Juab Valley

Let's head back west of the Wasatch for this post and focus on the far southern end of the main Wasatch Front corridor and a bit beyond. For this post, I'll discuss the history of the routes passing through the Juab Valley region, from Gunnison and Mills Junction up through Levan, Nephi, and Mona and on to Santaquin.

(By the way, you may have heard that "Levan" is named because it is "navel" spelled backwards, since it's in about the middle of Utah. While interesting, this is probably a folk etymology - a number of more plausible origin theories are out there.)

SR 78, which is old US 91, heading west (south) from Levan with the West Hills in the background. The farms and ranches seen here are pretty typical for this area.

The north-south highways through this area date back to the earliest days of the state highway system. The road from Millard County up by Yuba Dam and through Levan, Nephi, Mona, and Santaquin became a state highway in 1910. However, a 1916 State Road Commission report stated that the road from Levan north to Utah County was added to the state highway system in December 1915 - this may have been related to an improvement or maybe a realignment project. The same report states that in February 1916, the road from Levan south to the Sanpete County line became a state highway, connecting with a road running north from Gunnison through Fayette that had been added to the state system a year before. Federal aid to state roads began in 1917, and over the next two years a federal-aid project improved the road from Levan southwest to Millard County.

In 1919, the state legislature trimmed down the size of the state highway system to a short list of defined corridors plus any federal-aid projects. The Millard County-Levan-Nephi-Santaquin road, by now also part of the Arrowhead Trail, was defined in section A of the 1919 law. The Gunnison-Levan road, however, was not included in any of the corridors, and was dropped from the state system accordingly.

At some point in the early 1920s, the State Road Commission assigned numbers to the most important "trunk line" state highways, and the Arrowhead Trail state route became SR 1. The following map was made in 1923, after the trunk lines had first been numbered:

USRC, 1923.

In 1925, the legislature added the Gunnison-Levan road back to the state highway system, in a spur route added to section D of the state law (this section primarily designated the road from Arizona to Nephi via Richfield, Gunnison, and Manti). However, as it was not a major trunk line, it did not receive a number.

The U.S. Highway system was proposed in 1925 and approved in 1926; it designated essentially all of SR 1 in Utah as US 91. The next year, the state legislature overhauled the state highway system - they got rid of  numbered all of its previously unnumbered state highways: the Gunnison-Levan road became SR 28 at this time.

The original US 91 and SR 1 before it probably followed Old Yuba Dam Road by Yuba Dam (that's also labeled "Old U.S. 90" on maps, which is obviously wrong and was supposed to be 91). It may have followed the road labeled on Google as "First 91 Rd" for a segment south of the dam, though if it did it had been realigned by 1940. 91 went north from the dam and then turned northeast on Yuba Dam Road (labeled "Old State Rte 78" sometimes, which is also wrong) and on by the rail siding of Juab, turning east and entering Levan on 100 North. From there, it curved north and exited the town on 100 East, then continued on north and passed through Nephi and Mona along Main Street and The Mona Road. It then crossed into Utah County and entered Santaquin on 200 West, turning east on Main Street and then continuing northeast on Orchard Road towards Spanish Fork. Original SR 28 began on Main Street in Gunnison, passed through Fayette on Main Street, and entered Levan on none other than Main Street (!) and ended at 100 North at its junction with US 91.

Those original routes, as they appeared on the 1929 state map:

USRC, 1929.

So by this time, as had been the case back in 1925, US 91 was paved down to Nephi, and 91 and 28 south of Nephi were a mixture of gravel and improved dirt. US 91 was fully paved south from Nephi through Scipio by 1932. 28 was completely paved by 1937, far earlier than most state roads, which was a statement to its importance - it is perhaps the most important state road that never got a US highway designation. 

Looking at that 1929 map above, it does look as though it would have made for quite a long trek if you wanted to go from, say, Scipio to Fayette using state roads. Perhaps this is why, in 1935, the state legislature defined SR 160:

Route 160. From route 1 near Juab easterly to junction with route 28.

"Near Juab" would suggest an east-west alignment along something like Powell Lane, which is two miles south of Levan. But let's look at a map. The first map I'm aware of this route appearing on is the official state map from 1940. A screenshot from that is shown below:

USRC, 1940.

So right away, that rules out anything near Powell Lane, and "Juab" wasn't really a good descriptor of the western terminus of the route. This was far closer to the Sevier Bridge Reservoir (the official name for Yuba Lake). But exactly where? Let's look at the 1940 census enumeration district maps:

US Census, 1940.

That pretty clearly puts most of 160 along Old Botham Road, which even today is more or less the last through road between the I-15 corridor and SR 28. But per this map, not all of Old Botham was 160. Even though Old Botham Road was intact as a full connection by then, it appears 160 did not follow it east of the junction with Yuba East Shore Road. Rather, it went southeast, south, and southeast again, ending at SR 28 just north of the Sanpete County line.

