End of historic US highway 295

Note: since I don't have access to a comprehensive collection of historical road atlases, much of the info on this page is based on the research of Robert Droz; click here to view his site. Photo credits: Chris Elbert; SRweb (WA DoT's web-based state route viewer); me

An original 1926 route, US 295 was decommissioned in 1968. During those 42 years it connected US 195 in Colfax to US 410 at Dodge (US 410 is now US 12, but that change took effect only about a year before US 295 died). The photo below gives a great overview of the historic south terminus:

Elbert, July 2005

The road in the lower right corner, winding down the hill to about the center of the photo, is WA hwy. 127. The car down at lower left is on westbound US 12 - that designation continues off the left side of the photo, but as you can see, traffic has to curve to a stop sign at WA 127. Southbound WA 127 to westbound US 12 is an uninterrupted movement. WA 127 used to be US 295, and that designation ended here at its junction with US 410 (although I don't know whether this intersection was configured the same way back then). Just off the right edge of the photo above is the sign shown below...

Elbert, July 2005

...and the sign in the distance is shown close-up below:

me, Mar. 2001

That's looking west at the south end of WA 127 - and the historic south end of US 295. It's westbound US 12 traffic (such as the dump truck) that has to stop and then make a left turn. Presumably that's because the majority of traffic coming through here is travelling between Spokane and Walla Walla. If the driver of the dump truck was looking straight ahead, he'd see the sign shown below:

Elbert, July 2005

It used to be US 295 beginning off to the right. The photos below show the former beginning of US 295, approaching from eastbound on former US 410:

Elbert, July 2005

US 410 continued to the right, up the Pataha Valley, while US 295 began by ascending the hills at left via today's WA 127. The signage in the gore is shown close-up below:

Elbert, July 2005

Eastbound US 12 follows an unsigned, one-tenth-mile-long WA state route called "US 12 Wye Connector" to join with the mainline ahead. You can see the beginning of old US 295 at far left.

27 miles north of Dodge, WA 127 ends at WA 26 in Dusty. From there, WA 26 follows the route of historic US 295 to Colfax. I found an historic photo that shows an interesting sign which used to be at the north end of US 295:

Russell Lee, 1941 (preserved in the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress)

At the time of that photo, the "Y" intersection at the north end of US 295 used to be broader and farther back than it is now. Today traffic follows the left fork visible above, and encounters a smaller "Y" behind the sign, right about where the word "Spokane" is. You can see this in the photo below, which is looking at the east end of WA 26 (and the former north end of US 295) at US 195:

SRweb

Downtown Colfax is about a half-mile to the right. The shot below shows the sign close-up (part of it got cut off, but I think you can get the gist of it):

SRweb

Those photos were taken in 1999, but sometime after that I think this junction must've changed again slightly - in fact, it may be back to using the larger wye shown in the 1941 photo above. At any rate, below is a more recent shot:

Elbert, July 2005

The photo below was taken from southbound US 195; it shows the signage where WA 26 splits off from US 195. To the right used to be the north beginning of US 295:

Elbert, July 2005

This last shot shows the historic north beginning of US 295 (to the left) from northbound US 195:

Elbert, July 2005

The green sign in the distance points left to Walla Walla and Seattle - which seems reasonable to me - but the use of "Vantage" as the control point on the nearer sign is interesting. For those who don't have a map handy, Vantage is on the Columbia River, right about where WA 26 meets I-90. But it's a good 140 miles away, and it's a very small town, so it's rarely going to be a final destination for anyone.