End of historic US highway 466

Note: since I don't have access to a comprehensive collection of historical road atlases, much of the info below is based on the research of Robert Droz; click here to view his site. Photo credits: Chris Elbert; me

This was probably the first highway to actually be numbered "US 466" in the field. However, some maps from the earliest days of the US highway system show a different route 466; I have a separate page for US 466 [I].

US 466 [II] was commissioned in 1934. For the next 35 years or so, its east end was in Kingman AZ; you can view photos from there on this page.

The west end of US 466 was in Morro Bay, CA. The photo below is looking east on Atascadero Road, which is now CA hwy. 41:

Elbert, Mar. 2005

That shot was taken from underneath the CA hwy. 1 overpass. Before that freeway was built, CA 1 used to be routed along Main Street (the road running across the photo), and US 466 began on the other side of the stop sign. Ahead there's a reassurance marker, likely not far from where the first eastbound US 466 marker was once posted:

Elbert, Mar. 2005

Below we're looking the opposite direction (west on Atascadero at Main):

Elbert, Mar. 2005

The pickup is at the historic west end of US 466.

US 466 was only a little over 500 miles in length. From the time of its inception, it was multiplexed with US 91 between Las Vegas and Barstow CA (a distance of about 150 miles). In 1951 the US 93 designation was extended southward through Vegas to Kingman, so then that segment of US 466 was also co-signed (another 100 miles). In 1965, when California got rid of the US 466 designation in their state, the entire remaining portion of the highway (Kingman to the CA state line at Primm NV) was co-signed with other US routes. It didn't take long for Arizona to decommission their portion of the now-superfluous route, and Nevada followed suit shortly thereafter. Here's a photo from Primm:

me, July 2004

That's on northbound I-15; the green sign at left says "Clark County Line". From 1965-1971 that was the west beginning of US 466, and for about one year (1973-1974) this was also the south beginning of US 91.