That southeastward road appears to not exist in any form today. The lack of any sort of scar on satellite imagery where this supposed alignment of 160 ran is interesting - usually even with abandoned roads there is some evidence they once existed, unless it got flooded by a reservoir (which is not the case here). As a result, I do wonder whether 160 simply followed Old Botham all the way across to 28 and the census map is wrong. 

At any rate, several years later, US 91 was moved to a new alignment between the junction with the road west to Mills (unsurprisingly known as Mills Junction) and just north of Scipio. The bridge carrying it over the Sevier River was built in 1950, suggesting it was complete around then. (That bridge still stands, by the way, and is used by the I-15 frontage road.) The new 91 alignment was about two miles west of the old one, and bypassed Yuba Lake entirely where the old one had gone over the dam itself.

The new 91 alignment does raise the question of what happened to the west end of SR 160. Was it extended to connect with the new 91 alignment? Let's take a peek at a USGS map from the time:

USGS (Scipio North), 1952.

Answer to that question appears to be no. 160 was never a route the state particularly cared much for - even by the 1950s, it was still an unimproved dirt road - and the realignment of 91 was probably the final nail in the coffin. The legislature deleted the route in 1953.

At around the same time as all this, US 91 was moved to a new alignment bypassing Santaquin. This was probably built around 1950, at more or less the same time as the Yuba bypass. It appeared on the 1951 USGS map of the area:

USGS (Santaquin), 1951.

The old alignment along Main Street and Orchard Road remained on the state highway system as a part of US 6 (and SR 26 was extended east slightly to the new junction with US 91). But what about old 91 south of the town? It wasn't shown as anything on that map, nor on any other map I've come across...but 1959 state law included a SR 26A:

Route 26-A. From Santaquin on route 26 southerly to route 1.

That almost certainly was the old 91 alignment on 200 West and The Mona Road. Because it was a suffixed route, not much is known of its history, and there's a chance it may not have even been signed. I would guess it was probably created by the legislature in 1953, based on the huge amount of changes to the state highway system that happened that year.

Meanwhile, two small realignments were made on SR 28 in Sanpete County about a decade later. The first was in 1966 immediately east of Yuba Lake...

USDH, 1966.

...and the second slightly further south in 1972, which moved 28 to an eastern bypass of Fayette:

USDH, 1972.

That shift made Fayette one of a small handful of incorporated places in Utah without a state highway, as the new alignment fully bypassed Fayette's town limits. This is still the case today.

However, the bigger changes to the local highways during this time happened with the coming of the interstates. In 1962, a lot of state routes were changed around so that SRs 1 through 5 would be used as legislative designations for the interstates proposed to run through Utah. At the time, that changed nothing in the Juab County vicinity, since SR 1 was the designation for both US 91 and its replacement I-15, and the interstate would not be built in this area for some time.

Based on bridge data, I-15 was completed from the Utah-Juab County line north through Santaquin around 1967, and this segment was built either directly over or immediately adjacent to US 91. Since no interchange was built on I-15 where 26A had junctioned 91 south of Santaquin, that was probably the end of SR 26A. The west-side frontage road to I-15 (old 91) from 26A to a point about 2.5 miles south of the Juab County line was probably turned over to county jurisdiction at this time.

The next year, a whole bunch of changes were made in and south of Nephi with the proposed construction of I-15. In January 1968, the State Road Commission approved a resolution to move SR 1 onto the proposed route of I-15 between Juab (the bend in US 91 at the railroad directly west of Levan) and a proposed interchange with existing US 91 just north of Nephi. The planned interstate included interchanges at those endpoints and also at Experiment Station Road north of Levan and Elevator Road south of Nephi.

The plan was that US 91 between Experiment Station Rd and Elevator Rd would be removed from the state highway system. A new SR 41 was created for Main Street through Nephi, presumably also connecting west on Elevator Road to the I-15 south Nephi interchange. The remainder of old 91 between Levan and Experiment Station would become a northward extension of SR 28, while the east-west portion from Juab to Levan was designated as a new SR 163. That was all illustrated on this 1968 planning map:

USDH, 1968.

Obviously, these weren't to take effect until I-15 was built, which wouldn't be for some time... and none of this would have been signed, as these surface routes were all still US 91. Take a close look at that map, though, and you might notice that this wasn't where I-15 was built. We'll get to that in a minute.

In 1969, SR 28 was extended south as an unsigned designation for US 89 from Gunnison south to Salina. This was because the previous designation for that part of 89, SR 11, had to be truncated to the south to avoid an overlap on I-70 (SR 4). The southern terminus was defined as the I-70 interchange south of Salina...but functionally it was in central Salina until 1976, when that interchange on I-70 opened. Also, US 89 and underlying SR 28 originally ran through the center of Redmond. Those routes were moved to the current bypass in 1970, but unlike the Fayette bypass further north, the old route through Redmond remained on the state system as SR 256. Again, other than the Redmond bypass, none of these changes would have been signed.

