1926 map showing proposed US highway system

[bugo]

I found this map a few days ago. It is similar to the 1925 proposal but there are some oddities. Here are some highlights:

US 73 ends in Dallas
US 75 ends in Checotah Henryetta
US 77 ends in Galveston
US 85 ends in Bowie
US 570 south of Albuquerque
US 25 from Chattanooga to Naples
US 125 from Perry to Brunswick
US 225 from Ocala to Orlando
US 184 from Dothan to Cottondale
US 66 west of Springfield. All eventual x66 routes are shown as x60 routes. This proposal is well-known
US 66 northeast of Springfield is shown as US 62
US 265 from Owatonna to US 30
US 380 from Ashfork to Phoenix
US 280 from Tucson to Nogales

I hadn't heard of any of these except for the US 60->66 change, and I also saw a map that showed US 77 ending in Galveston. I have no idea where the mapmaker got the numbers for the system. Does anybody have any ideas?

Here's the map:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~302637~90073408:Good-roads-everywhere---Four-fold-s?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no&qvq=q:date%3D"1926";sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=0&trs=125

[US 89]

A few things I noticed:

They have US 40 routed differently between Duchesne and Salt Lake City. Instead of going through Heber, the map shows it going through Thistle and Provo, basically using today’s US 191, US 6, and US 89 to get to SLC. I feel like I had heard of that plan at some point, but it was never signed as such.

The original Lincoln Highway from Tooele to Ibapah, UT features prominently on that map, though it isn’t marked with a US number. Today, that route is no longer drivable, as it is within the Dugway Proving Grounds for the US Army.

US 89 appears to end in Flagstaff, rather than Nogales. The route that became 89 is marked as US 380, 80, and 280.

US 85 was routed out to Texas instead of south to El Paso. The route that became 85 is marked as US 285, 60, 570, 70, and 370.

They actually have US 50 marked along the corridor from Ely to Provo via Delta UT (basically today’s US 6). While that did become US 50, it didn’t happen for another 30 years because the condition of that road was so bad. Until the 1950s, between those two cities US 50 was routed up to Wendover on today’s US 93 and 93 Alternate, east to Salt Lake on US 40, and south to Provo on US 91.

Also, didn’t the original US 66 go through Searchlight, NV? Or maybe it was US 91?

[bugo]

US 66 never entered Nevada.

[Max Rockatansky]

It shows US 25 ending in Naples instead of US 41.  For some reason US 41 is shown ending at the split for modern M-26/US 41 rather than Copper Harbor.   US 99 didn't have any suffixed splits on this version of the grid either.

US 89 appears to end in Flagstaff, rather than Nogales. The route that became 89 is marked as US 380, 80, and 280.

US 89 did original end in Flagstaff, 280 and 380 ended up reverse of what appears on the map in the OP.

https://www.arizonaroads.com/maps/1926-1.jpg

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Notice US (blank) on what would become US 220 in PA, and US 220 on what would become another section of US 6. There is another US (blank) North of Cheyenne on what would become US 185 (and later a rerouted US 87).

Also, didn't the original US 66 go through Searchlight, NV? Or maybe it was US 91?

It was US 91. I remember seeing a list with it ending in Bannock CA, which would have it through Searchlight (as shown on that AZ map Max has linked). At any rate US 91 wouldn't go on that route but to Barstow. Instead the route through Searchlight became part of US 95 in 1940.

[US71]

US 66 northeast of Springfield is shown as US 62

That's a bit of a surprise. I know about US 60 being proposed until Kentucky had a conniption fit.

71 never went through Natchitoches. Proposed, maybe, but never did.

Y City is called Chant?

Looks like 75 ended an Henryetta since it's south of Okmulgee.

Checotah is US 73 which followed modern 69 to Denison.

I'll have to look at it again, later. It's starting to make my head hurt.

[BamaZeus]

US 7 is aligned further west into NY state, and pretty much along the borders with CT and MA, instead of through Norwalk/Danbury/western Mass.

[Eth]

Seems somewhat odd that both US 25 and US 31 would enter Chattanooga from the north and 25 would be the one selected to continue to Florida instead of 31.

US 19 here is shown on an interesting eastern alignment north of Atlanta, following what looks like perhaps modern GA 60 from Dahlonega to Gainesville, then via Buford and Lawrenceville to Atlanta. This looks like it matches with the official 1929 Georgia map (the 1926 map has no US 19 at all, only US 270 north of Gainesville; 1932 has the familiar routing via Cumming and Alpharetta). What neither the '26 nor '29 maps have is US 19 heading southwest from Atlanta; that is shown as US 29 on both (as it is today).

Gainesville to Athens looks like it's shown here as US 178; both the '26 and '29 officials have it as US 129 (as it is today).

[ftballfan]

Some things I noticed:
US 52 only running in Indiana and Ohio
US 87 being split for most of its route and not getting south of Wyoming
US 95 existing only in Idaho
Very few 3dus's
The Michigan routes matching up almost exactly with what actually happened

[vdeane]

US 1 and US 2 are swapped in part of Maine via Alt US 1
US 20 follows US 20A in NY
US 2 appears to follow US 302 to an overlap with US 5 in VT, and also appears to be missing the connection to NY
PA 61 appears to be a US route in this plan

[CNGL-Leudimin]

There are two branches of US 68 in Kentucky:
US 168: Mount Vernon to Bardstown
US 268: Bardstown to Louisville

Seriously, what source the mapmakers used for this?

