Was US 266 once planned as US 164?

Started by bugo, March 17, 2018, 04:52:21 AM

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bugo

This is an excerpt from the Transcontinental Highway Map from the National Map Company, published in 1927. Note the highway between Okmulgee and Warner is labelled as US 164. As we all know, this road was eventually signed as US 266. US 164 was eventually used twice: first on what is now US 60 between Amarillo, TX and Enid, OK from 1928-1930 and secondly from 1966-1970 on the highway between Flagstaff, AZ to Cortez, CO on what is now US 89, US 160 and the illegitimate US 491 (it's still US 666 to me.) Was this road really proposed as US 164 or is it simply a mapo? If the latter is true, where did the National Map Company get the US 164 number from?



US 89

Interesting. I would think the numbering of US 366, 466, 566, and 666 would imply that there was a US 266. If that’s the case and the map is right, then where was this other 266?

(FWIW, Wikipedia says there has only been one US 266. It was commissioned in 1926 along its current route, but the west end was in OKC. The part between OKC and Henryetta was later replaced by US 62.)

hbelkins

Is 266 the route that part of which is signed by Oklahoma without the approval of AASHTO? Or is that another route I'm thinking of?


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Mapmikey

Quote from: hbelkins on March 17, 2018, 08:12:45 PM
Is 266 the route that part of which is signed by Oklahoma without the approval of AASHTO? Or is that another route I'm thinking of?

You are thinking of 377...

noelbotevera

My theory: US 164 probably existed for a couple months in 1926, and maybe early 1927 (what's the date of this map?). Either the US 164 designation was a placeholder, and AASHTO was still trying to decide on a number, since it intersects both US 66 and US 64 - or US 266 existed, with US 164 decommissioned by the time of this map, and the map was slow to update.

Mapmikey

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 17, 2018, 08:35:17 PM
My theory: US 164 probably existed for a couple months in 1926, and maybe early 1927 (what's the date of this map?). Either the US 164 designation was a placeholder, and AASHTO was still trying to decide on a number, since it intersects both US 66 and US 64 - or US 266 existed, with US 164 decommissioned by the time of this map, and the map was slow to update.

An alternate theory is that the 1926 map the OP found recently showed this as US 260 which reflected the original intent for US 60 to follow what became US 66.  US 260 then became US 266 and the US 164 designation is just a flat out error.

The sectional maps that came with that same national map show it as US 266 in  both sections that show Oklahoma  - go here to see all three maps: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/view/all/what/Roads/Automobile/when/1927?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no

bugo

#6
I found a document from 1926 in the massive AASH(T)O archive that mentions US 266 being changed from 260 to 266, and it also says an x64 would be satisfactory, and it suggests the number 164 for this road, and 264 for the road that eventually became US 164 from Amarillo to Enid that was absorbed into US 60.

Here are some scans of that document:




sparker

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Since US 66, once changed from its previous US 60 designation, rapidly became the main transcontinental thoroughfare through OK, it was likely deemed more appropriate to number the OKC-US 64 route as US 266 to reflect the enhanced status of the parent highway.  That decision would have been fully validated a few years later when US 66 evolved into the principal route for the "Dust Bowl"-era western diaspora (but short-lived with the advent of US 62).



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