Road Trip Saturday! Today, we have reached the road that was the first United States Highway, reaching across Indiana from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois. When the US highway system was finally put in place in 1926, it became US 40. But the description of the route when the Great Renumbering happened is that the US 40 designation would replace the SR 3 name it had acquired in 1917. Today…the National Road. Or a close facsimile thereof!
I have wondered for a long time about the original NR/US 40 route through West Terre Haute. I have heard, but cannot confirm, that it originally followed Paris Ave. and then turned left onto Bennett Ln, and then swung across Sugar Creek to meet the existing old alignment on its way to Toad Hop. It makes some sense. Also, back when I lived in TH in the 90s, where Old Paris Ave splits off 40/150, that road was absolutely, positively, 1920s-era concrete highway of the type the state was building then. It got paved over in the last several years, but if you go to Google Street View at that spot and use the history to look at the 2007 imagery, you can still see the concrete. I can’t imagine this was built by the county. Do any of your old maps shed any light on any of this?
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nice thanks friend
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