U.S. 6 – Roosevelt Highway

Route map of the longest highway in America.

[From the U.S. Department of Transportation Website]

“When U.S. 6 achieved transcontinental status in 1937, it was the longest U.S. route at 3,652 miles. It was not, however, paved the entire distance. When paving was completed in 1952, the news received national attention. On September 21, 1952, The New York Times noted that paving had been completed a week earlier in 100-degree heat in Utah. A planned 2-day celebration would “mark completion of thirty-three and one-half miles of arrow-straight asphalt pavement running from a point just beyond Hinckley, about six miles west of here, to Skull Rock Pass in the Little Drum Mountains.”

Though by the time the map was published, the route was officially named The Grand Army of the Republic Highway; the Roosevelt Highway Association (the publisher) had a vested interest in keeping the former name alive. Photographs and a distance table accompany the map in which U.S. 6 is boldly highlighted in red, stretching from Provincetown to Los Angeles (the extension to Long Beach is not yet shown).

The verso includes a detailed map of the route between New York and Bear Mountain Bridge to Cleveland, Ohio. Accompanying text highlights the forthcoming 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

Source.