Arrowhead Trail (auto trail)
{{short description|Former auto trail in California, Nevada, and Utah in the Western United States}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2025}}
{{use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox road
| country = USA
| type = Trail
| route = Arrowhead Trail
| length_mi = 853.4
| length_notes = Length of the original route along the National Old Trails Road and north through Searchlight, NV.
| history = Arrowhead Trails Association formed in 1916, and incorporated in California on December 7, 1916.
| direction_a = South
| terminus_a = Los Angeles, CA
| junction =
| direction_b = North
| terminus_b = Salt Lake City, UT
| states = California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah
| embedded = {{designation list | embed=yes
| designation1 = Nevada Historical Marker
| designation1_offname = Arrowhead Trail (1914-1924)
| designation2 = Nevada Historical Marker
| designation2_offname = Arrowhead Trail - Henderson
}}
}}
The Arrowhead Trail or Arrowhead Highway was the first all-weather road in the Western United States that connected Los Angeles, California with Salt Lake City, Utah by way of Las Vegas, Nevada. Built primarily during the auto trails period of the 1910s, prior to the establishment of the United States Numbered Highway System, the road was replaced in 1926 by U.S. Route 91 (US 91) and subsequently Interstate 15 (I-15). Small portions of the route in California, Nevada (Las Vegas Boulevard) and Utah are sometimes still referred to by the name, or as Arrow Highway.
History
Starting in 1915, auto racing champion Charles H. Bigelow drove the entire route many times to generate publicity for the road.{{Cite web |title=Arrowhead Trail (1914-1924) |url=http://shpo.nv.gov/nevadas-historical-markers/historical-markers/arrowhead-trail |access-date=2020-04-03 |publisher=Nevada State Historic Preservation Office}} State Historical Marker No. 168.
The Arrowhead Trail initially took a longer route via present U.S. Route 95 and former U.S. Route 66 between Las Vegas and Needles, California, as the more direct Old Spanish Trail was in very poor condition.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt0NAAAAYAAJ |title=Official Automobile Blue Book |work=Automobile Blue Book |year=1917 |volume=8 |page=501}}{{Cite web |title=Touring Atlas of the United States |url=http://usautotrails.com/CaliforniaPage/ClasonsCaliforniaPage/image1.html |website=Clason Map Company |access-date=February 9, 2009 |archive-date=September 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916015429/http://usautotrails.com/CaliforniaPage/ClasonsCaliforniaPage/image1.html |url-status=dead }}, 1925 The "Silver Lake cutoff", which would save about 90 miles (145 km),{{Cite news |date=1923-12-21 |title=Auto Club News |work=Van Nuys News}} was proposed by 1920,{{Cite news |date=1920-12-26 |title=Brice Canyon, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah |page=VIII1 |work=Los Angeles Times}} and completed in 1925 as an oiled road by San Bernardino County.{{Cite web |last=Nystrom |first=Eric Charles |date=March 2003 |title=From Neglected Space To Protected Place: An Administrative History of Mojave National Preserve |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/moja/adminhist/adhi2a.htm |publisher=National Park Service}}{{Cite news |date=1925-10-25 |title=State Takes Over Cut-off to Nevada Line |page=G12 |work=Los Angeles Times}}
Both the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and the State of Nevada urged the inclusion of the cutoff route into each state's highway systems, the former as part of the federal aid highway connecting Salt Lake City and Los Angeles,{{Cite book |title=Report of a Study of the State Highway System of California |work=California Highway Advisory Committee |publisher=California State Printing Office |year=1925 |editor-last=Arthur Hastings Breed |page=97}} and the California State Legislature did that in 1925,{{cite CAstat|year=1925|ch=369|p=670}} with it becoming an extension of Route 31. (Across the state line in Nevada, State Route 6 continued through Las Vegas to Arizona.) The initial plan for the U.S. Highway system simply stated that Route No. 91 would run from Las Vegas "to an intersection with Route No. 60" (which became US 66 in 1926),{{Cite book |last=Joint Board on Interstate Highways |url= https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Report_of_Joint_Board_on_Interstate_Highways_October_30,_1925 |title=Report of Joint Board on Interstate Highways, October 30, 1925, Approved by the Secretary of Agriculture, November 18, 1925 |publisher=United States Department of Agriculture |year=1925 |location=Washington, DC |type=Report |id={{OCLC|733875457|55123355|71026428}} |access-date=2017-11-14 |via=Wikisource}} but in 1926 the cutoff was chosen, ending at US 66 at Daggett, just east of Barstow.