U.S. Route 20 in Indiana - History

History

See also: U.S. Route 12 in Indiana and Chicago Road

An important road from 1900 to 1910 was the Old Chicago Road, later renamed the Dunes Highway. The Dunes Highway Association engineers envisioned the Dunes Highway a "state of the art" 40-foot-wide (12 m) concrete highway with a 100-foot (30 m) right-of-way. In August 1919, Commission director H.L. Wright tentatively designated the Dunes Highway as State Road 43, to be 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. Narrower than anticipated, the new concrete highway was still superior to most Indiana roads, which in the mid-1920s were gravel or dirt with paved sections only between the larger towns. Dunes Highway construction began in 1922 under the guidance of Gary contractor Ingwald Moe and construction engineer Ezra Sensibar.

US 20 was part of the first alignment of the Lincoln Highway in 1913 from the current SR 2 in Rolling Prairie to Elkhart, where the Lincoln Highway turned southeast on to current US 33. In 1926, the Lincoln highway was rerouted to US 30.

Between 1917 and 1926 the route from Illinois state Line to Michigan City was SR 43; this route was named Dunes Highway. At this time, US 20 from Michigan City to Ohio state line was SR 25. When US 20 was signed in Indiana, in 1926, the section from Illinois state line to Michigan City was concurrent with US 12 and the Dunes Highway. In the early 1930s US 20 from the Illinois state line to Michigan City was moved to its current route. In the mid-1970s Bypass US 20 (BYP US 20) went from US 31 to US 20, on the southwest side of South Bend. Until 1998, US 20 went through downtown Elkhart and South Bend. When the State of Indiana built the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, the route downtown was decommissioned.

In 2005 a series of sharp curves around Rainbow Lake were removed; the curves were located six miles west of Lagrange. A new straight roadway was built, from just east of SR 5 to just east of Lagrange County Road 600 West.