>> Route Orientation and History
U.S. Highway 61, Minnesota - Route Orientation and History
One of the original U.S. Routes, U.S. 61 has been marked on Minnesota highways since September, 1926. Nationally, U.S. 61 once stretched all the way from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana on the south, to the Canadian border at the Pigeon River on the north. Locally, it served as the primary link between the Twin Cities and Duluth, two of Minnesota's largest metro areas, as well as between the Twin Cities and the historic river towns in southeast Minnesota along the Mississippi River. The route generally hugged the state's eastern edge, passing through every county along Minnesota's eastern border.
Today, U.S. 61's route through Minnesota is less than half the length it once was. The stretch north of the town of Wyoming to the Canadian Border has been retired, replaced by Interstate 35 and State Highway 61. The surviving section south of the Twin Cities through the Mississippi River Valley has remained an important regional route.
Route Orientation
U.S. 61's historic route through Minnesota can be divided into three sections, each with its own distinct identity and purpose (see map, right).
- The North Shore Drive (State Hwy 61)
The most famous section of U.S. 61 in Minnesota was along Lake Superior's spectacular north shore between the Canadian Border and the port city of Duluth. This stretch of the highway was best known as a tourist route, providing access to various state parks and other attractions. This section is now marked as State Highway 61.
- Duluth to Wyoming (Interstate 35)
This section of the route historically served as the primary highway between the port city of Duluth and the Twin Cities metro area (specifically St. Paul). It traveled through a string of small towns along the Northern Pacific Railway. It was replaced by Interstate 35, constructed in the 1960's and 70's.
- Modern U.S. 61: Wyoming to La Crosse
Modern U.S. 61 runs south from its junction with I-35 in Wyoming through St. Paul to the Wisconsin border at the Mississippi River between La Crescent and La Crosse.
The section north of St. Paul is a remnant of the old route to Duluth. It now serves as an alternate route to I-35 through the northeast suburbs of White Bear Lake, Hugo, Forest Lake, and Wyoming.
The southeast section, also known as the Great River Road, parallels the Mississippi River south from St. Paul to La Crescent, stringing together the historic river towns of Hastings, Red Wing, Lake City, Wabasha, and Winona. This section of the route is famous for its scenic views of the dramatic bluffs towering over the river valley.
Route History
Beginnings: 1850's - 1920
Most of the route that would eventually became U.S. 61 in Minnesota was originally constructed as a series of military roads starting in the 1850's. By 1858, federal agencies had constructed a road along the Mississippi River between St. Paul and La Crosse. A road was also constructed from St. Paul to Duluth along an alignment closely paralleling the St. Croix and Kettle Rivers, quite different than the route used by I-35 today.
By 1920, U.S. 61's future route had been marked as a series of motor trails - automobile routes marked and promoted by private associations. Practically all of the roads used by these motor trails were still gravel or dirt. Some of the roads, known as "state roads", were maintained by the Minnesota's fledgling Department of Highways (MnDOH). However, MnDOH was not yet marking routes or doing any extensive paving. These early "State Roads" were more akin to today's County State Aid Highways.
The motor trails that preceded U.S. 61 included:
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The National Parks Highway / Mississippi River Scenic Highway - On the River Road between La Crosse and St. Paul. |
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Yankee Doodle Highway - Winona to St. Paul. This highway, promoted by a group of Winona businessmen, was registered with MnDOH in 1918 during World War 1. It was probably only marked during war time (it is not shown on an auto trails map from 1920). |
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Mississippi Valley Highway - From a point south of Hastings (at the modern junction of U.S. 61 with Highway 50) through St. Paul to Duluth. |
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Mississippi River Scenic Highway (left) and the Scott Highway (right) - On the North Shore Drive (the Scott Highway was not registered with MnDOH). |
Motor trail Information taken from the 1920 Rand McNally Auto Trails Map and registration scans at the Minnesota Digital Library.
A surviving stretch of the 8-foot concrete road southeast
of Winona.
The only paved highway on the route was a nearly 7 mile concrete road leading south out of the city of Winona, ending at the tiny town of La Moille in southeastern Minnesota. This road was a narrow 8-foot strip of concrete, constructed between 1913 and 1914 by Winona County as part of the State Road program. The only other paved sections were on city streets in Winona, Red Wing, St. Paul, Duluth, and Two Harbors.
In 1920, MnDOH conducted its first concrete paving project along future U.S. 61: a nearly 5.5 mile long concrete highway constructed west out of downtown Red Wing to the site of the future junction with State Highway 19.
Minnesota's First Trunk Highway System: 1921-1926
In 1917, the neighboring state of Wisconsin not only created a highway department to secure federal funding for highway construction, but also created the first unified system of numbered trunk routes in the country. Not long thereafter, State Highway Commissioner Charles Babcock proposed an amendment to the state constitution to provide a state-maintained network of 70 numbered routes, known today as the "Constitutional Routes". The amendment was voted into law on election day, November 2, 1920.
