U.S. Route 75 in Texas - History

History

In the initial assignment of state highways in 1917, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston were connected by a branch of State Highway 2 (the Meridian Highway), which ran via Waco and Bryan and continued on to Galveston. The more direct route followed by US 75 was not initially part of the system between Richland (connected to Dallas by SH 14) and Huntsville (connected to Houston by SH 19). This Richland-Huntsville cutoff was added by 1919 as SH 32, and US 75 was assigned to the alignment, as well as SH 6 north of Dallas, in 1926. The branch of SH 2, which US 75 followed between Houston and Galveston, eventually became part of SH 6, and these numbers were dropped in the 1939 renumbering.

Prior to the coming of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, the only improvements to US 75 in Texas beyond building a two-lane paved roadway were in the Houston and Dallas areas. However, the highways in and near these cities included some of the first freeways in the state: the Gulf Freeway (Houston, opened to traffic on October 1, 1948) and the Central Expressway (Dallas). When Interstate 45 was built in the 1960s, its alignment bypassed many of the towns and built-up areas between downtown Dallas and Houston. The bypassed routes retained the US 75 designation until the designation was truncated to downtown Dallas in 1987. Many of the original alignments continue to exist under other designations.

In Dallas, the route followed what is now the Good Latimer Expressway (formerly Spur 559) southeast, out of downtown, along US 175 and south along State Highway 310.

Near Ferris, Trumbull, Palmer, Ennis, and Corsicana Interstate 45 veers east to avoid the more populated areas. The old US 75 alignments through these towns, decommissioned in 1987, now carry the following designations:

• Business Interstate Highway 45-J (originally Loop 560) through Ferris
• Loop 561 through Trumbull
• Business Interstate Highway 45-H through Palmer (originally Loop 562)
• Spur 469, Business Interstate Highway 45-G (originally U.S. Highway 287 and Spur 563) through Ennis
• Business Interstate Highway 45-F (originally Loop 564) through Corsicana

Through Streetman, Fairfield, Buffalo, Centerville, Madisonville, Huntsville, New Waverly, Willis, and Conroe, US 75 followed what is now State Highway 75.

In Galveston, the alignment of State Highway 87 from 20th Street to the southern terminus Interstate 45 was also part of US 75 until its 1987 truncation.

In other cases alignments were bypassed while US 75 remained in existence; they now carry the following designations:

• State Highway 3 through La Marque, Dickinson, League City, South Houston and Houston, bypassed 1952
• State Highway 5 from north of Dallas via Plano, McKinney, Anna and Van Alstyne to Howe, bypassed 1959-1967
• State Highway 91 from Sherman to Denison, bypassed 1984