Interstate 27 - History

History

The roadway between Lubbock and Amarillo was part of the Puget Sound to Gulf Highway (State Highway 9), one of the original state highways defined in 1917. In 1926, it became part of U.S. Highway 385, which was absorbed into U.S. Highway 87 in 1935. The SH 9 overlap was dropped in the 1939 renumbering. Paving began in 1929 near Plainview, and was almost complete by 1940, with only about 8 miles (13 km) south of Canyon still bituminous surfaced until later that decade. The Canyon Expressway, a freeway upgrade of US 87 (also US 60 there) between Canyon and Amarillo, was built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This highway, with a design speed of 45 miles per hour (70 km/h), included frontage roads along its entire length, and ended in each city with a wye junction: the split of US 60 and US 87 in Canyon, and a split between the two one-way pairs of Taylor and Fillmore Streets and Pierce and Buchanan Streets in Amarillo. The Dumas Expressway, a freeway upgrade of US 87 north from Amarillo, opened several years later, feeding into the same one-way pairs.

Four-laning of US 87 from Canyon to Lubbock was completed in the late 1960s, with the last section to be widened lying between Abernathy and Lubbock. While this was built as a surface divided highway south of Canyon, short sections of freeway were built through New Deal, Abernathy, and Hale Center, and interchanges were built at U.S. Highway 70 and State Highway 194 on the new bypass of Plainview and at State Highway 86 (towards the west) south of Tulia. The original two-lane road, where bypassed, became Loop 461 (New Deal, 1968, marked as US 87 Business), Loop 369 (Abernathy, 1962), a local street (Hale Center), and Loop 445 (Plainview, 1967, marked as US 87 Business).

Interstate 27 was not part of the original Interstate Highway System chosen in the 1950s; the spur from I-40 to Lubbock was authorized with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, which added 1500 miles (2400 km) to the system. George H. Mahon, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1935 to 1979 and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee after 1964, helped secure funding for the road. Texas officially designated the highway in early 1969, originally running from U.S. Highway 62 near downtown Lubbock to I-40 in Amarillo; the definition was extended south through Lubbock to the south side of the loop in early 1976. The existing freeway sections, including the Canyon Expressway, were absorbed into I-27, despite not being built to Interstate standards. New construction began in 1975, from Lubbock north to New Deal, and most of the freeway was completed in the 1980s. Two long sections of US 87 were bypassed: Happy to Canyon on December 5, 1986, and Kress to Tulia soon after; I-27 was complete north of Lubbock by 1988. Most of the Happy-Canyon bypass was built along the two-lane Farm to Market Road 1541, which now ends at exit 103 southeast of Canyon.

The final section of I-27 to be built was through Lubbock, inside Loop 289; this was built in the early 1990s, and completed on September 3, 1992. On that day, a ceremony at the 34th Street overpass opened the road from 19th Street (US 62) to 54th Street, completing Texas's 3200-mile (5100 km) portion of the Interstate Highway System. At its south end, the new I-27 connected to an existing freeway upgrade of US 87, built about 1970 to a traffic circle at US 84 (just north of Loop 289). The old route of US 87 through Lubbock became U.S. Highway 87 Business upon completion of I-27. Two business loops of I-27 have been designated: through Plainview (former Loop 445) in early 1991, and through Hale Center (formerly a local street) in 2002.

The completion of I-27, costing a total of $453.4 million, encouraged growth along the highway: towards the north side of Lubbock and the southwest in Amarillo; Canyon has become a suburb of Amarillo. Plainview, the largest city between Lubbock and Amarillo, has the only significant retail cluster outside the two terminal cities, and has attracted several industries. On the other hand, Tulia, once a self-contained community with local businesses, was bypassed by I-27, and residents must now drive elsewhere for most shopping needs.