Also in 1969, the State Road Commission officially moved the remainder of SR 1 between Nephi and Utah County to the proposed I-15 bypass. The legislative underlay for the segment of US 91 between those two points became a northward extension of SR 41, which had just been created to serve essentially as a Nephi business loop. At this point, all remaining segments of surface US 91 in Juab County were probably also signed as Temporary I-15. 

In 1971, the commission approved a resolution to transfer all of US 91/unsigned SR 41 through Mona and north all the way to the Utah County line to Mona city and Juab County. In exchange, SR 54 was created to connect Mona to an interchange that would be built on I-15. The map attached to one of those agreements was shown below:

USDH, 1975.

This segment of interstate and associated SR 54 connector opened in 1974 or 1975. The new interstate extended south to a point roughly halfway between Mona and Nephi, where a connector road was built to link the new interstate and old 91:

USGS (Mona), 1983.

It's closed to traffic now, but that connector road is still visible today.

In 1977, Utah executed a large renumbering that affected all state routes that shared a number with an interstate or US Highway, as well as those routes that served as an unsigned state route underlay for an interstate or US Highway. That affected two routes in this area. The unsigned SR 28 overlap with US 89 was eliminated, leaving the south end of 28 at Gunnison (where it has remained since). And SR 163 was renumbered to SR 78, due to the existence of US 163 in southeastern Utah. 

USGS (Nephi), 1981.

The 1981 map above shows the new SR 78 designation, extending from Temporary I-15 near Sharp east to Levan. (Yeah, I know there's an I-15 shield there, but that was still the original two lane US 91.) I-15 still was not open through southern Juab County, and because of this, the planned transfer of old US 91 to local jurisdiction between SR 28 and SR 41 had not happened yet. So for the time being, 28 and 41 simply ended at each other at some point just south of Nephi.

That I-15 segment would not open for several more years. The section of old 91 between Scipio and Mona became known as the "Nephi Death Strip" or "Levan Death Strip", as it was the last two-lane section that I-15 had not replaced from at least the Arizona line through the Wasatch Front. By 1983, it was finally under construction, as seen in the state map from that year:

UDOT, 1983.

Notice there were some pretty substantial differences between the proposal from the 1968 map and the road that was built. Most notably, it was built significantly farther west between Mills and Nephi, and it ended up bypassing Nephi to the east rather than the west. The segment would be completed by 1986, and was the second to last section of I-15 to open in Utah (the last one was from Tremonton to the Idaho border). Fun fact: this was late enough that it was after UDOT assigned exit numbers to all of its interstates. Unlike many eastern states which use or initially used sequential exit numbering, Utah used mileage-based numbering from the start. That meant they had to guess how long this Nephi segment would be in order to number all I-15 exits to the north, including through the heavily populated Wasatch Front metropolitan areas. Not an easy task when you don't even know the route of your highway yet. As it turned out, UDOT's guess was too high by about 3 miles, and so once the full interstate was mileposted accordingly, all of the exit numbers north of Nephi were between 2 and 4 higher than their corresponding milepost. They were all renumbered in 2005, mostly with patches that were stuck over the old numbers. Most of those signs have since been replaced, but a few do still stand. So if you see an exit number patch in Salt Lake today, that is why it's there, and it means the sign is older than 2005.

But back to Nephi's routes in the 80s. The western alignment between Mills and Nephi meant that old 91 would remain a distinct road between Mills and the eastward bend towards Levan, instead of being swallowed up by the interstate. The existing definition for SR 78 only included the east-west segment directly west of Levan, assuming it would end at the bend near Sharp. As a result, the 1986 Utah Transportation Commission signed a resolution extending SR 78 southwest along old 91 to the Mills Junction interchange, which was approved by the legislature the following year.

The other substantial change was that in the original plan, when I-15 was set to bypass Nephi to the west, there would be two interchanges between Nephi and Levan, with short connector roads to old US 91 a short distance east. There would also be an interchange north of Nephi where 15 would cross old 91. Instead, with the I-15 alignment east of Nephi, there wound up being only one interchange between Levan and Nephi, where 15 directly crossed old 91, and a new connector road had to be built from old 91 to the north Nephi interchange on I-15. Here is how that ended up looking after it opened in 1986:

USGS (Nephi), 2001.

SR 41 was shifted over to the new connector just north of Nephi and ended right at I-15; the segment of 41 on Mona Road between that connector and the previously existing I-15 connector near Mona was given to Juab County at that time. As the map shows, since there ended up being only one south Nephi interchange, none of old 91 was ever decommissioned south of Nephi. So what ended up happening was 28 and 41 came to end at each other at the south Nephi interchange (exit 222). Both were old 91, with 41 on the Nephi business loop and 28 on the longer corridor towards Levan. And speaking of business loop, the Business Loop I-15 designation was also applied to SR 41 as soon as the interstate opened.

