Washington State Route 11 - History

History

Parts of modern SR 11 have been part of the state highway systems in Washington since 1895, when a road from Blanchard to Whatcom County became a state-maintained roadway. The road became State Road 6 in 1905 and was named Waterfront Road in 1907. A survey of a north–south highway from Blaine to Vancouver was approved in 1909, and the highway was built as the Pacific Highway in 1913. In Skagit County, the Pacific Highway utilized the pre-existing State Road 6. Chuckanut Drive, a 20-mile-long (32 km) section of the Pacific Highway in the Chuckanut Mountains, was opened as a gravel road during the spring of 1916 and paved in 1921. The Pacific Highway became State Road 1 in a 1923 restructuring of the highway system, at which time State Road 6 was completely replaced. When the U.S. route system was formed in 1926, the Pacific Highway became US 99. In 1931, an inland bypass via Lake Samish was added to State Road 1 and US 99. The former route of US 99 on Chuckanut Drive became US 99 Alternate.

US 99 became Primary State Highway 1 (PSH 1) in 1937 and US 99 Alternate became the Chuckanut Drive branch of the main highway, running from Burlington to downtown Bellingham. A 1964 renumbering introduced a new system of sign routes that was scheduled to go into effect in 1970. As originally planned, the Chuckanut Drive branch of PSH 1—already US 99 Alternate—would be co-signed as SR 11. In 1967, Secondary State Highway 1F (SSH 1F) was established, connecting US 99 Alternate to US 99 via Fairhaven. During the same year, I-5 replaced US 99, leading to the removal of the US 99 Alternate designation from what would become SR 11. In 1970, the SR 11 designation went into effect, running from Burlington to Downtown Bellingham.

SR 11 originally continued northeast through Downtown Bellingham to a terminus at a partial cloverleaf interchange with I-5 just northeast of the downtown district. From Old Fairhaven Parkway, the route continued north on 12th Street in Fairhaven before turning northeast on Boulevard Street. The street split into a pair of one-way streets, Forest Street and State Street, south of downtown. Forest Street merged into State Street in downtown Bellingham, and State Street subsequently merged into Iowa Street soon after. From here, Iowa Street carried SR 11 east for three blocks to a junction with I-5. In 1987, the northernmost portion of SR 11 was realigned to follow the route of former SSH 1F, then known as Old Fairhaven Parkway.