{{Cite map |work=Bureau of Public Roads |series=American Association of State Highway Officials |date= 1926-11-11 |title=United States System of Highways Adopted for Uniform Marking by the American Association of State Highway Officials |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_System_of_Highways_Adopted_for_Uniform_Marking_by_the_American_Association_of_State_Highway_Officials.jpg |scale=1:7,000,000 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=United States Geological Survey |oclc=32889555 |access-date= 2013-11-07 |via=Wikimedia Commons |name-list-style=amp}}{{Cite book |title=United States Numbered Highways |date=April 1927 |work=American Highways |publisher=American Association of State Highway Officials}}
The original routing south from Las Vegas to Needles later became part of US 95 in 1940. The new "cutoff route" was added to the federal-aid secondary system in 1926,{{cite news | work = Los Angeles Times | title = Silver Lake Cut-off to Get Federal Aid | date = 1926-02-14| page = G5}} which helped pay for a mid-1930s widening and paving, including some realignments (parts of the old road are now known as Arrowhead Trail). The new routing generally followed the present I-15, except through Baker (where it used Baker Boulevard) and into Barstow (where it followed former SR 58 to First Avenue, ending at Main Street, which carried US 66).{{Cite map |url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/CA/CA_125k/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040823215543/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/CA/CA_125k/ |archive-date=2004-08-23 |title=Barstow |year=1934 |scale=1:125000 |work=United States Geological Survey }}, {{cite map |url= http://cricket.csuchico.edu/spcfotos/maps/topo_search.html |title= Avawatz Mountains |year= 1933 |scale= 1:125000 |work= |access-date= November 29, 2021 |archive-date= July 7, 2012 |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120707204303/http://cricket.csuchico.edu/spcfotos/maps/topo_search.html |url-status= bot: unknown }}; and {{cite map |url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/CA/CA_125k |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040823215543/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/CA/CA_125k |archive-date=2004-08-23 |title=Ivanpah |year=1942 |scale=1:250000 |work= }}{{fact|date=March 2022}} It entered San Bernardino on Cajon Boulevard, then followed the route of Arrow Highway between San Bernardino and Los Angeles. This route is still called Arrow Route or Arrow Highway through parts of Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Montclair and Claremont as well as other cities between Irwindale and San Bernardino.{{Cite news|newspaper=LA Times |title=Traveling a Good Road in a Fine Car--Life Doesn't Get Better Than This |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-feb-16-hw-64676-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909215233/http://articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/16/news/hw-64676 |archive-date=September 9, 2015 | date= 2000-02-16 | first = Steve | last = Tice}}
The Clark County, Nevada sections of the trail are marked by Nevada Historical Markers 168 and 197.{{Cite web |title=Arrowhead Trail - Henderson |url=http://shpo.nv.gov/nevadas-historical-markers/historical-markers/arrowhead-trail-henderson |access-date=2020-04-03 |publisher=Nevada State Historic Preservation Office |quote=State Historical Marker No. 197}}
A monument to the Arrowhead Trail lies across from the north end of the Terrible's Hotel & Casino [formerly the Gold Strike Hotel and Gambling Hall] property's entrance in Jean, Nevada. It is from here that Las Vegas Boulevard begins and proceeds north to the Las Vegas Strip.
Gallery
File:Arrowhead Trail (1914-1924), Nevada Historical Marker No. 168.jpg| Arrowhead Trail (1914-1924), Nevada Historical Marker No. 168, in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
File:West end of the Vermillion Cliffs, looking northwest. U.S. Highway ^91 (Arrowhead Trail), main road from Salt Lake... - NARA - 520405.jpg| A 1929 photo of the Arrowhead Trail, now Old Hwy 91, about {{convert|5|mi|km}} west of Santa Clara, Utah. File:Close up of Plaque on the Arrowhead Trail Highway Marker.jpg
Current route names
See also
References
{{reflist|22em}}
External links
{{commons category|Arrowhead Trail (auto trail)}}
- [http://www.americanroads.us/articles/Motor_West_1917_9_15_9.html Arrowhead Trail article on americanroads.com]
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Category:Auto trails in the United States
Category:Historic trails and roads in California
Category:Historic trails and roads in Nevada
Category:Historic trails and roads in Utah