US Route 466 Daughter Road Tribute Page: US Highway Map (1926)

1926 US Highway Map

Between the end of the Great War in 1918, into Prohibition, and then the Depression, the United States went through some of the greatest changes and challenges any civilization had to face. The author had a friend who, in 2003 was nearing his 100th birthday (sadly he died four months shy of that event), told a group that as a Riverside (California) Polytechnic High School student in 1920, a car came to town. Everything stopped. The schools let out early. Businesses shut down. Church bells rang. Riverside had a visitor who came from a long distance. The newspaper interviewed the driver and the occupants, all of whom looked very tired from the long journey in the open vehicle. It was a four hour trip (and you know they all had to relieve themselves). They were given the VIP treatment even though no one knew who they were or what they were doing. It was announced that they started out from Los Angeles about 10:00 AM and probably broke all kinds of records to make 60 mile trip to Riverside by 2:00 PM. Today, when there is no traffic, most people can easily drive from Los Angeles to Riverside in less than an hour.

A typical 1923 Los Angeles commuter...

Before World War II, most people did not own a personal vehicle. But the US Government knew that someday people would own their own cars. At first, there were marked routes across the country: They had names like the Lincoln Highway, the Old Trails Highway, El Camino Real, and others. The names were interesting but hardly practical. In 1925, a Congressional committee made up standards for a US Interstate Highway System. This was a voluntary project--each state would have its own standards. Some states would only have paved US numbered highways while others were satisfied with graded dirt roads (why would anyone want to be out driving during a torrential rainstorm, anyway?)

Looking at the map above (which is huge if you click it), you can see that certain highways we remember in history were not yet mapped. San Bernardino only had Route 66. It's not marked here, but Route 99 between Los Angeles and Indio was an east-west highway. Between Los Angeles and San Bernardino (on Route 66 and Colton on Route 99) the two highway ran parallel, about 1-5 miles apart. The two roads met in Downtown Los Angeles.