Highway Trip Books - Michael R. Newlon

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Being recently retired and the original owner of my 1969 Porsche 912 Coupe, I now have the time and means to pursue my lifelong interest in the US highway system that existed roughly from 1926 until the early 1960s.

One US highway that piqued my interest is US Route 6 (US 6), also known as the “Grand Army of the Republic Highway”. From 1937 to 1964 it was the longest (about 3,600 miles) of all US highways, connecting Provincetown MA on the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Long Beach CA.

The present western terminus of US Hwy 6 now intersects with US Route 395 in Bishop, CA. The previous routing (a general term) brought US 6 south co-signed with US 395 to what is now CA Hwy 14 north of Ridgecrest and continued south through Rosamond, Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita and into the San Fernando Valley (co-signed with US Route 99) on what is now San Fernando Road to Figueroa Street where Old 99 diverged on its separate way to the Mexican border at Calexico.

US 6 continued south on Figueroa Street into Long Beach where it turned east on State Street/Alternate US 101, now known as Pacific Coast Highway.

But where did US 6 officially end (or start) in Long Beach? Unfortunately, at this moment I don’t know and that’s where the mystery begins.

If you know (or are?) a long-time Long Beach resident, you may have additional information. Or, if you have any old (1940s or 1950s) photos, home movies or maps of Long Beach, they may help solve the mystery.

Some vintage maps show a US 6 federal shield on State Street (now PCH) east of Figueroa but west of Atlantic Avenue. Others show the same federal shield on State Street between Atlantic Avenue and Lakewood Boulevard traffic circle.

These apparent inconsistencies deal with the highway’s “alignment” (not the more general “routing”) that could be quite normal since federal highway designations in the last century were often changed for any number of usually political reasons. But I’ve found nothing to date showing a verifiable “End” to US Hwy 6 in Long Beach.

Also, there’s the matter of the “Grand Army of the Republic Highway” commemorative plaque placed on the Municipal Auditorium at Seaside and Long Beach Boulevard in May of 1953.

The Auditorium was demolished in the early 1960s and the plaque was relocated to the nearby Terrace Theater, now the Long Beach Performing Arts Center.

Since I’ve found nothing showing an official US 6 alignment south of State Street/PCH, I believe the Municipal Auditorium plaque has been placed (twice now) not at the actual end of the official highway alignment, but rather on a suitable public building in Long Beach. Others believe it has more significance relative to the actual end of the Highway.

Stay tuned because when I solve the mystery, I’ll let you know.

My 1969 Porsche 912 and I recently drove through western Idaho on our way from Mexico to Canada on US Route 95 (US 95).

Before reaching Idaho, I spent the night Winnemucca NV and woke up to see the 912 covered with early April snow outside my motel window.

The weather forecasts were good, though, so I checked my oil, packed the car and headed north beneath a brightening sky. After driving (at legal speeds, of course) through desolate but beautiful southeastern Oregon, I entered Idaho just north of Jordan Valley, Oregon.

The highway soon climbed into the mountains south of Homedale. I took advantage of a Scenic Viewpoint to photograph Boise in the distance and, in the same photo, what I believe was a previous alignment of US Hwy 95 far below me.

In New Meadows later that day, I again saw what Idaho highway travel used to be, in the form of an old (1920’s?) highway bridge now relegated to “city street” status. A newer bridge over the same creek was no more than a couple of hundred feet away. This was highway evolution up close and personal.

I spent that night in charming Riggins, on the banks of the Salmon River. The following morning, I stopped at the modern Salmon River Bridge north of Riggins. I couldn’t find the old bridge, or traces of it, in the narrow canyon so I suspect, unlike the old bridge in New Meadows, the bridge in Riggins was simply removed and replaced.

I continued driving north at a leisurely pace and spent that night in the lake resort town of Sandpoint. The next day I reached the Canadian border at Eastport.

After turning around to return to the US, another alignment of US Hwy 95was being born before my very windshield. An older (1950’s?) steel truss bridge was still in service while a modern concrete highway bridge was under construction just a few feet away.

