For more than a century, the routes now known as US Highway 61 and Minnesota State Highway 61 have captured the imagination of Minnesotans looking for views of rushing rivers and cascading waterfalls. Although the road has been renamed, reconfigured, and interrupted multiple times, it continues to serve as a vital transportation channel along the state’s eastern corridor.
At the end of World War I, a wave of economic developments changed the way Americans traveled. Improvements in automobile engineering and efficiencies in manufacturing made cars increasingly affordable for the country’s growing middle class. While the number of automobiles registered in Minnesota increased from 45,000 in 1913 to 324,166 in 1920, the state’s early roads were not built for automotive traffic. Most roads were little more than narrow, dusty lanes from the horse-and-wagon era, punctuated with deep ruts and inconsistent signage. Nationally, a populist Good Roads Movement called for collaboration among local communities, individual states, and the federal government to build a blended federal highway system.
In Minnesota, that collaboration began in 1920. Voters approved an amendment to the state constitution, authorizing construction of a statewide network of hard-surfaced trunk highways. The amendment, developed by Minnesota Highway Commissioner Charles Babcock, identified seventy trunk routes crossing the state. The route that Babcock considered most important—Trunk Highway 1—was designed as a border-to-border roadway from the Iowa state line near Albert Lea to the Twin Cities and Duluth, then passing along the North Shore of Lake Superior to the Pigeon River crossing to Canada. Much of this route eventually became Highway 61.
Work on Minnesota 1 began in 1921 with surveyors mapping the new road over footpaths and trails first traveled by Native Americans—particularly Ojibwe and other Anishinaabe people. Some sections were built over military roads laid out in the mid-1850s. Others were built adjacent to rail lines from the late 1800s. The road was constructed a section at a time, and a formal opening was celebrated on August 27, 1921.
While Minnesota was making progress on its trunk highways, officials unveiled a national plan that included a mid-continental route to be named US Highway 61. The new route started in New Orleans and loosely followed the Mississippi River through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It then entered Minnesota from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and continued parallel to the Mississippi River on Minnesota Highway 3, rather than Minnesota 1, as far as St. Paul. US 61 joined Minnesota 1 at St. Paul before continuing to Duluth and the North Shore.
Signposts were labeled US 61 and Trunk Highway 3 in the southeastern part of the state and US 61 and Trunk Highway 1 from St. Paul northward. In May 1934, however, the state trunk routes were fully absorbed into the US highway system, and the entire route from New Orleans to the Canadian border became US 61.
During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps completed projects along US 61, including a scenic overlook at the Cascade River and a refectory at Gooseberry Falls State Park. After a pause during World War II, President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported a comprehensive interstate highway plan. A network of divided, four-lane expressways was designed to skirt the country’s downtowns and congested neighborhoods. Three of the new interstate highways were proposed to run through Minnesota: I-90, I-94, and I-35.
The new interstate expressways were not intended to replace US or state (trunk) highways; planners expected drivers to use the existing state roads for shorter distances, and to rely on the new interstate highways for long-distance trips at high speeds. US 61, then, retained its route through the lower half of the state as far as Wyoming, Minnesota, where it merged with I-35. The two highways ran concurrently from Wyoming to the Canadian border until about 1990 when the US Highway designation for all of US 61 north of Wyoming was withdrawn. The US 61 route along the North Shore was turned over to the state, and MnDOT renamed the North Shore section Minnesota Highway 61.
Both roads—Minnesota 61 along the North Shore and US 61 in southeastern Minnesota—have inspired artists and writers. Bob Dylan recorded the album Highway 61 Revisited; Cathy Wurzer wrote Tales of the Road: Highway 61; actress Jessica Lange published Highway 61: Photographs, and Moose Lake’s Blacklock family produced multiple photography books related to the road’s path along Lake Superior.