Of course, two routes ending at each other is silly in a case like this where they're clearly the same road. Which is why in 2006, SR 28 was extended to the north Nephi interchange, absorbing all of SR 41.

Route Photos

SR 28

SR 28 begins with a four-line mileage sign. The bottom line is Salt Lake City, consistent with 28's role as a more important interregional corridor.

Reassurance shield with the San Pitch Mountains at right. They rise from the southernmost segment of the Wasatch fault zone, potentially overdue for a large earthquake. 

After crossing into Juab County, we'll enter Levan, where we will junction SR 78.

Turn left for access to I-15 south; stay right for I-15 north.

SR 78 begins to the left. Note the I-15 control cities. The junction is laid out this way because originally, the cross street was US 91.

Reassurance shield after we turn onto old US 91

Mileage sign leaving Levan, again with longer distance control cities.

I-15 is 10 miles away. Levan suffered from being bypassed by the interstate a lot more than other US 91 towns. 

10 miles later, after crossing the drainage divide between the Sevier Lake and Great Salt Lake basins, we'll reach Nephi. Stay straight for the hospital and city center, turn right for I-15 north to Salt Lake.

A pair of interstate shields with state name.

A lot of the newer generation of signage on this road uses Las Vegas as the southbound control rather than Cedar City, which I think is unfortunate. Perhaps they could use St George as a compromise now that it has a metropolitan area of almost 200,000.

SR 28 reassurance after the I-15 interchange, as we follow the historic route of US 91 through Nephi. This is also Business Loop I-15, but that's not signed from here.

In central Nephi, we will junction SR 132.

I-15 can be accessed either by staying straight on 28 or turning right on 132. Turns out it's about the same time.

SR 132 goes to Delta and Ephraim. In the 1930s, US 189 began to the right.

No reassurance or anything else of note before we leave Nephi. As we leave the town, we can turn around and see a rare instance of BL-15 co-signed with SR 28. Many interstate business loops in Utah tend to only be signed from the freeway. 

28 has another interchange with I-15 north of Nephi. The northbound control city there is "Provo / Salt Lake" which I think is the only control usage of Provo on northbound I-15.

SR 28 ends at the frontage road past the interstate, at the base of 11928-foot Mount Nebo.

SR 78

SR 78 begins in Levan on Center Street, which is old US 91.

We'll reach I-15, which replaced 91, in 9 miles.

Now well outside of Levan, we'll turn to the southwest to parallel the Union Pacific Railroad at Elevator Road. Originally, 78 was supposed to end at I-15 right about here, but the interstate ended up being built further west.

SR 78 rides along the embankment dam that holds back Chicken Creek Reservoir to the left. Now, "reservoir" is a generous word considering that there is rarely ever any water in it.

From there, we'll follow Chicken Creek around the bend to Mills Junction, where we'll reach I-15.

The typical long-distance control cities are used here.

Stay straight for I-15 south, turn right for I-15 north.

Turn left for I-15 south.

If you missed the last three signs, this one is for you. 

There are no services on the west side of I-15 - but interestingly enough, 78 doesn't quite end here. It keeps going for a bit longer.

The real end of SR 78, just short of the railroad tracks.

South Davis North-South Highways

This was a complicated post to write, so let's get down to business. Here, we'll cover the various iterations of the north-south highways between North Salt Lake and the Farmington-Kaysville area.

The original north-south route entered North Salt Lake along what's now US 89, then proceeded northeast into Bountiful along Main Street (note that involves a connection that can't be done anymore - we'll get to that later). After a very brief jog east on 400 North in Bountiful, it continued north through the rest of Bountiful and Centerville as Main Street, then entered Farmington as 200 East. The original highway then stair-stepped northwest through Farmington on 100 South, 100 East, State Street, and Main Street, then proceeded to the northwest along Main Street. It passed north through Kaysville and continued northwest on Main on towards Layton. (Notice how in almost every town it passes through, it runs along Main Street - this is usually a pretty good clue to the historic importance of a road.)

This highway was added to the state highway system in 1910, and was probably part of the very first state highway in Utah as it was part of the main north-south backbone through the state, and moreover was the primary road from Salt Lake City to Ogden - at the time, the state's two largest cities. It was also designated as part of the transcontinental Lincoln Highway in 1913, and some historical signage to this effect can still be found along it.

In 1919, the state legislature cut down a bit on the size of its early highway system, restricting it to a set of defined corridors and anything that had been improved with federal aid. Due to the importance of this corridor, it was included in section A of the 1919 law. When numbers were assigned to the most important state highways in the early 1920s, it became part of SR 1. And upon the creation of the U.S. highway system in 1926, it became part of US 91 and SR 1 became an unsigned legislative designation. Those last two designations can be seen on the map below:

Rand McNally (Utah), 1926.

