Wendover Cut-off

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Looking east in 1972, soon after the road was bypassed

The Wendover Cut-off, also called the Wendover Road or Wendover Route, was a section of two-lane highway in the western part of the U.S. state of Utah. Stretching 41.4 miles^[1] (66.6 km) from Wendover to Knolls across the Great Salt Lake Desert, just north of the Western Pacific Railroad, it was an important part of the Victory Highway, which became U.S. Route 40 in 1926. The roadway has been bypassed by the four-lane Interstate 80.

[edit] History

See also: Lincoln Highway in Utah

The preliminary route of the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the U.S., was decided in 1913. The highway headed west out of Salt Lake City to Timpie, but turned south there to avoid the desert. An unimproved dirt trail was used through the Skull Valley to Black Rock on the southeast edge of the desert. There it turned west along the Pony Express Trail, crossing Nevada on the Central Route. This route had been used by overland travelers for about ten years, replacing the Humboldt River Route used by the California Trail, which went around the north end of the desert, in 1859; travel moved back to the Humboldt River Route in 1869 with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. A realignment over Johnson Pass in 1919 moved the point where the Lincoln Highway turned south east to Mills Junction.^[2]

The Western Pacific Railroad completed a direct route across the desert in 1907, filling a causeway with rock and gravel at a great cost.^[3] Utah began to build the Goodyear Cut-off on the Lincoln Highway in the late 1910s, but never completed the work, instead deciding to push for the more direct Wendover Cut-off in the direction of the Humboldt River Route. (This was designated as part of the Victory Highway in 1921.) One of the primary reasons for this change was commerce. If the Lincoln Highway was improved into Nevada, the Midland Trail, which split at Ely, could be used to reach Southern California, but there was no such branch off the Humboldt River Route. Thus Southern California-bound motorists sticking to improved roads would use the Arrowhead Trail through southwest Utah along the present route of Interstate 15, remaining in the state for about 200 miles (300 km) more. This position was solidified by Utah's decision in 1921 to place the Wendover Cut-off on its network of Federal-aid highways; the Lincoln Highway Association protested, but on June 6, 1923 the Secretary of Agriculture ruled that the Bureau of Public Roads could only accept proposals that the states put forth.^[2]^[4]

Diagram showing how the causeway was built

Utah added the road west from Timpie - where the Lincoln Highway originally turned south - across the desert to Nevada to its state highway system on August 24, 1915, and it later became part of State Route 4.^[5] (This road was several miles south of the historic Hastings Cutoff.) Construction began on October 1, 1923, and the new highway was opened on July 13, 1925.^[6] The 24-foot (7 m) wide causeway was built just to the north of the Western Pacific Railroad's route, using clay fill borrowed from the construction site. Experience and equipment from the Utah Salduro Company, which operated a salt and potash works along the route at Salduro (near the present rest areas on I-80), was used to dig up the fill. In order to allow for the passage of water, which covered the salt flats and mud flats in the winter and would otherwise wash out the embankment, 81 culverts and six full bridges were built of wood. The final 18-foot (5.5 m) wide surface, a layer of gravel, was hauled in on the Western Pacific from its pit 12 miles (19 km) west of Wendover.^[1]

Almost the entire Victory Highway became U.S. Route 40 in 1926, while the Lincoln Highway - which carried U.S. Route 30 east of Utah - did not receive a number in western Utah, and was part of U.S. Route 50 across Nevada.^[4] The final routing of the Lincoln Highway, marked in 1928 by concrete posts, ran via Wendover, but still turned south along what is now U.S. Route 93 Alternate to reach the Central Route at Ely; this was finally opened in 1930.^[2] The main transcontinental auto route remained on the Victory Highway through Nevada, and has been upgraded as Interstate 80. Neither pre-Wendover alignment of the Lincoln Highway through western Utah can be driven in its entirety, as the Dugway Proving Ground was established in 1942 across their path; the route across Nevada is now known as "The Loneliest Road in America".

In addition to US 40, the Wendover Cut-off became part of U.S. Route 50 after the Ely-Wendover connection was completed.^[7] It was shifted south to head east from Ely into central Utah in the early 1950s,^[8]^[9] and the old route via Wendover remained U.S. Route 50 Alternate until 1976.^[10] The four-lane Interstate 80 opened just to the north of the old two-lane roadway on December 7, 1969.^[11]