I just received two great photos from Mike Sebek of his grandfather and future uncles, the Johnsons of St Paul, on a family road trip in 1933 or 1934 at the old Pigeon River crossing between Canada and the United States on Highway 61.
Many thanks to Mr. Sebek for providing the photos!
For more photos and history of the historic Pigeon River crossing, see my article HERE
Jeff Wulke was kind enough to share the following photos of what is now Chisago County Road 30 (former MN 361, U.S. 61) between Rush City and Pine Creek, where crews have temporarily stripped away the asphalt to reveal the historic original concrete pavement from the 1920’s!! The concrete was poured back in 1927 as part of the first paved highway between the Twin Cities and Duluth, and was covered when the road was widened and rebuilt in 1954. As you can see from the photos, the old road is in remarkably good condition. This stretch was recently turned back to county authorities after remaining under state jurisdiction as State Highway 361 for many years after I-35 was built to fulfill a legal obligation dating back to 1921 to have a trunk highway passing through the city limits of Rush City, which has since been expanded to encompass I-35. Many thanks again to Jeff for the photos!!
The first of many new articles on historic U.S. 65 is now up over at the U.S. 65 project! I’ve been sitting on quite a few photos I took last year, and I thought it was time to let U.S. 65 get out from under U.S. 61’s shadow. The first article gives a photo-tour of the old road between Albert Lea and the Iowa border.
Over the last month, I’ve been adding photo-articles on the historic alignments and bridges along the North Shore Scenic Highway between Duluth and Little Marais to the U.S. 61 Project. In all, there are 22 new photo-articles to check out! The photos in the articles were taken in a two-day period back in April, 2010. See the links below:
Comments? Corrections? Questions?: Email Me At: andrew@deadpioneer.com
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