Note that the whole thing was already paved even by then. In 1931, evidently due to high traffic on the corridor, the state legislature created SR 106:

From South Bountiful on route 1 northerly and west of route 1 to junction with route 1 at North Farmington.

That was the first major bypass in Utah, and I believe the portion from Farmington to north of Bountiful  was also the state's first divided highway. This western bypass split from the original route south of Bountiful and headed north along that city's 500 West, then continued due north to a point south of Farmington, then due northwest to North Farmington Junction, where SR 49 split off to run along the foot of the mountains to Ogden (that junction is at today's exit 397 on US 89). This bypass does not actually exist anymore north of Bountiful, as the modern I-15 and US 89 freeways were built directly on top of it. However, it is still intact through Bountiful, and it included a grade separation at the Bamberger Railroad - one of the earliest in the state. The railroad only lasted through 1958, but the bridge still exists and now carries a road (we'll get to that in a minute). It was originally known as the Parkin Overpass, a name that was still known by the 1960s but now is more or less lost to history.

Although the legislature created SR 106 in 1931, it appears the bypass may not have been fully built yet at that point. The first map I know of suggesting the existence of the bypass was on a 1932 map showing Utah's Federal Seven Percent System. I'm not familiar with what this was, though I assume it involved funding (if you know, hit up the comment section below). Regardless, it suggested there were two highways between Bountiful and Farmington:

USRC (Federal Seven Percent System), 1932.

The grade separation at the Bamberger railroad was not complete until 1935, so the new bypass may not have been fully opened until then. Whenever that did happen, US 91 was moved to the western bypass. As a result, SR 106 began its life entirely as an unsigned legislative overlap. SR 1 lost its US highway pairing between south Bountiful and north Farmington... but instead of becoming a signed route, it appears it was designated as Alternate US 91.

US 89 was extended north through the Wasatch Front in 1938, entirely concurrent with US 91 between Springville and North Farmington Junction (following a long routing dispute that I will detail in a future post). Maps disagree on whether Alternate 91 also gained a concurrent Alternate US 89 designation at this time. The cartography on the Utah state maps during the 1940s was not great - they suggested US 89 followed the old routes and US 91 followed the bypass, which we know from other detail maps to be wrong. Here is the 1940 census enumeration district map, which confirms this and also showed that the stair-step through Farmington had been realigned into a direct connection from 200 East/100 South to 100 East/State Street:

That map showed Alt US 89. The 1939 Utah official map showed the US 89 extension, but only had Alt 91 on the old route. Same for a 1939 Rand McNally Nevada-Utah map. But that same map printed the next year had both:

State Farm/Rand McNally (Nevada-Utah), 1940.

However, every other map made after that point that I have been able to find had the old route only as Alt 91. So Alt 89 may have only existed briefly in the early 1940s, and then it was decided that the additional designation was more trouble than it was worth. The Shell map below from 1950 has it only as Alt 91, and also does a good job showing how the bypass fit in with the surrounding roads:

Shell/Gousha (Utah), 1950.

Regardless of the status of Alt US 89, it is clear that SR 1 was signed as Alt US 91 from south Bountiful to north Farmington during the 1940s and early 1950s.

By 1952, the state had begun to build a western bypass of Kaysville, which would run from Main Street in south Layton (then US 91/unsigned SR 1) southeast to a junction with the existing Farmington bypass (US 89/91/unsigned SR 106). While not quite a freeway, this bypass used a similar four-lane-divided expressway cross section to most of the earlier bypass. It was under construction at the time the USGS map below was made, which again showed the older road as simply Alt 91:

USGS (Farmington), 1952.

In 1953, many route numbers in the area were adjusted to account for the construction of this expanded bypass, which would become a realigned US 91 upon its completion. The main thing was that SR 1 and SR 106 were switched, so that SR 1 would follow the continuous bypass and remain a silent designation for US 91 from Bountiful all the way up through Kaysville. SR 106 was placed on the old roads from south Bountiful to North Farmington Junction, and also extended north along the now-bypassed US 91 alignment through Kaysville to south Layton. Since US 91 would no longer intersect its original alignment in Farmington, Alternate US 91 was finally done away with, and all of SR 106 from Bountiful to Layton was a signed route. The remaining section of original bypass from west Farmington to North Farmington Junction remained US 89, but now needed a new state route underlay. SR 49, the existing designation for US 89 through northeast Davis County, was extended south to the US 91/SR 1 junction as a result. The new bypass was complete by 1955:

USGS (Kaysville), 1955.

This had the effect of moving the US 89/US 91 split about two miles to the south, creating the earliest form of Lagoon Junction in west Farmington. That was the first grade-separated interchange in Utah. Unfortunately, it has been completely obliterated by the modern form of that junction, which is the I-15/US 89/SR 67 interchange occasionally known as the Wasatch Weave.