Some things I noticed:
US 52 only running in Indiana and Ohio
US 87 being split for most of its route and not getting south of Wyoming
US 95 existing only in Idaho
Very few 3dus's
The Michigan routes matching up almost exactly with what actually happened

Most of this is what actually happened. We are pointing out things that weren't.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A minor musing just for my own interests is the inland jog along US 61 near Lake Superior (which approximately correlates to modern Lake County Road 3 and possibly short pieces of County 4 and 5). I don't think 61 ever took that route, as the then-MN 1 along the lakeshore had already been completed before 1926 and all MN state maps from the era show US 61 along the lake.

I never knew the original proposal for US 53 had it continuing all the way to Dubuque.

I also believe regarding US 8's east end that Dale reported that the original proposal for US 8 to connect to US 2/41 in Powers rather than taking the left turn to go to Norway is still technically an "active" proposal even though neither WI nor MI are inclined to build it.

[Mapmikey]

There are two branches of US 68 in Kentucky:
US 168: Mount Vernon to Bardstown
US 268: Bardstown to Louisville

Seriously, what source the mapmakers used for this?

Some things I noticed:
US 52 only running in Indiana and Ohio
US 87 being split for most of its route and not getting south of Wyoming
US 95 existing only in Idaho
Very few 3dus's
The Michigan routes matching up almost exactly with what actually happened

Most of this is what actually happened. We are pointing out things that weren't.

US 168 was signed...

[froggie]

US 2 appears to follow US 302 to an overlap with US 5 in VT

This actually was the case until the early '30s.  I haven't narrowed down exactly when US 2 was shifted to the then-VT 18 corridor to Montpelier, but it's on my to-do list.

[TXtoNJ]

There's a lot to like about this system relative to where we ended up, though some states (like Kansas) are a complete mess.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

US 168 was signed...

Wow, I thought US 68 didn't have any children of its own, and I didn't knew about US 168 (which in the map is split into two routes). So it got swallowed by US 150 soon after the establishment of US routes...

[bulldog1979]

Some of things noted above correspond to how the routings were drawn on the United States System of Highways Adopted for Uniform Marking by the American Association of State Highway Officials, the actual map released in November 1926.

What I would love to see is the map that would have accompanied the Report of Joint Board on Interstate Highways from October 30, 1925. (The map wasn't included in the base scans used to generate that copy on Wikisource. (As a side note, the initial transcription of the various AASHO/AASHTO committee minutes from 1967 through 1988 is done on Wikisource and available for viewing from the portal there.)

[US 89]

What I would love to see is the map that would have accompanied the Report of Joint Board on Interstate Highways from October 30, 1925. (The map wasn't included in the base scans used to generate that copy on Wikisource. (As a side note, the initial transcription of the various AASHO/AASHTO committee minutes from 1967 through 1988 is done on Wikisource and available for viewing from the portal there.)

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but here's the actual 1925 plan from Wikipedia:

[bulldog1979]

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but here's the actual 1925 plan from Wikipedia:

That, is most certainly, not it. That's a hand-drawn map made in the last 15 years. No, I'm looking for the original 1925 map that should have accompanied the report as alluded to in the first page of the document. 

[Mapmikey]

Notice US (blank) on what would become US 220 in PA, and US 220 on what would become another section of US 6. There is another US (blank) North of Cheyenne on what would become US 185 (and later a rerouted US 87).

Also, didn't the original US 66 go through Searchlight, NV? Or maybe it was US 91?

It was US 91. I remember seeing a list with it ending in Bannock CA, which would have it through Searchlight (as shown on that AZ map Max has linked). At any rate US 91 wouldn't go on that route but to Barstow. Instead the route through Searchlight became part of US 95 in 1940.

There is a map from California Highways Magazine that shows US 91 well east of where it ended up, scroll down a little ways...

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/the-lost-us-highways-of-southern-california-history

[pianocello]

I never knew the original proposal for US 53 had it continuing all the way to Dubuque.

That's the first thing I noticed. Curiously, it's mostly along a route that hasn't ever been maintained by the state. I know this map lists it as a "Transcontinental Highway", but none of the DOT maps from the 20s showed that it belonged to them.

Also, it looks like in addition to bugo's observation of US 25 going down to Naples, US 41 and 31 had swapped designations south of Nashville. Does anyone know why the final version ignored the grid with these routes?

[Max Rockatansky]

Notice US (blank) on what would become US 220 in PA, and US 220 on what would become another section of US 6. There is another US (blank) North of Cheyenne on what would become US 185 (and later a rerouted US 87).

Also, didn't the original US 66 go through Searchlight, NV? Or maybe it was US 91?

It was US 91. I remember seeing a list with it ending in Bannock CA, which would have it through Searchlight (as shown on that AZ map Max has linked). At any rate US 91 wouldn't go on that route but to Barstow. Instead the route through Searchlight became part of US 95 in 1940.

Apparently there was also a planned terminus at Daggett also but that appears to never have been signed.

[Henry]

I can't get over the use of the word Interstate in a document that existed back in 1925! Maybe they were on to something 40 years before that freeway system with the red, white and blue shields was created?

[hotdogPi]

I can't get over the use of the word Interstate in a document that existed back in 1925! Maybe they were on to something 40 years before that freeway system with the red, white and blue shields was created?

Interstate as an adjective just means that it's in more than one state.

[ftballfan]

US-54 jogging up to Dodge City instead of heading to Tucumcari via Liberal and Dalhart
US-77 ending at Omaha
No split US-31 in KY and TN (proposed US-31 follows 31E from Nashville to Glasgow then uses KY 90 to Cave City and then 31W to Louisville)
US-25 going toward GA and FL instead of into the Carolinas
US-40 in NJ being US-140
US-1 running north into Bangor (and US-1 and US-2 swapping routes between Bangor and Houlton)