Pacific Highway (United States)

Pacific Highway (United States)

Pacific Highway is the name of several north-south highways in the Pacific Coast region of the Western United States, either by legislation officially designating it as such or by common usage.

Good roads advocate and road-building pioneer Sam Hill was perhaps the main motivating force behind building the original Pacific Highway as a "national auto trail"; from Blaine, Washington, on the United States–Canada border, where he would build his Peace Arch, through Oregon to the Siskiyou Mountains of northwestern California. The road was built in the early 20th century—long before the U.S. Highway System was established. In 1923, its 1,687 miles (2,715 km) of pavement made it the longest continuous stretch of paved road in the world at the time. The Pacific Highway later extended north to Vancouver, British Columbia, and south through San Francisco to San Diego in Southern California.

The Pacific Highway auto trail became British Columbia Highway 99 from Vancouver to the Canada–United States border, U.S. Route 99 from the border to Red Bluff, California, in the Sacramento Valley; U.S. Route 99W from Red Bluff to Davis, California, in the Central Valley; U.S. Route 40 from Davis to San Francisco; and U.S. Route 101 from San Francisco to San Diego. This alignment is now mostly Interstate 5 in California, except between Woodland, California, and Los Angeles, where it uses State Route 113, Interstate 80 and then U.S. Route 101.

In Oregon, Interstate 5 is now officially the Pacific Highway No. 1 (see Oregon highways and routes). First completed in 1923, Oregon's Pacific Highway was the first border to border paved highway west of the Mississippi River.

In California, Highway 1 named the Pacific Coast Highway or the "PCH" runs along the coast from Leggett, California (north of San Francisco) south through Big Sur to Los Angeles before terminating in Orange County. PCH runs along the coast while Pacific Highway runs inland. An old freeway section of U.S. Route 101 parallel to Interstate 5 near the San Diego International Airport is known as 'Pacific Highway' and is now locally maintained.