In 1921 crews traveled Minnesota's highways, surveying for future improvements and construction. They also put up Minnesota's first route markers, which were gold with a black five-pointed star surrounding the route number. U.S. 61's future route through Minnesota was made up of portions of Constitutional Routes 1 and 3. Route 1 made up the portion between St. Paul and the Canadian Border. Route 3 made up the southern section between St. Paul and La Crosse along the Mississippi River. The two routes met at the intersection of 6th Street and Mounds Boulevard in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood on St. Paul's east side (the junction was eventually moved south a few blocks to Kellogg Blvd / 3rd Street in 1931).
A surviving stretch of 18-foot wide concrete south of Weaver in
Wabasha County. This concrete was laid in 1925 as part of the
construction of State Route 3, one year before U.S. 61 was first
marked.
With a constitutional mandate, MnDOH was finally able to start a major program to construct a modern trunk highway network. The most important routes were paved with portland cement concrete, including U.S. 61's route south of Two Harbors. Grading and paving projects began in 1921 and accelerated quickly after 1924. The early concrete pavement was built to a standard design, 18 feet wide. This standard was eventually widened to 20 feet after 1928.
The early highway construction projects had a few primary goals in mind, including shortening the distances between points with more efficient alignments, paving with at least gravel, and eliminating at-grade rail crossings. Since early roads usually paralleled major rail lines, they had a tendency to cross the tracks at unplanned intervals. This was especially bad between St. Paul and Duluth, where the old road paralleled the Northern Pacific tracks for a few miles, and then for no apparent reason crossed the tracks at a right angle, repeating this process again and again!
By the end of the 1926 construction season, MnDOH had already completed just over 175 miles of concrete paving along U.S. 61's route (see map, below right). The longest completed section started at Mission Creek (just south of Hinckley), and ran north through Duluth to the St. Louis / Lake County line.
Introduction of the U.S. Routes: 1926
Plans were begun in 1925 for a unified system of marked routes to allow for interstate travel and replace the old motor trails system. After nearly two years of planning and arguing, the AASHO (The American Association of State Highway Officials) approved the new system on November 11, 1926. However, Minnesota jumped the gun a bit and started marking its routes in September (according to a MnDOH press release).
MnDOH treated the new U.S. routes as a totally separate system from the the already existing state routes, assuming that the state routes would be used for local travel, and the U.S. routes for interstate travel. Thus, the U.S. 61 markers went up along side the already existing Route 1 and 3 markers.
U.S. 61 route shield on the same post as a Constitutional Route 3 marker. Photographer unknown, from my private collection.
On May 4, 1934 MnDOH conducted a massive trunk highway system expansion and reorganization. The U.S. routes were finally incorporated into the system, fully taking over the roads they had previously shared with the old constitutional routes. The redundant constitutional routes, including routes 1 and 3, were retired.
Completing the First Paved Highway: 1926-1939
As the 1920's and 30's progressed, MnDOH continued to pave and modernize U.S. 61's route. The first section completed was between St. Paul and Duluth, which was fully paved by the end of 1927. The other segments of U.S. 61 took longer to complete, probably owing to more difficult terrain. The southeast section from La Crosse to St. Paul was mostly complete by about 1930, though it wasn't until 1936 when the last concrete paving and other finishing touches were completed. The north shore drive was the last section completed, where the final asphalt was laid in 1939 through the Pigeon River Indian Reservation near the Canadian border.
Modernization
Starting in the late 1930's, work was begun to expand some of the most important sections of U.S. 61 into four-lane divided highways. However, only four sections were completed between 1937 and the outbreak of World War 2, limited to a total of about 8 miles. These included a bypass and short divided section at White Bear Lake, plus an upgrade of the highway at the south junction with U.S. 8 at Forest Lake, both completed in 1937. These two projects only totaled about two miles. (There had actually been two short divided segments constructed in the 1920's, one at Red Wing, and one at Hastings, but these had been urban boulevards, and not what could be considered expressways or long-distance highways).
The next two divided upgrade projects were conducted on either end of the highway between La Crosse and St. Paul. A divided highway along the Point Douglas Road on the southeast side of St. Paul was constructed between about 1937 and 1940, and was the longest divided section on U.S. 61 until after World War 2. The highway leading from the Mississippi River to La Crescent was upgraded in 1941, a project that was marred by the sabotage of a construction crane due to labor conflicts (this information from a MnDOT roadside structure inventory report).
The divided highway south of Winona, completed in 1958.
After World War 2, projects to bring U.S. 61 up to modern standards were started in earnest. The 40's and 50's saw the replacement of the majority of the concrete highways completed in the 1920's and early 1930's. Grades were rebuilt, driving surfaces expanded to 24 feet of asphalt, and site lines made longer. Junctions were improved, and several more divided sections were started.
Major divided highway upgrade projects included:
- The west entrance to Duluth from the town of Scanlon down the Thompson Hill, which was expanded to four lanes in projects in 1949, 1954, 1957, and 1961.
- An extension of the divided highway leading south out of St. Paul to Newport in 1949, and through Cottage Grove to the Mississippi River bottoms just north of Hastings in 1958.
- The highway on the west side of Red Wing between 1952 and 1954.
- St. Paul to White Bear Lake in 1953, with a slight northern extension in 1957.
- A bypass of the Winona area and the river road as far south as Dakota, completed between 1957 and 1958.
