Wisconsin Highway 57 - History

History

When the Wisconsin State Highway system was laid out in 1918, WIS 57 ran from Racine north to Milwaukee along a route that later became U.S. Route 41 and is now Wisconsin Highway 241. By 1921, WIS 57 had been significantly expanded. It was extended northward from Milwaukee to Green Bay along what is generally its present-day route and southward from Racine to the Illinois state line. WIS 57 grew even more in 1923, when the state extended the highway northward from Green Bay to the Michigan state line. However, WIS 57 did not keep this alignment for very long. In 1927, when the U.S. Highway System was established in Wisconsin, WIS 57 was shortened at both ends. The section between Green Bay and Michigan became U.S. Route 141, and the section south of Milwaukee became part of US 41.

WIS 57 replaced WIS 78 in the Door Peninsula in 1930, reaching its present-day terminus in Sister Bay. This routing from Milwaukee to Sister Bay stayed mostly the same until the 1990s, with a few minor exceptions. WIS 57 was rerouted onto its current alignment between Hilbert and Askeaton in 1932, replacing a former routing to Hollandtown; the original routing was replaced by county roads. The highway was also realigned between Plymouth and Kiel in 1956, and the former route became part of WIS 67.

When the federal government was planning the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, Wisconsin proposed that the WIS 57 corridor become the route of an interstate highway. The state wanted an interstate to connect Milwaukee and Green Bay, two of Wisconsin's largest cities. Their plan chose the WIS 57 route over the nearby US 41 and US 141 corridors; the state did not want the interstate's route to favor either the port cities of Manitowoc and Sheboygan or the inland cities of Appleton, Fond du Lac and Oshkosh. Wisconsin wanted to designate the highway as Interstate 57 to preserve the highway's number; while this numbering would have fit in the west–east Interstate number scheme, an Interstate 57 was already planned in Illinois and Missouri. The state's proposal was ultimately rejected, and Interstate 43 was built on the US 141 corridor along the lakeshore instead.

WisDOT rerouted WIS 57 in south Ozaukee County during the early 1990s in response to local municipalities who complained about heavy traffic on the road. This realignment signed the highway along WIS 167 and Interstate 43 to avoid entering the downtown areas of Mequon, Thiensville, Grafton and Cedarburg. WIS 57's former routing became a municipal road. This realignment plan also turned WIS 143 over to the county and extended WIS 181 northward from WIS 167 to WIS 60.

A WisDOT project rebuilt and widened the stretch of WIS 57 between WIS 54 and WIS 42, between Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay, a primary route to the Door Peninsula, to four lanes between 1999 and 2008. This section had been a two-lane highway, but traffic during the vacation season caused long delays and made an expansion necessary. The heavy traffic also resulted in the deaths of eighteen people on this section between 1994 and 1997, earning the highway the nickname "Bloody Route 57" among locals. The project began in 1999 when the interchange between WIS 54 and WIS 57 was rebuilt as Phase I of the project. Phase 2 widened WIS 57 to four lanes on the 8 miles (13 km) between WIS 54 and Dyckesville during 2002 and 2003. The first section of four-lane road officially opened on December 2, 2003. WisDOT then began Phase 3 of the project, which widened the rest of the highway through the WIS 42 junction. The first part of this phase, a 6-mile (9.7 km) bypass of Dyckesville that reached the Door-Kewaunee county line, opened on December 1, 2006. The entire project was completed on October 6, 2008, when the last 11-mile (18 km) section near Sturgeon Bay was officially opened.