U.S. Route 61

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U.S. Route 61
Length: 1,400[1] mi (2,253 km)
Formed: 1926[1]
South end: US 90 in New Orleans, LA
Major
junctions:		 I-10 in New Orleans, LA

I-10 near Sorrento, LA
I-12 in Baton Rouge, LA
I-20 in Vicksburg, MS
I-55 in Memphis, TN
I-40 in West Memphis, AR
I-55 in Blytheville, AR
I-57 in Sikeston, MO
I-44 in St. Louis, MO
I-70 in Wentzville, MO
I-72 in Hannibal, MO
I-80 in Davenport, IA
I-90 in La Crescent, MN
I-94 in St. Paul, MN
North end: I-35 in Wyoming, MN
United States Numbered Highways
U.S. Routes - Bannered - Divided - Replaced
The Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge, Dubuque, Iowa. The bridge crosses the Mississippi River between Dubuque and Grant County, Wisconsin. The bridge is part of the U.S 61 / 151 route.
The Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge, Dubuque, Iowa. The bridge crosses the Mississippi River between Dubuque and Grant County, Wisconsin. The bridge is part of the U.S 61 / 151 route.

U.S. Route 61 is the official designation for a United States highway that runs 1,400 miles from New Orleans, Louisiana to the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. As of 2004, the highway's northern terminus in Wyoming, Minnesota, is at an intersection with Interstate 35. Northward, the route continues as Minnesota Highway 61 towards the United States-Canada border. Its southern terminus in New Orleans is at an intersection with U.S. Highway 90 (Tulane Avenue at North Broad Street).

The route was an important north-south connection in the days before the interstate highway system. Many southerners, particularly black southerners, traveled north along Highway 61 to go to St. Louis.

Contents

[edit] The Blues Highway

The road is also known as the Blues Highway, because it runs through the Mississippi Delta country which was an important source of blues music. Son Thomas ("Highway 61"), Mississippi Fred McDowell ("61 Highway") and Jay Farrar of Son Volt ("Afterglow 61") all wrote songs about it, and many Mississippians, such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Bo Diddley took the blues to Chicago along the route.

The junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi is designated as the famous crossroads where — according to legend — Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the blues. However, there is no proof it is the site. Several miles north is another junction where the two highways diverge again; between the junctions the two highways share the route. It has never been confirmed as the place Johnson meant. If the crossroads in the song was ever anything other than a metaphor, it could have been any intersection in that part of Mississippi, or the world.

Like Route 66 in the Western U.S., the iconic Highway 61 sign is so strongly identified with the Clarksdale area that it is used to market different products and services, including the locally based Covenant Bank.

Blues singer Bessie Smith died in an automobile accident on Highway 61. Ike Turner's "Delta Cats" drove up Highway 61 to Memphis to record "Rocket 88", one of the first rock and roll records. Elvis Presley grew up in housing projects along it, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot in a motel on Highway 61. Bob Dylan was born along a stretch of Highway 61, in Duluth, Minnesota. Some of these connections led Bob Dylan to commemorate the highway in the title song of his album Highway 61 Revisited. More recently, in March of 2006 Hilary and Holly Williams - daughters of Hank Williams Jr. - were seriously injured in a one car accident on Highway 61 near Dundee, Mississippi.

[edit] Airline Highway

The section from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is known as Airline Highway. Although the road fronts the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, the name originally referred to the highway's straight route which contrasted to that of the winding Jefferson Highway. On Airline Highway in Jefferson Parish in 1987, Baton Rouge televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was confronted by rival preacher Marvin Gorman as Swaggart exited a motel with a prostitute. This incident increased the area's reputation as a locale of 'seedy motels'. Partly because of that reputation, the section in Jefferson Parish was later renamed Airline Drive.

[edit] Recent activity

[edit] Iowa

Starting in the early 1980s, U.S. Highway 61 between Davenport and Dubuque was rebuilt as a four-lane highway. The first link, a 19-mile stretch between Davenport and De Witt, was finished in 1982; a bypass around De Witt, which multiplexed U.S. Highway 30, was in use starting in November 1975. Subsequent links were completed to Maquoketa (in 1996) and finally to Dubuque in 1999. When the final link was completed, Dubuque finally had a direct four-lane connection to Interstate 80.

In 1983, two multi-lane one-way routes were designated through Davenport starting at the northern city limits. Southbound traffic used the newly constructed Welcome Way until it merges with Harrison Street just north of 35th Street; northbound traffic use Brady Street (which had been a two-way, four-lane street). Other two-way stretches of the highway through Davenport have four (or more) lanes. Because of a bridge with a low clearance in downtown Davenport, commercial truck drivers are encouraged to take Interstates 80, 74, or 280 to bypass the Quad Cities.

A 7.5-mile bypass around Muscatine, Iowa was opened in 1984, but other upgrades on the stretch south of Davenport would not happen for another decade. The changes came as follows:

  • 1996 – The completion of a 4-mile, four-lane stretch between Blue Grass and Interstate 280 in Davenport.
  • November 2000 — A 14-mile stretch between Blue Grass and the Muscatine bypass was opened.
  • May 2001 — A 3-mile bypass around Blue Grass.
  • July 2002 — A 7 1/2-mile stretch, from the Muscatine bypass to the southern tip of Muscatine County, just north of Letts.

The final stretch completed a continuous multi-laned link between Dickeyville, Wisconsin south to Letts, Iowa. The highway joins with U.S. Highway 151 about five miles south of Dubuque, where the two highways share a route until Dickeyville.

