End of historic US highway 299

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

US 299 existed from 1934 to 1964. Its east end was in Alturas CA, at its junction with US 395. The photo below is looking east on today's CA hwy. 299:

Elbert, July 2004

That's where US 299 ended (although today CA 299 is co-signed ahead with US 395 for a few miles before branching off on its own again). If you were to continue ahead, you might notice a street sign like the one shown below...

Elbert, June 2005

...which is interesting because - although this is CA 299 - US 299 never made it west of the junction with US 395. Anyway, heading north on 395, the signage looks like this:

Elbert, June 2005

US 299 began to the left. Heading the opposite direction, Chris reports there was no signage alerting drivers to the fact that US 395 traffic must turn left:

Elbert, June 2005

...but if you miss the turn, hopefully you'll clue in when you see the reassurance marker just ahead:

Elbert, July 2004

That's mounted on a post which perhaps used to carry the first westbound US 299 shield.

The west end of US 299 was at its junction with US 101 at Arcata. Today's routes have a freeway-to-freeway interchange, but it was around during part of US 299's existence (and as far as I can tell, it's located nearly on top of what would've been the original junction anyway). So the photo below shows where US 299 used to end:

Elbert, March 2005

That's heading west, at the interchange of what is now CA 299 and US 101. On the exit ramp to the right, there is an "End" sign; it's shown close-up below:

Elbert, March 2005

Below we're looking north on US 101:

Elbert, March 2005

Today CA 299 begins to the right. The perspective there is the same as the one in the very interesting shot below (unearthed by Jeremy Lance):

As you can see, it was once US 299 that began to the right.