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Welcome to Beaver State Roads!
My name is Jonathan. Simply put, Beaver State Roads aims to be your one-stop shop for information on Oregon state routes, highways, and other important roads. It was borne out of an earlier project, ORoads, which was originally hosted on Angelfire starting around 2002 under my pseudonym Jason of ORoads. Unfortunately, ORoads became all but abandonned in the late 2000s-early 2010s due to life and other things, and during that time both the site design and the information within grew stale. Beaver State Roads strives to correct the outdated information plus add in the wealth of additional knowledge obtained over the past 20 years, presenting route and highway history and data as accurate as possible.
📄 Pages
While I'll be adding more pages to the site in the future, here's what's available now:
- Pages on Oregon state routes:
- Oregon Route 2 🚧, what is now US-26 from Cannon Beach Junction to Portland
- Oregon Route 42N, rediscovered thanks to a 2016 AARoads post
- Oregon Route 64 — yes, you read that right — an extremely short-lived state route which became a westward extension of Oregon Route 140
- Oregon Route 127, applied to Cornelius Pass Road between Hillsboro and Burlington in 2020
- Oregon Route 132, applied to the Delta Highway in Eugene in 2019
- The first iteration of Oregon Route 231 from Oswego to Wilsonville, which may have only existed on paper around 1934
- Articles on mileposting and related signage:
- Mileposts
- A list of surviving concrete mileposts originally erected starting in 1924
- Bridge and Culvert Inventory Markers
- The "Mile 69 Problem"
- Mileposts
- A page of common abbreviations used on the site
Future articles will revolve around Oregon Route 6 and Oregon's mileposting system as a whole.
❓ How to Help
At present, writing these articles is a solo effort. Once I get some good information on here in the near future, the goal is to recruit additional Oregon roadgeeks as contributors. The decision to present this site in a wiki format was made with collaboration in mind. I don't have all the answers, and want to give people who may have those answers a platform on which to reveal them. Once I figure out some basic guidelines, I will extend offers as necessary.
However, there are other ways to help:
- What I prize above all is information. This includes (but isn't limited to) any documents, articles, meeting minutes, maps, photos, or other miscellany that may shed new light on Oregon's highways or provide a glimpse into the past. If you have anything about Oregon's highways that I can use on this site — especially historic or unique photos — please feel free to send it to beaverstateroads AT gmail DOT com. You will be given credit on the about page once I write it.
- That said, I will eventually figure out how to set up accounts for people to donate to assist the site. This is necessary because unfortunately, a lot of good information, including high-quality photos, are locked away behind expensive fees to retrieve and scan the data. For example, the Oregon Secretary of State's office demands $20 per high-quality scan of photos, and research time in the Multnomah County archives can add up quickly. Any future financial assistance I receive would be much appreciated, and I would make an effort to document where and how the money I receive is used.
- I may also need some assistance making this site mobile-friendly in the near future.
Creating the most complete history of Oregon state highways is a herculean effort, but with your help it doesn't have to be. Thank you in advance!
📰 Recent Oregon Highway News
- Why Alternative Interstate 5 Bridge Replacement Ideas Won’t Work (9/18/2022 — The Columbian — Vancouver, WA)
Nearly everyone agrees the Interstate 5 Bridge is not serving the region well. It would be catastrophically damaged in a big earthquake, it lacks breakdown and auxiliary lanes, it is not safe for pedestrians or cyclists and freeway congestion is terrible — heaven forbid you’re traveling north after 3 p.m. What people can’t agree on is what should replace it. - 🚧 Highway 58 Paving Project Moved to Daytime Hours (9/17/2022 — KEZI-TV ABC 9 — Eugene)
Paving work along Highway 58 is switching to daytime hours starting September 19th. This is along Oregon Highway 58 from the tunnel to milepost 70. Officials with the Oregon Department of Transportation said in order to get all paving done with the weather is good, they are switching work to daytime hours. - 🧾 🔊 How Freeway Builders Collided With Oregon’s Growth Management System (8/5/2022 — Oregon Public Broadcasting — Portland)
[Meeky] Blizzard had become the leading face of political opposition to a proposed freeway that would have run along the fringes of Washington County’s suburban fringe. Known as the Westside Bypass, the 20-mile freeway was ardently sought by the county’s business and political leaders. But their freeway-building vision clashed with Oregon’s pioneering new growth management system — those rules about where and how land could be developed.
Key: 🚧 = Road construction/closure information | 🧾 = Historical information | 🔊 = Audio version/podcast episode available | 💲 = Paywall | 💰 = Obnoxious paywall | 😡 = Other webpage annoyances
🌎 See Also
- Beaver State Blog, the blog companion to this wiki. Provides news and articles about past, present and future Oregon roads.
- ORoads, the site that started it all back in 2002. Kept around for posterity.