The next change to these routes came in 1960. In December of that year, the State Road Commission shifted SR 106 west two blocks in Bountiful. Heading south into Bountiful, SR 106 now jogged west two blocks on 400 North (absorbing the easternmost part of what by then was SR 131), then went south on 200 West. South of the historic downtown district, it turned and followed the old Bamberger Railroad right-of-way southwest to US 89/91. That adjustment is shown on this map from the State Road Commission's resolution making the change:

USRC, 1960.

Remember that early grade separation we mentioned earlier? Rather than being torn down, it got repurposed into a grade-separated interchange where SR 106 now ended at US 89/91. Although the legislature approved that shift the following year, the Bamberger right-of-way road and its interchange at 89 were not complete until sometime between 1962 and 1965 per Historic Aerials. The 1965 HA image of the interchange is shown below (apologies for the watermark, but I don't own the image and I'm not about to drop money on a blurry picture from 60 years ago):

Historic Aerials, 1965.

A close look at that image reveals that when the interchange was completed, access was closed off between US 89/91 and the original part of Main Street. That persists to this day, and as a result it is currently impossible to drive the exact route of the original Lincoln Highway and US 91 through Bountiful.

However, between the time the legislature approved that shift and the time it was complete, a whole bunch of legislative changes occurred thanks to interstate construction. I-15 was completed from the Salt Lake County line and 500 West in Bountiful in 1960, and in 1962, the state redefined a lot of legislative underlays to accommodate the interstate system. SR 1 was shifted to follow the new I-15, so a new state number was needed for the portion of US 89/91 between its I-15 interchanges at Becks (basically the Salt Lake County line) and in north Bountiful at 500 West. The 1962 legislature created a new SR 169 to serve as an unsigned state designation for US 89/91 between those two points:

From Becks Interchange of I-15 Route 1 northerly to a point at Bountiful north city limits.

The "point at Bountiful north city limits" simply meant the 500 West/US 89-91 interchange at I-15 per the attached maps, and that language was rewritten in later years to indicate this more clearly. Here is a map from the resolution creating this route:

USRC, 1962.

However, the same legislature also redefined SR 106 to extend it all the way down 89/91 to the Becks interchange as an unsigned designation:

From Becks Interchange on Route 1 via North Salt Lake, Parking Overpass, Bountiful and Kaysville to Route 1 south of Layton.

It's sort of irrelevant, as neither the 106 extension nor any of 169 would have been signed, but this produced a legislative SR 106/SR 169 concurrency between Becks and Parkin Junction. This, to my knowledge, is the only instance of a legislative route concurrency anywhere in Utah at any point in history besides the I-15/I-80 overlap in Salt Lake City. Even US highways in the state today are defined as discontinuous routes if they have a concurrency with another more important route, with only one route on a given roadway. And what's more - this 106/169 overlap in Bountiful in particular was pointless! 106 could have easily maintained its signed ending at Parkin as its official endpoint, with 169 taking over the rest of the way down to Becks.

I wonder if the legislature ever realized they had defined both routes on the same road. They would remain that way until the unsigned underlay system was eliminated in 1977.

In 1966, SR 106 got extended again...but in the other direction. That year, SR 1 was moved to I-15 between south Layton and Hot Springs Junction, all the way up at the Weber-Box Elder County line. SR 106 was extended north to take over all of former SR 1 between those two points. That meant running northwest on Main Street through Layton, then continuing on State Street and veering north on Main Street through Clearfield and Sunset, entering Weber County and Roy on 1900 West, turning northeast on Riverdale Rd through Riverdale, then north on Washington Blvd through Ogden, then northwest on Harrisville Rd. But because this was all a legislative underlay for US 91, none of it was signed. The map below from the 1966 resolutions illustrates this switch:

USRC, 1966.

I-15 continued to be built through the remainder of southern Davis County in the late 1960s, and was probably finished by 1970 if not a bit earlier. Between north Bountiful and south Layton, it was built directly on top of US 91, which was concurrent with the new interstate through this portion. US 89 was and is still concurrent from north Bountiful to Farmington, where it diverged from 91 to the east.

In 1969, the portion of Main Street between 200 North in Kaysville and I-15 in Layton was deleted from the state highway system. Rather than leave a gap in SR 106, the state elected to transfer the portion of 106 from Layton northward to other routes - notably SR 84 (Main Street/State Street, 1900 West) and SR 50 (Riverdale Rd, Washington Blvd, Harrisville Rd). That particular change would not have produced any signage changes on the ground, as this would all still be US 91 for a few more years.

Apparently, the original plan for the north end of SR 106 was to have it turn west from Main Street onto 200 North in Kaysville, then proceed to the I-15 interchange. However, before that could go into effect, it was decided that even more adjustments needed to be made with the upcoming reconstruction of North Farmington Junction, where Main Street/SR 106 crossed US 89. Presumably due to high crash rates, the junction was proposed to be reconfigured such that traffic would not be able to cross US 89, and there would be no left turns from southbound US 89. In order to maintain full access between all directions on 89 and all directions on 106, the north end of 106 was sent west on Shepard Lane, which crossed 89 at a conventional intersection. The portion of former 106 between Shepard and US 89 became a new SR 272, while the part from US 89 through Kaysville to I-15 was given the SR 273 designation. That was shown on the resolution map from the following year - green beehives indicate the new numbers, while red ones show the former routes:

USRC, 1969.

