Here I am in a basement storage room of the Carnegie Library on Aug. 6, trying to find the Pacific Highway through Albany in a map from the 1930s.
Eighty-six years ago, Albany had about 5,600 residents, and the Pacific Highway still ran right through the middle of town. But where exactly?
The question came up in the comments on a story July 24 about Elm Street, where the city is planning to renew the pavement and build new curb ramps next year. I mentioned that Elm used to be Highway 99E, also known as the Pacific Highway at the time.
“Don’t leave us guessing, Hasso,” reader Bob Melbo asked. “What was the original route of Highway 99E through Albany? Elm to ____ to _____?”
Another reader gave an answer. Quoting from a book on the history of Highway 99, Mike Strickling provided a route that, I now know, was almost exactly right.
I spent some time trying to hunt down local maps from before 1939. That’s the year the Oregon Highway Department built the “Southern Pacific Overcrossing” and rerouted the highway around what was Albany then. (Now we know that project as the Pacific Boulevard overpass.)
In a basement storage room at the Carnegie Library downtown, I found a few city directories from the period of interest. The rudimentary maps included in some of them showed the Pacific Highway as it entered and left the city, but not its route through the center.
One tentative clue was a little story in the Albany-Democrat Herald from Nov. 1, 1939. The paper reported on Halloween “depredations” the night before, which included “breaking fences and removal of signs. One of the signs removed was the Highway 99E sign at Sixth and Washington streets.”
The definitive answer came from Mindy McCartt, the public information officer for this region in the Oregon Department of Transportation.
She checked with the department’s historian and passed along copies of old Highway Department right-of-way maps. The maps were originally from 1925 but were amended in 1940. They showed the new route, via the overpass, but also the old one through town that was, according to the maps, “abandoned to the city.”
The maps show that before 1940, from the south the highway went straight up Elm Street (instead of veering eastward as now). Then from Elm, it turned right on Sixth, left on Washington (where pranksters stole the sign in 1939), right on First, right again on Main, and left on what now is Salem Avenue, heading out of town on the way to Jefferson.
On the ground, no traces are left of the old highway right-of-way through Albany.
In 2022, Albany vacated a short section of Elm that had been part of the highway. The section had been unused for decades except as a driveway.
For decades now, the northbound entrance to West Albany has been via 24th Avenue and then Elm. A simple sign points the way, but as you can see below, it’s in need of repairs. (hh)
This map in a city directory from 1939 shows the Pacific Highway, which now is Salem Avenue.
This July 24, the modern sign pointing to West Albany from northbound 99E needed a little work.
Everett and Neosha Fisher (co-owners of Fisher Funeral Home) lived at 606 Washington Street. On the Sixth Avenue side of their corner lot they installed four pillars which are still standing today. They were created to protect their young daughters, Martha and Alice, as motorists made the turn from Sixth to Washington on the highway route. Alice Fisher Kropp told me this story many years ago. Thank you Hasso for this description of the old highway through our community.
Sure enough! Thanks for the trivia, Kim. You can see those four pillars on Google here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.6329258,-123.1093324,3a,75y,204.27h,88.41t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKNpukmmzi3bhg8ggdAVnIw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D1.586723567438014%26panoid%3DKNpukmmzi3bhg8ggdAVnIw%26yaw%3D204.2675029601865!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Hasso, your extensive research confirms what I indicated to you earlier about the route of Highway 99E originally through downtown Albany—1st Avenue to Washington Street, 6th Ave to Elm Street, then south past Liberty Street. Thanks for your confirmation.
Very Interesting. Thanks, Hasso, for your research. Is the Willamette River at the top of the old map from The City Directory of 1939? I see a River Street up there, so it must be.
Thanks, Hasso! Very interesting piece of history.
Indeed, the bollards at 6th & Washington date to that time when the corner was part of 99E. When the bypass was opened to traffic, the old north entrance to Albany (Salem Ave) was briefly closed as part of the dam/bridge construction that would create Waverly Lake.
This map shows it going down 9th, not 6th. Curious.
https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/albany_or_1917.jpg
Interesting. Maybe the route changed over time. Would be good to know the date of this map.
Pic. shows date of 1917
That’s what you miss when you squint at a photo on your phone.
Very interesting to see! That West Albany sign has been like that for awhile. Hasso, do you happen to know when they are going to replace it?
The 1917 map also shows that S.W. Calapooia Street led to the only road bridge over the Willamette River for travel to Corvallis. Thanks for running this down, Hasso.
99E no longer runs through Jefferson. It runs concurrent with I-5 northbound at the South Jefferson / scio exit. I think 164 is the new state highway number through Jefferson