US 97 in... Alaska?

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Extreme points on the US highway system

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Wikipedia hosts an interesting article (or at least it's interesting to geography nerds like me) which lists the extreme points in the United States (e.g. the northernmost points in the US, the southernmost points, and so on).  This blog post could be considered a subset of that article, as I am discussing the extreme points on the US highway system.  (Since the US route network exists only in the 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii are outside the scope of this post, not to mention all US territories.)  We will start with the most obvious, and from there it will get more complicated. Easternmost points Most map projections make it rather clear that Maine is the easternmost state (although it is even farther east than many people realize).  The easternmost US route terminus is where US 2  almost reaches the Canada border, about three miles east of its junction with US 1 in Houlton ME: Historically (before I-95 was built) US 2 actually did reach the Canad...
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The intertwined history of US routes 241, 231, 331, and 431

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^ date reposted to this blog Mar. 16, 2023: originally posted to my old blog US 231 was included in the inaugural routes of Nov. 1926, but at the time it ran only from Montgomery AL to Marianna FL. US 241 was not among the original routes*, but neither was it far behind: it was commissioned in Mar. 1930. This was mostly done to appease certain Alabama interests who wanted a US route designation to be applied to their State Highway 1.  ​ *For the sake of clarity, there actually was a US 241 that was commissioned in 1926 to run between Nashville TN and Hopkinsville KY. However, it was never signposted as such in Tennessee, and possibly not in Kentucky either. AASHO officially canceled the US 241[i] designation in Jun. 1929, and its number was recycled less than a year later and applied to the route discussed on this page. To avoid confusion, this route is sometimes differentiated as US 241[ii]. A commercial state highway map from 1928 (by General Drafting) indicated that Alabam...
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US 400: its number is not the only error

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^ date reposted to this blog Apr. 11, 2018: originally posted to my old blog On a recent roadtrip along US 400, my son asked me, "Isn't 400 kind of a weird number for a highway?" Apparently even non-roadgeeks sense that there is something wrong with the US 400 designation. But it goes beyond that. This post examines all of the things that are wrong with US 400: not only its number, but also its purpose, its implementation, its intra-state nature, its collateral damage, and its amount of concurrent mileage with other US routes. But I'm getting ahead of myself; let's start from the beginning... The easternmost of US 400's many overlaps with other US routes. History In the early 1990s, Wichita leaders helped to convince the US DoT of the importance of an east-west interstate through the city, and the proposed route (I-66) was included among the "High Priority Corridors" of ISTEA legislation. However, states to the west of Kansas offered no support...
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