Utah gained approval from AASHTO to move US 91 onto I-15 throughout the state south of Brigham City in 1971. I'm not sure how much of that ever made it onto signage, though, because only three years later it was entirely decommissioned south of Brigham City.

Utah finally did away with the unsigned legislative designations in 1977. As a result, SRs 1, 49, and 169 were decommissioned and replaced with their signed interstate and US routes, and the south end of SR 106 was truncated back to its signed ending at the Parkin Overpass.

That configuration lasted until 2001, when the city of Bountiful requested to maintain the nine blocks of 200 West from 400 North to 500 South. The Transportation Commission agreed to this request in February 2001. As a result, SR 106 was truncated back to 400 North and extended west along that street, to the west end of the approach to the Union Pacific Railroad bridge just past I-15. That entirely absorbed SR 131, which had run from that railroad bridge east on 400 North to 200 West. The portion of 106 south of 500 South, along 200 West and the old Bamberger right-of-way, became an extension of SR 68. The map below from the commission resolution illustrates this well: red shows the part of 106 transferred to local jurisdiction, green shows the extension of 106 over all of 131, and blue shows the extension of 68 southward over the remainder of 106:

UDOT, 2001.

That settled the south end of 106 for good (at least up to the point of this writing), but changes were ongoing at the other end at the same time. Back in 1998, UDOT and the city of Farmington had signed a cooperative agreement that would transfer all of SR 272 (i.e. Main Street from Shepard north to US 89) to city maintenance and remove it from the state highway system once a certain set of conditions had been met - mostly, once the state had paid for a reconstruction of the road to a 41-foot pavement width plus sidewalks, gutters, storm drains, and other improvements.

Those projects were probably completed within the next year or two, and it appears the city assumed maintenance responsibility at that point. But apparently nobody told the numbering people at UDOT. By 2001, as part of the general movement to upgrade US 89 to a freeway through Farmington, the complicated intersection at North Farmington Junction was being replaced with a standard diamond interchange (US 89 exit 397), making Main Street drivable as a continuous road through US 89 once again. As a result, there was no longer any reason for SR 272 and SR 273 to remain separate routes, and the Utah Transportation Commission - yes, the same commission that had approved deleting 272 from the state highway system in 1998 - signed a resolution in March 2001 extending the SR 273 designation south over what had been 272 to SR 106 at Shepard. That made it into the 2001 legislative descriptions.

Within a few weeks, Farmington found out about that resolution, and they sent UDOT a passive aggressive "hey, we want our road back" letter. So in June 2001, the commission signed another resolution removing all of what had been SR 272 from the state system, truncating the south end of SR 273 back to US 89 at North Farmington Junction. It has remained there since.

UDOT, 2001.

Route Photos

US 89 (Becks-N. Bountiful)

These photos are a mixed bag but generally are from April or May 2020. Any others that weren't taken during those dates were at least standing during those dates.

Heading north on US 89 from the I-15 interchange on the Salt Lake County line, we'll pass this speed limit sign with "US 89" in yellow on top. Never seen this before - maybe it's supposed to emphasize that 50mph is for 89 and not the bike path or frontage road to the right. 

Turning around for just a second to appreciate one of the very few remaining button copy signs in Utah.

US 89 reaches its first light in Davis County at Eagleridge Drive. This junction was reconfigured a bit in the early 2000s; originally this was the south end of Orchard Drive, which now goes through a roundabout just east of here. Orchard was a state highway at various points in the early to mid 20th century.

Another u-turn for a second, because it's interesting - trucks are not allowed on NSL's Center Street, so in order to get to the industrial areas on the western side of the city trucks have to go all the way to I-15, take the 2300 North exit, head all the way out to Redwood, and backtrack.

US 89 runs along the Bountiful-North Salt Lake border for a few miles. This type of signage is what results when highways do that in Utah.

Not far ahead, we will junction SR 93.

Turn left on SR 93/2600 South to get to I-15.

SR 93 shield on the street blade. Three cities meet at this intersection - the near left corner is in North Salt Lake, the far left corner is in Woods Cross, and the right side is in Bountiful.

 

Technically, the Bountiful part of this highway is named "Main Street". This is almost never signed for a couple reasons, though, in order to not give the illusion that it currently connects to the part of Main through downtown. All other signage for the highway in this area simply labels it as "Highway 89".

Welcome to Bountiful (that's the only such sign I know of, by the way). SR 68 will exit off to the right. On the other side of that concrete barrier is Main Street.  

