US 95 in California

[Max Rockatansky]

Put something together for the history of US 95 in California:

"US Route 95 within California exists within San Bernardino County and Riverside County.  US Route 95 within California is approximately 130 miles factoring multiplexes along Interstate 10 and Interstate 40.  US Route 95 in California begins at the Arizona state line along the Colorado River near Blythe in Riverside County.  US Route 95 follows the general course of the Colorado River north through the Sonoran Desert to the Mojave Desert towards Needles of San Bernadino County.  US Route 95 enters Nevada north of Interstate 40 and the historic alignment of US Route 66.  US Route 95 was extended to Blythe, California during July 1939.  Upon US Route 95 entering California during 1939 it overlapped and deleted much of the original California State Route 195.  US Route 95 was extended from Blythe into Arizona during June 1960."

https://www.gribblenation.org/2023/05/us-route-95-in-california.html?m=1

[pderocco]

According to Wikipedia, the southern part of US-95 was originally all AZ-95, since the 30s. In 1960 everything south of Quartzite was absorbed into US-95. My question is: was that a numeric coincidence, or did Arizona expect there to be a US-95 through there someday, and guessed right about 1/3 of the routing?

[Max Rockatansky]

According to Wikipedia, the southern part of US-95 was originally all AZ-95, since the 30s. In 1960 everything south of Quartzite was absorbed into US-95. My question is: was that a numeric coincidence, or did Arizona expect there to be a US-95 through there someday, and guessed right about 1/3 of the routing?

Considering that AZ 95 originally ended in Bouse at AZ 72 I've always wondered about that.  I've never found any proof to substantiate that AZ 95 was intended to be a placeholder for US 95.  It seems likely though given the early Arizona State Highway numbers all ran in the 61-89 range in sequence with the state's US Routes of the time.

I still haven't quite tracked down the history of the road crossing between Parker, AZ and Bluewater, CA.  This appears to be the initial road crossing of the Colorado River in Parker.  The earliest maps I see displaying AZ 72 crossing the River into California is 1938.

https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/kt309nc46j/