National Forest Highways

[bugo]

Older Arkansas county maps marked some state highways with the "NFH" label. Here's an excerpt from the 1982 Polk County map showing a segment of US 59/270 and a segment of AR 88 with the NFH labels.



The legend shows that NFH stands for National Forest Highway.



What was a National Forest Highway? Was it some sort of state or federal designation?

[Max Rockatansky]

The Forest Service sometimes designates Forest Routes similar to a State Highway or County Route.  They usually have reassurance shields and everything you'd expect on a major Sign Route.  Typically Forest Routes are only signed on major roadways that can handle normal vehicles.  An example would be Sierra National Forest signing Forest Routes 10 on Roads 6S10 and 6S10X given they are part of the larger Sierra Vista Scenic Byway.

I was just on Stanislaus National Forest Route 14 today leaving Cherry Lake.  The Sign Route is applied to Forest Road 1N04 (Cottonwood Road).

But now that I'm rereading this it seems more as though you are asking about Federal Aid designations related to Forest Service corridors.  I don't think those are strictly limited to be reserved for roads owned by the Forest Service.

[Mapmikey]

Here is Idaho's Forest Highway system in 1930 - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2867873&seq=66&q1=forest

Some explanation of the system starts here - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2867873&seq=14&q1=forest

Virginia showed a handful on state officials up into the 1950s and there were quite a few on county maps.  FH 10 is on the 1948 state scan in the upper right and on the 1940 Page County scan in the upper left

[cl94]

Kinda similar to this, it's not uncommon for USFS to sign one of their scenic routes along state-maintained roads. There are a few cases of routes in CA and NV posted with USFS byway signs, such as CA SR 49 in Sierra County. Many national forest byways are on forest service roads, yes.

[Max Rockatansky]

Kinda similar to this, it's not uncommon for USFS to sign one of their scenic routes along state-maintained roads. There are a few cases of routes in CA and NV posted with USFS byway signs, such as CA SR 49 in Sierra County. Many national forest byways are on forest service roads, yes.

Bit of a mix around Fresno.  The Kings Canyon Scenic Byway is entirely on CA 180.  The Sierra Vista Scenic Byway is overlaid on Sierra National Forest Routes 10, 7 and 81.

[Bitmapped]

I think some of these posts are conflating two separate things.

• The U.S. Forest Service maintains its own system of roads in conjunction with FHWA and the Federal Lands Highway Program. These may be signed with the shield that says "National Forest" on the bottom, with a white-on-brown rectangular sign, or occasionally just printed on a flexible post.
• Roads that are maintained by state or local governments but that getting federal aid, now through the Federal Lands Access Program. I think that was what was being shown on the Arkansas maps.

Sometimes, you there are roads with a state (or county/US) marker that are actually maintained by the USFS/FHWA Federal Lands Highway program. WV 150, the Highland Scenic Highway, is one such route. WVDOH doesn't own or maintain it, the feds do. One side effect of this is that it doesn't get plowed during the winter.