New Jersey Route 168 - History

History

The predecessor to today's Route 168 was a set of Lenni Lenape trails that followed the Timber Creek. In 1855, the Camden and Blackwoodstown Turnpike Company was established by entrepreneurs who had helped create the White Horse Pike to build a gravel road that would run from Camden south to Blackwoodtown and eventually to Atlantic City; this road became the Black Horse Pike. The creation of the Black Horse Pike led to the development of several towns along the route. The Black Horse Pike was transferred from the turnpike company to the county in 1903, at a time where many private turnpikes would become public roads. In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, this portion of the Black Horse Pike was designated as part of a new route, Route 42, that was to run from Ferry Avenue in Camden south to Route 48 (now U.S. Route 40) in McKee City. This portion of road retained the Route 42 designation in the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering. In the late 1940s, a freeway was planned to bypass this portion of Route 42, with right-of-way acquisition and construction starting in the 1950s. This new freeway, called the North–South Freeway, opened between Bellmawr and the Black Horse Pike in Blackwood in 1958 and from Blackwood to Turnersville in 1959. With the opening of the freeway, the Route 42 designation was moved to the North–South Freeway and the Black Horse Pike between Turnersville and Camden became Route 168.