Oregon Route 64
Oregon Route 64 was a short-lived designation for the Lake of the Woods Highway #270 between OR-62 in Eagle Point and US-97 in Klamath Falls. Originally part of a proposed "Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway" (rejected as US-140 by AASHO in 1963), it was given the OR-64 number by the Oregon State Highway Commission on June 1, 1965 at the recommendation of State Highway Engineer Forrest Cooper[1]:
Because of recent improvements to the Lake of the Woods Highway, the Engineer recommended that it be designated as route ORE64. The Commission approved the designation as follows:
ORE 64 over the Lake of the Woods Highway, from its junction with the Crater Lake Highway, ORE 62, near Eagle Point, to its junction with The Dalles-California Highway, US97, in Klamath Falls.
-OSHC Minutes, 1965-06-01, pp. 34326-27
In subsequent months, Cooper would later receive a request to designate a single number for the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway within the state of Oregon. (The party requesting the single designation was not disclosed.) In keeping with the previous attempt at designating the highway as US-140, he recommended on December 14, 1965 that the State Highway Commission eliminate OR-64 in favor of OR-140, which had originally been designated on July 13, 1965 from the junction of US-395 and OR-66 in Lakeview to the Nevada State Line. This action also truncated the eastern terminus of OR-66 from Lakeview to Klamath Falls[2].
The Commission also approved the elimination of ORE64 previously routed over the Lake of the Woods Highway between Eagle Point and Klamath Falls.
-OSHC Minutes, 1965-12-14, p. 34514
OR-64 is one of the shortest-lived, if not the shortest-lived, state routes in Oregon's history. Because it only lasted for just under 6 months, it is unknown at this time if OR-64 was ever signed in the wild. It does not appear on the official Oregon state highway maps for 1965 or 1966 -- the Lake of the Woods Highway is unnumbered on the 1965 map and numbered OR-140 in the 1966 map. Also, no known 1965 commercial maps show the route.
