If you grew up around these parts, you may have heard of the Jefferson Highway, an early north-south auto trail that extended all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. A portion of the route went right down West Broadway, the main street of Robbinsdale.
Starting in Winnipeg, the Jefferson Highway traversed through Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana, ending in New Orleans—thus earning it the nickname of the “Pines to Palms Highway.”
The new “highway” was comprised of an informal network of “auto trails” that served travelers at the dawn of automobile tourism.
The “auto trails” were marked with colored bands on telephone poles. To navigate the route, motorists would look for the trail marker with a blue background and the letters J and H joined together in the center.
The route was officially named for Thomas Jefferson in 1915, two years before the Minnesota Legislature established a Department of Highways.
The Jefferson Highway in Minnesota
Charles Babcock, the department’s first commissioner, signed the official trail registration in 1917, recording and approving the Jefferson Highway route through Minnesota. Cities and villages along the route at the time included St. Vincent, Hallock, Bronson, Fulda, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, Bagley, Bemidji, Park Rapids, Wadena, Staples, Little Falls, St. Cloud, Elk River, Anoka, Robbinsdale, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Northfield, Faribault, Owatonna, and Albert Lea.
The new highway brought travelers to tourist sights such as Itasca State Park and the boyhood home of Charles Lindbergh near Little Falls. It also ran right by the stunning Minnesota State Capitol, which had opened to the public ten years earlier.
In Robbinsdale the Jefferson Highway route followed what is now West Broadway, passing by the roadside rest area that became Graeser Park and through historic downtown Robbinsdale, continuing along Bottineau Boulevard into north Minneapolis.
The original Jefferson Highway became the basis for parts of the US Highway System, which was established in 1926. A section of road from West River Road in Champlin to Brooklyn Boulevard in Brooklyn Park is still called Jefferson Highway today.
Highways before there were highways
The term “highway” meant something very different 100+ years ago. To be considered a highway in 1915, a road merely had to be wide enough for motorized vehicles. It could be anything from a dirt track to a roadway that was covered with gravel or compacted stone or, in very rare cases, paved.
In 1919 the Jefferson Highway Transportation Company was founded in Minnesota to provide bus service along the route. The company continues to operate as Jefferson Lines, offering intercity bus travel to people in the nation’s heartland.
The Jefferson Highway Association, originally formed in 1915 to help establish and eventually finalize the route, was reorganized in 2011 to promote and preserve what still remains of the historic highway.