Waco north" than you are to "Waco west".  Therefore, despite the fact that Valley Mills runs east-west, the segment between Franklin and the traffic circle is called "South Valley Mills", and the segment on the far side of Franklin is labeled with the prefix "North"!

*New Dallas Hwy through Bellmead and Lacy Lakeview runs pretty close to true north-south, but ironically it is almost exactly perpendicular to North and South Valley Mills!

Why was "New Road" named as such?  Why wasn't it a numbered street?

It actually was a numbered street initially; a 1955 map had it labeled as "41st Street" north of Bosque Blvd.  However, the segment south of Bosque was labeled as "New Road", and by 1960 that name had been extended northward up to Cobbs Dr (replacing 41st).  This was likely due to the discontinuity in the alignment of Waco's numbered streets: north of Bosque, New Road is indeed the functional equivalent of 41st St (and in fact the road is still known as 41st to the north of Cobbs).  But a few blocks south of Bosque (at Erath Av) New Road suddenly becomes the functional equivalent of 46th St.  So rather than numbering it as 41st or 46th (either of which would have caused confusion) the entire road was given a name instead... albeit a rather uninspired and short-sighted name, in my opinion.  They did a much better job when they named "Lake Air Dr" (roughly equivalent to 48th) and "Wooded Acres Dr" (roughly 54th).

Speaking of numbered streets

It should be noted that Waco does have numbered streets to the west of New Road, increasing all the way up to 66th St. in one particular neighborhood off Bosque.  Those are a part of Waco's "primary" set of numbered streets.  But besides those, there are auxiliary sets of numbered roads in Waco and its suburbs: 

• East Waco has an area of numbered streets which are not related to Waco's main numbers.  E. 4th St. through E. 11th St. (near McLean Stadium) are almost perpendicular to Waco's main numbered streets.  

• The TSTC area has 1st St. through 15th St. (no directional prefix, and completely unrelated to Waco's main numbered streets).  These roads were originally on the James Connally Air Force Base.

• Google Maps shows a 1st St. and a 3rd St. near the Waco airport, but apparently those are not signposted in the field (and buildings on those roads are addressed to Karl May Dr).  

• Hewitt's original streets (which still exist) were numbered 1st St. through 3rd St.  

• And then there's E. 20th St. through E. 27th St. in Bellmead; it is unclear what was considered to be the origin point for that set of numbers (it would be somewhere in East Waco, certainly outside of Bellmead city limits).

In South Waco, there's some weirdness heading south on 16th St. from Primrose Dr: one eventually comes to an intersection with Garden Dr. but if one continues straight from there, they are no longer on 16th, but rather on "12th St. Rd."  (the interchange at TX 6/Loop 340 is signed as "12th St").  This is because originally 16th did not exist in South Waco.  Rather, 12th made a jog around a couple cemeteries and then resumed its southward bearing, so the road was originally thought of as an extension of 12th.

Why doesn't Waco have a 1st St?

In most places 1st was renamed to Riverside Drive, and later to University Parks Drive.  However, near the Baylor campus, U-Parks swings out a bit further east, and in that area there actually is a four-block long segment of 1st St. that is separate from U-Parks.

Sources

• Historic map scans in Baylor's digital collection: 1930, 1930

• Historic TXDOT maps (search here)

• TXDOT highway designation files and minute orders (search here)

• Waco History Project

• Knowledgeable correspondents, including Phil Brown and John Williams

While attending Baylor from 1986-1990, the author made frequent roadtrips between Waco and his hometown of Denver, and this was a catalyst that awakened his interest in highways and maps.  He went on to a career in cartography, and also put a lot of time into this website, which is focused primarily on the US highway system.  In 2012, when his oldest son was considering where to attend college, he expressed interest in Baylor, so they took a roadtrip down to Texas: it was the author's first time back to Waco in over 20 years.  His son eventually decided to attend Baylor, which rekindled the author's interest in Waco area highway history, and that in turn is what inspired this webpage. Later his son actually moved to Waco, so now the author has frequent opportunities to explore and to take photos there.  As a result, this webpage has been significantly expanded from the original version.