- The expressway between Duluth and Two Harbors, completed in 1967.
The Construction of Interstate 35
The current northern terminus of U.S. 61 at Wyoming.
The end of the 1950's saw the beginnings of the Interstate Highway System in the United States. The first interstate to meet U.S. 61 in Minnesota was I-494 at Newport, where an interchange was completed in 1959. However, the interstate system did not threaten U.S. 61's existence south of the Twin Cities. The real danger was the planned construction of Interstate 35 between the Twin Cities and Duluth as a replacement for U.S. 61's old, mostly two-lane alignment.
The first section of I-35 between the the Twin Cities and Duluth was completed in the Hinckley / Sandstone area in 1962. Construction continued almost continuously through the rest of the 1960's and early 1970's. The last section of the new freeway linking the two metro areas was completed on the Thompson Hill west of Duluth in 1977. As the interstate was completed, MnDOH (MnDOT after 1976) gradually turned back the old two-lane road and moved U.S. 61's onto the completed sections of freeway. I-35 and U.S. 61 eventually became fully synonymous between the town of Wyoming and downtown Duluth, remaining so from 1977 until 1990.
In the late 80's, MnDOT began construction on the massive downtown Duluth bypass, which was to be the final section of I-35 completed in Minnesota. As the project neared completion, MnDOT petitioned the AASHTO to retire U.S. 61 north of the town of Wyoming. The petition was approved in 1990, ending U.S. 61's 60 year role as the route between St. Paul and Duluth. The north shore drive was redesignated as State Highway 61 to retain a link to its historic past, breaking MnDOT's usual rule of not duplicating route numbers.
Further Improvements on the River Road
While I-35 was being constructed In the 1960's and 70's, MnDOT continued work to expand the river road into an expressway between La Crosse and Wabasha. This work included the construction of a section of Interstate 90 in the Dakota and Dresbach area, just north of La Crescent. The last section of the expressway was finally completed between Minnesota City and Minneiska in 1978, ending the work begun in the late 1950's. However, U.S. 61's role as the main route between St. Paul and La Crosse had already been usurped by the U.S. 52 expressway and its link with Interstate 90.
Traffic flowing freely on the new freeway at Newport.
Although U.S. 61's southeast section has continued to be an important regional route, several two-lane sections and bottlenecks at Hastings, Red Wing, and Lake City have hampered its usefulness as a through highway. Instead, the river road has taken on a role similar to the north shore drive, providing scenic views and vacation destinations for tourists, and access to niche businesses (antiques) in the towns closer to the Twin Cities, especially Red Wing and Lake City. Industrial areas along the Mississippi south of St. Paul and suburban development in the Cottage Grove, Hastings, and Red Wing areas have also contributed to U.S. 61's continuing importance. Improvements to better serve the increased traffic from the Twin Cities have included the extension of the divided highway on the west side of Red Wing as far west as Highway 19 in 1983, and west through the Cannon River Valley to Highway 316 between 1993 and 1997.
The largest recent project was the massive reconstruction and freeway upgrade of U.S. 61 through Newport and St. Paul Park, done in conjunction with the replacement of the Wakota Bridge (originally constructed in 1959 for I-494). Although U.S. 61's new alignment was completed in 2004, the interchange with 494 won't be completed until the new eastbound span is constructed.
Changes to The North Shore Drive
Since 1990, the north shore drive has been reconstructed in several places to improve notoriously dangerous stretches and move the highway away from a few sections of cliff above Lake Superior that were threatening to collapse into the lake. This required the construction of the only through-rock tunnels in Minnesota, one at Silver Creek Cliff, and the other at Lafayette Bluff. Other old sections have been converted into parts of the Gitchi Gami Trail. MnDOT's Ten-Year Highway Work Plan slates several more reconstruction projects along the north shore before 2013. The overall goal (according to the District 1 long-range plan) is to fully reconstruct the two-lane road between Two Harbors and Grand Marais. Recent fiscal issues have delayed some of these projects.
Future Changes to U.S. 61
The Hastings High Bridge, as seen in Oct, 2005.
The next major project along U.S. 61 will be the replacement of the Hastings High Bridge in 2010. Opened in 1951, the Hastings High Bridge's poor condition and fracture-critical design pushed its replacement date up from the proposed date of 2019, due in no small part to the collapse of the I-35W bridge in 2007.
MnDOT's metro district, in an attempt to reduce trunk highway mileage, has slated the remaining section of U.S. 61 between St. Paul and Wyoming for turnback by 2030 if finances are not constrained. This would eliminate the final section of U.S. 61's old route between St. Paul and Duluth. MnDOT would also like to turn back U.S. 61 in southern Dakota County between the two junctions with State Highway 316, which is the least traveled section of the route between La Crosse and St. Paul (Highway 316, which serves as a short cut, now carries the majority of traffic). U.S. 61 would most likely take over Highway 316's roadway in this eventuality.
Development near Lake City has begun to put pressure on the longest surviving two lane section between Red Wing and Wabasha along the south shore of Lake Pepin, causing MnDOT to begin looking into options for improvements (see the corridor management study here.)
