For the past couple of years, I've been researching the history of Oregon's Pacific Highway. The Pacific Highway existed from 1913-1926. It was known at the time as Pacific Highway No. 1 and is displayed on old road maps as ‘1’. When completed in 1923 as a paved road, it was longest continuous stretch of paved road in the world at the time and the first paved highway west of the Mississippi. Its northernmost point was the Canadian border at the Peace Arch Provincial Park and encompassed three states: Washington, Oregon and California, ending at the Mexico border in Tijuana.
In 1924, the State Highway Department placed numbered concrete mileposts starting at the Columbia River border between Washington and Oregon and heading south on the right-hand side of the road and numbered accordingly (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.). The last milepost was placed in the Siskiyou Mountains at the California border. This particular concrete milepost I recovered would be 286 miles from Portland/Columbia River when the Pacific Highway was fully paved, border to border and two years before it became US99.
I have even created a blog website with an article devoted to the Pacific Highway and the mileposts that still exist. In southern Oregon, I've been able to locate four mileposts that have survived and have created a custom Google map outlining where these surviving mileposts are located as well as guessing where ones I haven't recovered would be located. Thus far, with my custom Google map, I have placed a waymark point almost every mile from Hugo, OR to Central Point, OR. A green waypoint references a ‘found’ milepost. A red waypoint references an either ‘destroyed’ or ‘not found’ milepost. Of course, many mileposts have obviously been destroyed because of road widening over the years, particularly near and in city areas. A few may have been stolen by treasure hunters. And still more mileposts have probably been destroyed by landowners, road crews and even Mother Nature herself. I suspect there are a few hidden in shrubbery and other foliage (particularly BlackBerry plants) and perhaps a few lying in a ditch and/or buried.
When time permits I'll locate the other surviving mileposts that I know exist and waymark them as well. It's really exciting to be able to discover a piece of history that has survived for over 90 years!
Before Interstate-5 was built in the late 1950s to early 1960s, there existed Hwy 99 and before that there existed the Pacific Highway from 1913-1926.
Located along Oxyoke Road is a triangular concrete milepost No. 286 that was established by the Oregon State Highway Commission from 1922 to 1924. I located a wonderful website devoted to history of Hugo, Oregon and it contains online brochures of historical points of interest. One of these brochures is devoted to these mileposts. This particular milepost is referenced in the brochure and contains background information on these road markers and reads:
Gary Leaming, Spokesman for ODOT, said and ODOT historian (Pat Solomon) was able to figure it out for us (what these markers represent). "The short answer is yes, these are old mileposts from the days of U.S. Highway 99, obviously before the interstate system," Leaming wrote back. "In 1924, the State Highway Department instituted a system whereby permanent concrete mileposts were placed on state highways. "What's interesting is during the days of U.S. Highway 99, the mile markers began at the Columbia River and went south. So, milepost 286 is the number of miles from the Oregon-Washington border.
The interstate system changed that -- mile markers now begin at the Oregon-California border. Thus, Medford is at exist 27 and 30, Grants Pass at exists 55 and 58. Leaming also passed on a bit of trivia:
The practice of mileposts or 'milestones' date back to Roman times."
This brochure further explains the milepost markers and contains a couple of pictures of this milepost. A great piece of history has been preserved here. In addition, I also discovered a former auto camp location just a short distance south of this milepost and is highlighted here.
This milepost has been painted white (most likely from the landowner).