Paul R has sent in a set of great photos of some old alignments along what is now U.S. 10 in northern Minnesota between the towns of Hawley and Audubon. <\/p>\n
First a little background. The road between Detroit Lakes and Moorhead was still gravel back in 1921 when it was added to the trunk highway system as part of Constitutional Route 2. Prior to that it had been marked as three motor trails: The Minnesota Scenic Highway, The Duluth-Fargo Highway, and the Mississippi River Scenic Highway. In late 1926 the road also became part of U.S. 10N (U.S. 10 originally had two branches between St. Cloud and Fargo, a northern one along today’s familiar route, and a southern one along what is now I-94).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Between 1927 and 1929 the old gravel road between Moorhead and Detroit Lakes was replaced by a 20-foot wide concrete highway.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1934 both U.S. 10N and Constitutional Route 2 were retired, and replaced by plain old U.S. 10. The first concrete road between Hawley and Audubon served until 1957, when it was replaced by the construction of the current divided highway.<\/p>\n
The map below shows the alignment of the original gravel road in purple, and the first paved road where it deviated from the modern highway in red. Nearly all of the original gravel road still survives today. On the other hand, only two short sections of the early concrete highway have survived, and are now used as service drives.<\/p>\n