While in Idaho, I enjoyed spectacular scenery and photographed evidence of what I believe are three alignments of US Hwy 95; the newest under construction and the oldest likely dating from the birth of the US Highway System in 1926.

Western Idaho contains enough scenery, history and excellent highways to satisfy any highway enthusiast. I’m spreading the word.

Change happens in our country so quickly today that most of us don’t seem to find the time to read about how we got here. Let’s face it. For most of us, reading history is not much fun.

But what about studying our past in a classic 1969 912 Porsche on our old highways?

Our highway history can not only be seen as we travel, but we can easily find old highway maps to help us.

I admit it. Unashamedly, I’m a Highway Geek.

Our U.S. highways reflect the history of our nation for the last hundred years or so and, in many cases, much longer than that.

Did you know, for example, that Interstate 5 in northern California and southern Oregon was largely built on top of U.S. Route 99?

And did you know that, in the 1930s, a large segment of U.S. Route 99 was built on top of the Siskiyou Trail?

And did you know that the Siskiyou Trail was the route used for hundreds of years by Native Americans to get from summer lodgings in the mountains of today’s southern Oregon to the rivers and relative warmth and rich agriculture lands in today’s northern and central California?

That’s real history if there ever was such a thing and you can see it by automobile if you just know what to look for.

Each of the USA Routes (numbered highways from the 1926 organization of federal highways in the U.S.) has its own storied history. For example, just about everyone has heard of one of our most famous USA Routes, “The Mother Road”, U.S. Route 66.

But what about U.S. Route 95? One of the original numbered U.S. highways in the 1926 federal highway plan adopted by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), highway 95 connects our border with Mexico at San Luis, Arizona to our border with Canada at Eastport, Idaho. This highway was started in 1926 and remains one of the most beautiful, and desolate, of all the U.S. highways. Yet it serves Blythe, California, Las Vegas, Beatty, Goldfield, Fallon and Winnemucca, Nevada, Riggins, New Meadows and the beautiful resort areas in and around Coeur d’ Elaine, Idaho and everything else along its full length of about 1,574 miles. This magnificent old highway was the subject of my second book, “U.S. Route 95”.

Old highway maps are your highway history “textbooks”. They are often loaded with historical data about USA Routes from border to border and ocean to ocean. Old highway maps are readily available from reputable “brick and mortar” used bookstores and on the Internet. Some can even be downloaded for free (if they are not used for commercial purposes) from the Internet or from other highway-oriented web sites.

Finally, I do a lot of my travel on America’s former and current USA Routes in my 1969 Porsche 912.

The original owner, the sparkling new 912 was delivered to me in June of 1969. It was a daily driver for a few years then, when I became too busy with life and parallel careers in the private sector and U.S. Army Reserve, I removed the battery and parked the car for about 25 years. (I should have completely drained the fuel tank, too, but didn’t. Oh well.)

In 2005, I retired from a career in private sector corporate management and from the U.S. Army Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel. That’s when I had the car taken to North American Racing Werks (German spelling) in Reseda, California to be prepared for its new life as a modernized, and even improved in certain respects (but not “restored”), long-distance highway cruiser.

Shortly after the car was finished a year and a half later in November of 2006, I took it on a “break-in” trip of about 3,000 miles from Los Angeles, California to Joplin, Missouri and back.

The eastbound portion was mostly on U.S. Route 60, one of the original 1926 AASHO U.S. highways, and the return trip was mostly on the much faster but less historic I-40, I-15 and I-10.

On the eastbound leg, during and after an energetic snow storm (the 912’s heater worked just fine) in and near Mountainair, New Mexico I experienced an “Ah-Ha moment.”

On a very cold January morning letting the car warm up outside the historic Schafer Hotel in Mountainair, I decided that the total travel experience on America’s old highways in a classic 912 Porsche sports car was a wonderful travel combination I just had to share with others.

And that’s exactly what I did.

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