The 61 Drive In, one of the few drive-in theaters left in the nation, is located along Highway 61. The theater is located about five miles (8 km) south of Maquoketa, near Iowa exit 153 (the Delmar/Lost Nation exit).

[edit] Missouri

Recent and future activity includes:

  • There is ongoing construction to upgrade U.S. 61 (where it is multiplexed with U.S. 40) to a controlled-access freeway[1]. The current freeway ends at Route K just west of Weldon Spring, Missouri and the construction will upgrade U.S. 61 to a freeway to Interstate 70 at Wentzville. When construction is finished, this freeway also will be signed as Interstate 64[2].
  • U.S. 61 between Wentzville and Wayland are planned to be gradually widened and upgraded to expressway status [3][4]. It is unclear whether the entire length will ever be upgraded to freeway status, although it is expected that the entire highway will be 4 lanes wide to the Missouri-Iowa border by 2008. As of 2006, the route is expected only to be a freeway as bypasses around towns. This route will eventually form a part of a more direct route from Saint Louis, Missouri to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Waterloo, Iowa to Saint Paul, Minnesota as part of the Avenue of the Saints [5].

[edit] Mississippi

The section of U.S. Highway 61 in northwestern Mississippi, between the state line and Clarksdale, has received considerable upgrades since 1990, when casinos were legalized by the state. The resulting boom in casino development in Tunica County, coupled with dramatic population and development growth in DeSoto County, has led to relocating portions of the highway and expanding it to a divided four-lane highway.

Today, U.S. Highway 61 is divided from the Tennessee state line to U.S. Highway 82 in Greenville. The highway south of Vicksburg to Natchez is mostly divided and four-lane; only short sections around Port Gibson need to be upgraded. From Natchez to the Louisiana state line U.S., Highway 61 is now divided and four lanes. The Mississippi Department of Transportation is planning to divide and 4-lane the highway between Vicksburg and Greenville within the next decade.

The Mississippi section of U.S. Highway 61 is defined in Mississippi Code Annotated § 65-3-3.

[edit] Wisconsin-Minnesota

In 2004, a new 2-lane Mississippi River Bridge opened in La Crosse, Wisconsin creating a 4-lane highway from downtown La Crosse to La Crescent, Minnesota. The new bridge brings traffic into La Crosse, and is located just south of the old Cass Street Bridge which continues to be used by traffic heading towards Minnesota.

120 miles of U.S. 61 from Cottage Grove, Minnesota to La Crescent, Minnesota is officially designated the Disabled American Veterans Highway.

U.S. 61 is one of three Minnesota U.S. marked highways to carry the same number as an existing state marked highway within the state. The others being Highways 65 and 169.

[edit] Northern section of U.S. 61

U.S. 61 once ran 1,714 miles from New Orleans through Duluth, Minnesota all the way to the Canadian border. The road has been shortened to 1,400 miles ending now in the city of Wyoming, Minnesota at an intersection with I-35.

The northern section of U.S. 61 in Minnesota was separated when I-35 was constructed, and decommissioned in 1991.

[edit] Chisago, Pine, and Carlton counties section of Old Highway 61

North from the city of Wyoming, Old Highway 61 continues as "Forest Boulevard" in Chisago County, and then as "County 61" through Pine and Carlton counties before ending at Highway 210. The original U.S. 61 had continued east along Highway 210 to Carlton and north on Highway 45 to Scanlon before turning northeast as "County 61 / Westgate Boulevard" through Esko. I-35 has replaced the original U.S. 61 descending Thompson Hill into West Duluth. The original U.S. 61 had previously followed Cody Street, Grand Avenue, Superior Street, and London Road throughout the city of Duluth.

[edit] Duluth to the Canadian Border section of Highway 61

The original U.S. 61 between Duluth and the Canadian border is now signed as Minnesota Highway 61. Minnesota 61 follows the North Shore of Lake Superior, where it becomes Ontario Highway 61 upon entering Canada. Ontario Highway 61 continues to the city of Thunder Bay.

Beginning at the terminus of I-35 at 26th Avenue East in Duluth, the 151-mile (243 km) long section between Duluth and Grand Portage (at the Canadian border) is designated North Shore Scenic Drive and is signed as Minnesota 61 since 1991. The 21-miles section from Duluth to Two Harbors is a four-lane expressway officially designated the Arthur Rohweder Memorial Highway, however there are no markers on the highway showing this, but there is a plaque at a wayside.

The highway is a scenic highway and is part of the Lake Superior Circle Route that runs through Minnesota, Ontario, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

[edit] States traversed

The highway passes through the following states:

[edit] Notable cities along the route

[edit] See also

[edit] Quotations

I drove all the way from Storyville on a midnight Memphis run
From Bourbon Street to Beale Street straight up Highway 61
"Rose of Memphis" - Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark
Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose.
Welfare department wouldn't give him no clothes.
He asked poor Howard, "Where can I go?"
Howard said, "There's only one place I know."
Sam said, "Tell me quick man, I got to run."
Oh Howard just pointed with his gun
And said, "That way, down Highway 61."
"Highway 61 Revisited" - Bob Dylan
The immigrant son left the mining town
Electrified the traditional
And headed out on Highway 61.
"Afterglow 61" - Son Volt
I'm tired of searching for the answers
Always out there on the run
I'm going back to where my heart is
Down Highway 61.
"Mississippi Moon" - John Anderson

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Droz, Robert V. U.S. Highways : From US 1 to (US 830). URL accessed 02:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC).


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Lists  U.S. Routes - Bannered - Divided - Replaced
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