Washington State Route 17 - History

History

SR 17 was established during the 1964 highway renumbering as the successor to three highways that were designated under the primary and secondary state highway system: SSH 11G from US 395 and PSH 11 in Eltopia to PSH 7 in Soap Lake, a branch of PSH 7 from Soap Lake to US 2 and PSH 2 west of Coulee City, and a branch of PSH 10 from Coulee City to US 97 and PSH 10 east of Brewster. The Coulee City–Brewster branch of PSH 10 was codified in 1931 as a branch of State Road 10 and re-codified in 1937, during the creation of the primary and secondary state highways; however, the highway was not built between Sims Corner and Bridgeport until the 1950s. The Soap Lake–Coulee City branch of PSH 7 was established in 1937 to serve as an alternate route to SSH 2F, avoiding the Grand Coulee Dam. In 1951, the PSH 10 branch between Bridgeport and Brewster was moved north of the Columbia River via the newly-built Columbia River Bridge on the present route of SR 17, as the old route through Bridgeport and over the Brewster Bridge became a new branch that was later signed in 1964 as SR 173. SSH 11G was also created in 1951, traveling north from US 395 in Eltopia through Mesa and Moses Lake to Soap Lake along existing gravel roads from the late 1930s, later straightened and widened in the 1970s.

SR 17 was originally a 144.27-mile-long (232.18 km) highway, extending south from Mesa to Eltopia when it was created in 1964 and codified in 1970, but was shortened by 7.60 miles (12.23 km) to its current route after US 395 was re-aligned between Eltopia and Connell. The new alignment, part of improvements to SR 17 in the Mesa area in the late 1960s, was approved in 1968 and opened in late 1979. No major revisions to the route of SR 17 have occurred since 1979, as WSDOT has improved the sections of the highway through widening and barriers. Within Moses Lake, the two-lane highway was designated to be widened to a four-lane limited-access highway between Pioneer Way and Stratford Road in 1997 and completed a decade later on October 8, 2007. The highway between SR 26 in Othello to US 2 west of Coulee City was designated as the Coulee Corridor Scenic Byway under the Washington State Scenic and Recreational Highways program in 1967 and under the National Scenic Byway program on September 22, 2005.