New Jersey Route 10 - History

History

The Newark and Mount Pleasant Turnpike was established along the present-day alignment of Route 10 east of Dover on March 12, 1806, existing as a turnpike until before 1833. Route 10 was designated in 1927 to run from Jersey City west to Route 6 (now U.S. Route 46) west of Dover, passing through Newark. This routing of Route 10 followed its current alignment and ran east along present-day County Route 577, Mt. Pleasant Avenue, and Park Avenue to Newark, where it followed County Route 508 and Route 7 to U.S. Route 1/9 at the Tonnele Circle in Jersey City.

In 1952, Route 10 was designated to run along a new, never-built alignment farther to the north, running through Belleville, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Montclair, West Orange, and along the Livingston/Roseland border, roughly along much of the routing of present-day County Route 611 (Eagle Rock Avenue), and following its current alignment through Morris County to Ledgewood. A spur of the route was also planned in 1952 to run from Montclair south to Orange. A year later, in the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering, Route 10 was defined onto its current alignment, with its eastern terminus moved to Prospect Avenue in West Orange. In 1998, the Ledgewood Circle at the western terminus of the route was replaced with a signalized T-intersection. In the mid 2000s, a $11.5 million project was undertaken to improve safety on the portion of Route 10 in Hanover and East Hanover Townships by widening existing lanes and adding turning lanes to the road.