Manitoba Highway 1 - History

History

The first provincial trunk highways in Manitoba were numbered in 1926. The original highway 1 was one of nine highways fanning out from Winnipeg, but was different in that it fanned out from the west and the east. Highway 1 was routed via many already-existing highways and provincial secondary roads. (From west to east), these are :

• Highway 1A into and out of Brandon
• Provincial Road 351 into and out of Carberry
• Highway 1A through Portage la Prairie
• Highway 26 from Portage la Prairie to Headingley

• Highway 59 from downtown Winnipeg to Highway 44
• Highway 44 to Whiteshell Provincial Park

By the early 1950s, Highway 1 had become an important east-west route in all of the western provinces. Most of the provincial highways that Highway 1 originally traversed on were re-numbered and designated as Highway 4 in the mid-1960s, and the #1 was relocated to its present route. In 1962, the Trans-Canada Highway in Manitoba was fully completed, and Highway 1 across all of the western provinces was incorporated as part of the Trans-Canada Highway.

In 1955, most intra-city traffic in the Winnipeg area was diverted onto the (then) newly-built Perimeter Highway. Later that year, the Perimeter Highway's southern (PTH 100) section was merged with the Trans-Canada Highway system, due to the amount of traffic using it to bypass the city. That section of the highway was highly used, and still is today.