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When was Rte 302 designated Route 18?
From 1922 until 1935, much of what is now US 302 was a part of the New England road marking system. Route 18, from Portland, Maine, northwest to Littleton, New Hampshire , roughly 112 miles. From Littleton west to Montpelier in Vermont, US 302 and Route 18 took different paths. NE-18 took a more northerly route, along present-day New Hampshire Route 18 and Vermont Route 18 to St._Johnsbury,_Vermont likely paralleling Interstate_93 then along present-day U.S. Route 2 up to Montpelier. Current US 302 runs along a more southerly route using other former sections of New England Interstate Routes. From Littleton, it went along former Route 10 to Woodsville,_New_Hampshire then along former Route 25 to Montpelier. The entire Maine segment of US 302 was formerly designated State Route 18, a route that was established in 1926 until being deleted in 1935 by US 302.
ROOSEVELT TRAIL: The Theodore Roosevelt International Highway was a transcontinental North American highway, from the era of the auto trails, through the United States and Canada that ran from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. Its length was about 4,060 miles. The eastern end of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway and the part through Bartlett and Crawford Notch was designated US 302 in 1935, and is still known in Maine as the Roosevelt Trail.[3]
The highway was designated as a memorial following Theodore Roosevelt's death on January 6, 1919.[1] Michigan completed its section of the highway in the middle of 1926.[2] A 56-mile (90 km) portion of the highway over the Continental Divide through Marias Pass in northwestern Montana was not completed until 1930. Automobiles were carried over the pass in Great Northern Railway cars until the highway was finished.[4] Dedication ceremonies for the full route were held in Montana four months after the completion of the highway. The name fell into disuse after the 1930s with the 1926 designation of the United States Numbered Highway System that replaced much of its routing with numbered highway designations.[2]