Lee Highway
Lee Highway | |
|---|---|
| Route information | |
| Length | 3,700 mi (6,000 km) |
| Existed | 1923–present |
| Major junctions | |
| East end | The Ellipse, Washington DC |
| West end | San Diego, California |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| States | Washington DC, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California |
| Highway system | |
The Lee Highway was a United States auto trail initially connecting from an eastern zero mile marker on the Ellipse in Washington DC to a western zero marker, the Pacific Milestone, in the center of San Diego, California — via the American South and Southwest.
Complementing the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first northern transcontinental auto route, the Lee Highway Association was formed on December 3, 1919; the route was inaugurated on November 17, 1923, and the association subsequently approved extensions to New York and San Francisco. Where the primary goal of the association was to improve roadways between Washington and San Diego, the extensions used existing developed highways.
By 1926, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) adopted the U.S. numbered highway system to replace named trails, and the Lee Highway was split, east to west, among U.S. 211, U.S. 11, U.S. 72, U.S. 70, U.S. 366, and U.S. 80 &mash; leaving numerous vestiges across its length of its earlier name and history.