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Most people don't give much thought to highways. And why should they? People just drive on them, and they get to where they're going... what's the big deal? Well, that's certainly true on one level... but on a deeper level, I enjoy thinking about where I could end up if I were to stay on a particular highway -- all the way to its end.
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For example: in my hometown, US 40 traffic is routed along Colfax Avenue. But for me it's interesting to consider that, if I got on Colfax, headed east, and continued following the signs for US 40... I'd end up on the Atlantic coast. Most people around here probably think of Colfax as nothing more than a local arterial, or perhaps one of our historic main streets. It's enriching for me to think of it as a small segment of what was once (and still nearly is) a coast-to-coast highway. It makes me feel a kind of kinship with all the other towns, people, and landscapes along the way. These places don't necessarily have that much in common, except that they happen to lie along a chain of road segments that were officially unified in late 1926, and from then on these roads have collectively shared a single identity: "U.S. Highway 40".
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I also like to think about how people got where they were going before we had double-barreled freeways, and bypasses that whisk us around city centers. Back to Colfax Avenue, as an example: there was a time, before I-80 existed, that someone driving from Denver to San Francisco would've likely used US 40. (Today the US 40 designation ends near Park City UT, but historically the highway continued through to Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento, and ended in San Francisco.) The journey probably would've taken three times as long as a trip along today's freeways, but a watchful driver would've absorbed a good sense of the landscape and local culture as they made their journey. Much better, at least, than what one would see today along I-80: fast food franchises, national hotel chains, and outlet malls.
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c. 1927, from the legend of a Rand McNally atlas
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Today most of the old roads which carried our nation's original "inter-state" highway traffic are still there -- even though, in many cases, through traffic has been redirected to follow a newer bypass or a freeway. With some research and a little intuition, one can usually figure out which roads would've been driven by a traveler during what I refer to as the "Golden Age of U.S. Highways": the 1940s through the 1950s.
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Some might wonder, "Why do you focus only on the endpoints of each route? There's so much more to a highway than simply where it terminates." I couldn't agree more. But I couldn't possibly cover the entire length of every US route. Part of the reason I'm interested in the endpoints is because, in one sense, the endpoints define the highway. For example: I could refer to a highway that runs between Choteau MT and Port Arthur TX. If you are somewhat familiar with US geography, then you can probably visualize which other states that road passes through, and you can imagine what kind of country it must run through, and you might even know exactly which route I'm referring to. Also, I find the history of a specific route's endpoints often mirrors the history of US routes in general (this route originally ended at an intersection downtown; later it was rerouted around downtown via a new bypass; now it's been truncated to a freeway interchange outside of town; etc.) Another interesting thing about reading through these pages is it allows one to compare the differences in signage standards and practices among the various state highway departments: some do an excellent job, some are kind of hit-and-miss, and others are quite pitiful.
I appreciate when state departments of transportation acknowledge the role their highways play in our national network by making a little extra effort to put up an "End" sign at the terminus of a highway's designation. I have traveled a lot of US highways; I've been watching for signs sporadically since 1988, and quite actively since 1997. Many US highway endpoints are not marked. That's kind of a shame, in my opinion. Some US routes are over a thousand miles in length, yet many of them end at nondescript intersections with almost no signage whatsoever! Don't you agree that the end of a road that long deserves some kind of acknowledgment? At least a little "End" sign that might pique the curiosity of the traveler? Hmm, I wonder what lies at the other end of this road?
Beyond intellectual stimulation, there is also a more practical reason for "End" signs, and this is something that the administrators of the US highway system recognized from the outset. Below is an excerpt from the minutes of AASHO's 1932 executive committee meeting (American Association of State Highway Officials, which became AASHTO in 1973):
I appreciate when state departments of transportation acknowledge the role their highways play in our national network by making a little extra effort to put up an "End" sign at the terminus of a highway's designation. I have traveled a lot of US highways; I've been watching for signs sporadically since 1988, and quite actively since 1997. Many US highway endpoints are not marked. That's kind of a shame, in my opinion. Some US routes are over a thousand miles in length, yet many of them end at nondescript intersections with almost no signage whatsoever! Don't you agree that the end of a road that long deserves some kind of acknowledgment? At least a little "End" sign that might pique the curiosity of the traveler? Hmm, I wonder what lies at the other end of this road?
Beyond intellectual stimulation, there is also a more practical reason for "End" signs, and this is something that the administrators of the US highway system recognized from the outset. Below is an excerpt from the minutes of AASHO's 1932 executive committee meeting (American Association of State Highway Officials, which became AASHTO in 1973):
Page originally created 1999;
last updated Jul. 11, 2021.
last updated Jul. 11, 2021.
