{"id":19064,"date":"2026-11-11T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/?p=19064"},"modified":"2026-11-11T06:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T11:29:30","slug":"happy-birthday-u-s-numbered-highways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/happy-birthday-u-s-numbered-highways\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday U.S. Numbered Highways"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The eleventh of November is a very important day for a bunch of reasons. Most importantly, it is Veterans Day. We still observe a minute of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the armistice ending the Great War (World War I) took effect in 1918, even though the name changed from Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

November eleventh is also my daughter’s birthday. (Happy Birthday, Meg!) This might not be her most recent photo, but it’s a favorite. She is nowhere near as old as Armistice Day or even Veterans Day, but I am. The name change happened near the beginning of my second grade. That previous summer, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a confusing time for seven-year-olds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A third reason the date is important is that it is the day in 1926 that the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) adopted the United States Numbered Highway System. “Numbered” and “System” are really important words in that name. Of course, “United States” is pretty significant, too. It was the first time a collection of highways running throughout the entire nation was organized systematically.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chances are that if you are aware of that at all, it is because fans of one of those highways are enthusiastically celebrating their favorite’s centennial in numerous ways. In 2020, the U.S. Congress created a Route 66 Centennial Commission to study and recommend “activities that are fitting and proper to honor Route 66 on its 100th anniversary in 2026”. That commission is responsible for a website (Route66Centennial.org<\/a>) that, among other things, serves as a clearinghouse for a wide range of activities organized by individuals and organizations connected to the route.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That makes sense in many ways. US-66 is certainly the most famous of all those highways created a hundred years ago today. It really is the most famous road in the United States and possibly in the world. For many, including me, it was the gateway drug that led to an addiction to driving old roads, and it is a widely recognized symbol of heritage travel in general. For some, it is itself the ultimate addiction. Quite a few lifetimes have been devoted to documenting, exploring, or simply cruising the Mother Road.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet, I’m a little bothered by the intense focus on a single road. It’s not so much that the rest of the nearly two hundred U.S. Numbered Highways that sprang into being on November 11, 1926, don’t get an equal chance to celebrate their own birthdays. It’s that it leads to us ignoring what was actually the big accomplishment on that date. The AASHO didn’t just create an easier means for finding your way between two big cities. It created a system for identifying a path between virtually any two points in the country. To quote myself: Making it all about a single road is “Sort of like New Hampshire celebrating its independence \u2014 and only its own independence \u2014 on the Fourth of July.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The saying “All roads lead to Rome” implies that multiple Roman roads existed, but if pressed for names, the best most of us could come up with is the Appian Way. Maybe someday, when we’re all being teleported here and there or at least flitting around in flying cars, the only automobile roadway anyone will be able to name will be Route 66. Until then, I’m going to keep reminding folks that a whole bunch of roads were born a hundred years ago today, and that the big accomplishment wasn’t any one of them, or even all of them. It was the system.<\/p>\n

When this blog does have a post on Wednesday, it is almost always some sort of review. This post is special because it was obviously meant to be seen on November 11, and by chance that’s a Wednesday. I’m spending the day on a U.S. Highway in support of my regular weekly post. I’d love for that to be US-22, which I’ve lived near or under for nearly 60 years, but that’s a fairly major undertaking. Instead, I’m tackling a shorter U.S. Numbered Highway with an endpoint in Ohio. I plan to celebrate the day by driving the entire length of US-42 from north to south. Hopefully you can read about it Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The eleventh of November is a very important day for a bunch of reasons. Most importantly, it is Veterans Day. We still observe a minute of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[38,41],"class_list":["post-19064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event","tag-history","tag-us66"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WE0S-4Xu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19064"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19577,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19064\/revisions\/19577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}