US Highways in California
Established in 1926, the US Highway System began laying out much needed highways throughout the United States. Automobiles were considered to be the next transportation revolution, and people needed a way to get around. California, with it's vast land area ranging from rich agriculture to the beautiful Pacific Coast made it a destination for many travelers for both work and leisure. This made multiple US Highways necessary for California to point travelers in the right direction.
The US Highway System really had no mandates for roads or road quality when established, it was really a free-for-all in some states. California, however, had already been working on it's own state highway system for a decade allowing US Highways to traverse already cleared land. From oiled dirt to paved roads, California was very auto-ready even before the system was put into place.
Since California stated building out it's own freeway system in the 1940's, it was one of the few states to be considered 'Interstate ready'. Many of the freeways adopted the surface-street numbering of US Highways, and in some cases created multiplexes. In the 1960's, California deemed multiplexes were unneeded and confusing and started favoring a single route number with a freeway. This led to the 1964 Great Renumbering, which saw a lot of historic US Highways being truncated or removed entirely. Most routes mentioned here are no longer in existence but are survived but their modern Interstate successor.
Archived Roads.
- US 60 - One of the original 1926 routes, it is now completely decommissioned in the state of California, only to be survived by it's modern successors, SR 60 and I-10.
- US 66 - The 'Main Street of America'. Need I say more?
- US 70 - This route's existence in California was basically pointless, traveling the same routes as either US 60 or US 99 to Downtown Los Angeles. (Coming soon!)
- US 99 - 'Main Street of California', US 99 ran from the US-Mexico border to the US-Canadian border, until it took a death blow in 1972 and was later removed from the US Highway System. (Coming soon!)