US 89 veers left onto 500 West, still following the Bountiful-Woods Cross boundary and onto the 1930s Bountiful bypass.

This bridge was constructed in 1935 and I believe is the oldest grade separation on the Utah state highway system carrying a road over another road.

In about another mile, we'll come to another junction with SR 68, this time at 500 South.

Turn left for I-15 south, stay straight for I-15 north. Technically it may be faster to turn left here for 15 north, but that turn and the few blocks between here and I-15 to the west are not exactly fun during high traffic times.

Either direction is SR 68. Stay straight for 89 north.

Reassurance shield after that junction. From here on out, we either follow or closely approximate the West Bountiful-Bountiful boundary.

400 North another mile or so ahead is SR 106, which is not really signed from this direction aside from the street blade.

More street blade signage for US 89 ahead at the 1000 North light. North of here, I-15 was built right on top of the 1930s US 89/91 bypass, and so US 89 will default onto that for a few miles.

SR 106

Photos taken in either May 2020 (blue sky) or April 2020 (cloudy).

We'll begin heading eastbound on Shepard Lane in Farmington from US 89. SR 106 begins.

It isn't long before Shepard ends. 106 will turn right onto Main Street.

Reassurance shield after that turn as we pick up old US 91.

Park Lane is SR 225, which is not signed from this direction aside from the street blade. Turn right on that to get to a very messy interchange involving I-15, US 89, and SR 67.

106 on Main Street in Farmington is a surprisingly pretty drive

Turn right on State Street to get to I-15 south. It's also SR 227, but that for some reason is also not signed from this direction.

SR 106 will turn left on State.

Immediately after that turn, we'll veer right to stay on 106.

Reassurance after navigating those turns as we curve onto 200 West.

For some reason, part of 106 through southern Farmington is signed with a passing lane despite being a semi-suburban road with a 40 mph speed limit and a lot of traffic. Good luck ever using that.

Continuing our southward journey, we enter Centerville and get another reassurance shield.

True to its role as a historic highway, Main Street has Lincoln Highway markers scattered along it.

In Centerville, we will junction SR 105, which also provides access to I-15. 

SR 105 begins to the right on Parrish Lane, which would otherwise be 400 North in the Centerville grid system.

More street blade signage.

106 southbound reassurance as we head into "downtown" Centerville, which is much less of a historic district than Bountiful or Farmington

It isn't signed, but at Pages Lane we cross from Centerville to Bountiful.

Main Street is discontinuous at 400 North thanks to Bountiful's original downtown grid, so we'll do something original US 91 also did and curve to the west 

This driveway could be used as a shortcut past the upcoming red light if you didn't read the sign.

Now heading solidly west on 400 North, we'll pass Main Street. That isn't anything today, but original US 91 and the Lincoln Highway made a left turn here.

SR 106 reassurance after that light.

We'll continue straight through the light at 200 West. Before 2001, 106 turned left here and SR 131 began ahead.

This is a little misleading - although we do junction both of those routes, US 89 is the light in the distance and 15 is further out.

Perhaps the reason it's mentioned is that due to incomplete interchanges, you have to turn right on 89 if you want I-15 north.

Turn either direction on 500 West for US 89. Also check out the gas prices.

Shields on street blades abound here. Note the two Chevrons on the far side, one at far left and one at far right. The one on the right used to be a Sinclair.

One final reassurance after crossing US 89.

We'll pass the Ramblin' Roads Diner with its US shield logo. I-15 is ahead.

Stay straight for West Bountiful. Turn left for Salt Lake City.

Turn left for a ramp to southbound I-15.

Welcome to West Bountiful! Technically, we've been in it ever since we crossed 89, but most people think of it as just the part west of the interstate.

SR 106 ends at the bottom of the bridge approach. The intersection ahead is Onion Street.

SR 273

Photos taken in May 2020.

As we head east on 200 North in Kaysville under I-15, SR 273 begins.

Our first reassurance shield, oddly without a direction. Perhaps because we're heading compass east, but 273 is largely a north-south route.

This highway has one of those fancy new UDOT street signs with the route shield.

Turn right for a bunch of food, camping, and the Davis Technical College.

Also turn right to stay on SR 273.

No reassurance after that turn, unless it's behind the truck.

273 heads south on Main Street through historic downtown Kaysville. This is historic US 91 and the original Lincoln Highway.

Another fancy new UDOT street blade, this one at the intersection with 50 West.

273 heads southeast down Main Street towards Farmington. Turn left ahead for the Davis Technical College.

Fittingly, turn on Davis Tech Drive to get to Davis Tech.

After running along the Kaysville-Fruit Heights border for a bit, we'll come to a junction with US 89.

But first, turn right for 1075 West. We'll enter Farmington proper after that intersection.

Stay in the left lane for US 89 north; right lane for 89 south.

89 heads north from here to Ogden and south to Salt Lake City.

Although old US 89/91 continues ahead along Main Street into Farmington, SR 273 ends here.