Talk:Jefferson Davis Highway

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There seems to be a great deal of confusion over the auto trails named "Jefferson Davis Highway." The North American Auto Trails web site (http://www.marion.ohio-state.edu/fac/schul/trails/national/natlist.html) lists three separate roads named after Jefferson Davis: The Jefferson Davis Highway, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, and the Jefferson Davis National Highway. All three are mentioned in the Wikipedia article. However, they obviously were not the same road. One alignment of the J. D. Memorial Highway seems to have followed the western portion of US Highway 80 through Arizona and California. There is a plaque at Horton Square in San Diego placed by the Daughters of the Confederacy naming the spot as the western terminus of the "Jefferson Davis Highway." It is very close to the Pacific Milestone: the western terminus of the Lee Highway and the Old Spanish Trail. US 80 in southeastern Arizona is marked as the "Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway" on topographic maps. The J.D. Memorial Highway was evidently one of several "Borderland" highways, along with auto trails such as the Old Spanish Trail and the Dixie Overland Highway.

It would probably be appropriate to have separate articles for the different roads.

Parsa

Seperate articles or not, the various routes should be specified at least with seperate sections in this article. -- Infrogmation 11:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

At least in the 1990s, Georgia DOT labeled the following routes; some information is from [1].

Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway (Route 1)
Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway (Alternate Route 1)
  • State Route 44, Union Point (on Route 1) to Washington ([2] says Route 1, but that's a typo, poven by the county map)
  • U.S. Highway 78, Washington to Thomson (on Route 1) (not shown on county maps)
Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway (Route 2)
Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway (Alternate Route 2)

--NE2 14:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More details

This comes mainly from [5], [6], and [7]:

Branches

Note that the original plan in Texas would have gone along the Rio Grande: [8]

State highway numbers (1920s)
  • Virginia: 31 (became 12, 201 or 324, 32 south of South Hill and 122 between South Hill and McKenney ca. 1924)
  • North Carolina: 75, 50
  • South Carolina: 50, 12
  • Georgia: 12, 14
  • Alabama: 11, 26, 6, 10
  • Mississippi: US 90
  • Louisiana: 2, 1, 5 or 7?, 40, 2
  • Texas: 3, 6, 20, 2, 3, 54?, 1
  • New Mexico: 1, 4, 106
  • Arizona: US 180, US 80
  • California: US 80?, US 101, US 40?, US 99?
  • Oregon: US 99?
  • Washington: US 99
Augusta-Montgomery alternate
  • Georgia: 24, 15, 30, 11, ?, 50
  • Atlanta: 16, 15, 7
Houston-San Antonio alternate
  • Texas: 12, 16
Brownsville branch
  • Texas: 16, 12A?, 12
Bowling Green-New Orleans
  • Kentucky: US 68, US 45
  • Tennessee: 3
  • Mississippi: US 51
  • Louisiana: 33
Memphis-Grenada alternate
  • Tennessee: 4
  • Mississippi: US 78, N/A (now 7)