Features
15 kinds of historic highway route worth a closer look in 2027
Fifteen kinds of historic American road, what each one preserves, and how to tell a route that still carries its history from one that only carries a sign.
What to take away
- A list of fifteen named roads goes stale and reads as an endorsement. Fifteen kinds of road does not.
- What makes a route historic is usually the surviving alignment, not the marker beside it.
- Emigrant trails, mining roads and early auto highways ask for completely different preparation.
- Where an agency page names a road and describes it, that description is worth more than any list.
The useful question is not which fifteen roads to drive. It is which kind of history a road preserves, because that sets what you will see, how hard the driving is, and whether the route is open in the month you are free.
The fifteen kinds
1. The surviving early auto highway. An original alignment kept as a secondary road, usually paved, with the towns still strung along it.
2. The bypassed main street. A few miles of old route left behind when the interstate went through, now the quietest driving in the county.
3. The emigrant wagon route, where the interest is the ruts and the landmarks rather than the road surface.
4. The military or supply road, built to move soldiers and freight, often the straightest line across hard country.
5. The stage and freight road, laid out between water sources at the distance a team could cover in a day.
6. The mining access road, steep, narrow and built for ore rather than for views.
7. The railroad grade turned road, flat, well graded and full of cuts and trestled crossings.
8. The ranch and stock driveway, open range, cattle guards, and gates you are expected to close.
9. The dam and reclamation road, built for construction traffic in the 1930s and kept for access.
10. The forest and timber haul road, where logging trucks still have priority.
11. The mission or colonial trade route, the oldest layer in the southwest and along the eastern seaboard.
12. The river corridor road, following a watercourse because that was the only practical grade.
13. The pass road, short in miles and long in hours, with the season set by snow.
14. The border and customs route, built around a crossing point and the buildings that served it.
15. The one nobody markets, a county road with a bridge, a cemetery and a school, and no brochure.
Two documented examples
Some designations preserve a genuine original alignment. The BLM describes the Route 66 Oatman Road Back Country Byway in Arizona as a 42 mile stretch of two lane paved blacktop that is one of the last and best preserved segments of the original highway, notes a vehicle length limit of 40 feet over Sitgreaves Pass between Golden Valley and the historic town of Oatman, and recommends automatic transmission because of the steep grades.
The emigrant category reads differently. The BLM's Main Oregon Trail Back Country Byway in Idaho runs 89 miles from the Snake River crossing near Glenns Ferry toward Bonneville Point, with trail ruts visible along much of it. The page says the byway roads are paved or good gravel and four wheel drive is not needed, that high clearance may be required to reach the trail off it, and that the trip from Boise takes about eight hours.
How to judge any of them
- Is the original alignment intact, or has it been replaced and signposted?
- What is the surface now, and who maintains it?
- Is there interpretation on the ground, or only in a museum forty miles away?
- Does the route still pass through inhabited places, or only past them?
Where to go next
Fitting one of these routes into real days is the practical problem, and how to plan a historic route without rushing it works through it. For the stops that make a long drive worth breaking, see which sites are worth adding.
Common questions
Why not just name fifteen roads? Because conditions, closures and access change, and a named list ages badly. The categories stay true.
Which kind is easiest for a first trip? The surviving auto highway or the bypassed main street. Paved, served, and forgiving of a late start.
Are ruts really visible? On some emigrant routes, yes, and agency pages will say where. Elsewhere the interest is the landmark rather than the track.
Do I need a guide for any of these? Rarely for the driving. Often worth it for the interpretation, where a route has no signage.
In this guide
- A photographer's field list for historic highway routesWhat to carry and when to shoot on a historic route: opening hours that end the day, rock art in flat light, ghost towns at dawn, and dust management.
- How to compare tours built around historic highway routesComparing guided trips on historic roads: what interpretation is worth, which sites are indoor or outdoor, and the questions that expose a thin itinerary.
- Historic highway route stops worth adding to a longer tripHow to choose stops that earn their detour on a historic route, with two documented roadside sites that show what a good short stop actually offers.
- What a well-planned weekend of historic highway routes costsCosting a two day historic route weekend: mileage as the anchor figure, site fees, where the money goes, and the padding that keeps the budget honest.
- How to plan historic highway routes without rushing the tripPlanning a historic route at a pace that works: elevation and grade, loops instead of point to point, and leaving the last hour of the day unbooked.
