U.S. Route 60 - History

History

For more details, see the state-specific articles linked in the route description above.

US 60 had its beginnings in the Midland Trail, an auto trail organized in 1912 by residents of Grand Junction, Colorado. The next year, this route was considered but rejected for the Lincoln Highway, after which the Midland Trail Association laid out and marked its own transcontinental highway, eventually connecting Newport News, Virginia with Los Angeles, California. When the Joint Board on Interstate Highways published its preliminary plan for a system of interstate routes in 1925, the Midland Trail was split among many numbers, including 52, 62, 150, 50, and 40. East of Louisville, where it would become US 60, it was assigned parts of 52 and 62. Route 52 began at Newport News and followed the Midland Trail to Richmond, but took a more southerly route to Lexington, Virginia. The trail was used again through West Virginia to Huntington, where Route 52 split to the northwest. Route 62 began at Ashland, Kentucky (near Huntington) and followed the Midland Trail across northeastern Kentucky to Louisville, where the trail crossed the Ohio River and became Route 150. Route 62 continued southwest along the south bank of the Ohio River to Wickliffe in western Kentucky, and then crossed the Mississippi River at the Ohio's mouth. The final portion of Route 62 crossed southern Missouri to Springfield on an existing main highway that had been numbered 16 by the state.

Kentucky Governor William J. Fields objected to the Joint Board's plan, which took most major east–west routes (multiples of ten) to the East Coast, but sent Route 60 from Los Angeles northeast to end in Chicago, leaving none to cross Kentucky, the only Mississippi Valley state without such a route. Proposals were considered for splitting US 60 into 60N and 60E at Springfield or using 62 for the Chicago route; Missouri had already prepared maps that showed the original plans for 60 and 62. The final plan, agreed to by the affected states, assigned US 66 to the Los Angeles-Chicago highway and US 60 to the route from Springfield to Virginia Beach (extended from Newport News), absorbing all of 62 and part of 52 from the 1925 plan.

Although US 60 initially stretched less than halfway across the country, due to its late creation, it was soon extended west to Los Angeles. One auto trail — the Atlantic and Pacific Highway - and three other U.S. Highways played a part in this extension. The Atlantic and Pacific Highway had been organized in 1921, and connected New York City with Los Angeles. The original alignment of U.S. Route 70 entered Clovis, New Mexico from the east, as it does now, but continued west to Holbrook, Arizona. Crossing US 70 at Clovis was the El Paso-Amarillo U.S. Route 366. Finally, U.S. Route 164 was created by 1928, stretching northeast and east from Amarillo to U.S. Route 64 and U.S. Route 77 in Enid, Oklahoma. The American Association of State Highway Officials approved the first part of the extension in May 1930, following the rest of Missouri's Route 16 to the Oklahoma state line, and several state highways to Enid, before absorbing US 164 to a terminus at Amarillo. The remainder to Los Angeles was approved at AASHO's June 1931 meeting, and involved a number of other changes. US 60 replaced US 366 from Amarillo to Clovis, where it continued west along US 70 to Springerville, Arizona. The remainder of US 70 to Holbrook, Arizona became a new U.S. Route 260, while US 60 followed the Atlantic and Pacific Highway, which it had picked up at Vaughn, New Mexico, southwest and west through Phoenix to Los Angeles. US 70 was not truncated to Clovis, but was instead redirected southwest along US 366 to El Paso, and later reached Los Angeles itself, though most of the route west of Globe, Arizona overlapped US 60.

After the Interstate Highway System was signed into law in 1956, the Midland Trail portion of US 60, from Louisville east to the Hampton Roads area, was bypassed by Interstate 64. From Phoenix west to Los Angeles, Interstate 10 paralleled and replaced US 60. I-10 and I-64 were mostly completed by the late 1970s, though part of Interstate 64 in West Virginia, built on a new alignment east from Beckley, did not bypass the old winding US 60 until July 15, 1988. California decommissioned its portion of US 60 in 1964; most was replaced by I-10, while the independent piece in the Los Angeles area became State Route 60. In the 1970s, the portion overlapping I-10 in western Arizona was removed. US 60 between Phoenix and Louisville remains a major regional corridor in most places, and is not paralleled by an Interstate for any significant length.