US 99 Seattle to Portland 1944 Revisited via Dashcam 040514

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• published: 04 May 2014
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Before we had the Interstate Highway System, the US Highways were the 'Inter-state' highways from the 1920's until the Interstates first appeared in the late 1950's and though these highways still exist, many US highways slowly were phased out, as redundant to the newer limited access highways they were often adjacent to. So on April 5, 2014, I made this road trip this road trip from Seattle to Portland as if you were to drive the route of US 99 (and Oregon US 99 West into Portland) from 70 years ago - and captured over 1 1/2 hours of scenes with my HP f200 dash cam. At that time, US 99 (and until the mid 1960's) was the main north - south route connecting major cities along the Pacific Coast States, from the Canadian border at Blaine, WA to Mexicali, CA on the Mexican border - and basically was replaced by Interstate 5, except from Los Angeles to San Diego, which was US 101 then. 1944 was when you still drove through any good size cities ranging in size from Kelso to Seattle - and through their downtown areas (with Tacoma being the exception here). US 99 was at that time a mostly 2 lane highway between Tumwater and Woodland - and with WW II going on then, the 4-lane highway replacements were put on hold - and you just didn't hop in the car and go - gas rationing was enforced. But after the war, the cities along the way were one by one being bypassed by more modern (for the times) highways, by the mid 1950's all the 2 lane sections of US 99 between Seattle and Portland were moved to the newer 4-lane highways. Around that same time, the Interstate Highways were started and by the late 1960's, most of I-5 was completed - and when the newer bypass around the late 1940's 'super highway' at Kelso was done in the early 1980's, the route you take today from Seattle to Portland hasn't changed, but there have been constant upgrades (as funding is allowed). In 1944, the Seattle to Portland US 99 was around 193 miles, while today's I-5 is about 175 miles. But US 99 of 1944 bears little resemblence to I-5 of today, although they share less about 36 miles of the same right of way, only a few bridges remain (noted in this video) on I-5 that existed in 1944. I have on the screen, as being viewed, the current street, road or highway name of that particular part of US 99 of 1944 on that particular scene. You can see how much of the urban and suburban areas along the 'Old 99' have developed into major 'strips' with all sorts of businesses, while much of the old 2 lane highway has stayed, for the most part, very rural or 'small town USA'. *Please forgive me if did not spell correctly or have my facts 100% in order. Editing this took a while and a particular font gave me some trouble (example - the 'R' is missing from Vancouver). Due to the lack of proper software, I had to convert formats and the quality suffered as well, so this video appears a bit rough and inserted titles and comments can be hard to read.* The vehicle that the dash cam views over the hood of is my 2004 Ford Ranger. It would have been cool to have a restored version of the '41 Ford Pickup that my dad had when I was a youngster, for a more realistic drivers view from thoses times. My source here for information was my personal knowledge, listening to folks from that generation of 1944, consulting old maps, but also a big thanks to Bill Watson of the Cowlitz County Historical Museum for his help in connecting the biggest piece of this US 99 route puzzle! *Also, on a personal notation: The scene from Old Highway 99 SW in Thurston County just before the crossing of I-5, before Grand Mound, my grandparents lived on the road just to the right as that scene ends. They moved there during WW II and were there into the mid 1970's. When the state built the 'new' US 99 (now I-5) in the early 1950's, they puchased the right of way (via 'eminent domain') through the then 20 acres my grandparents had at that time, plus Grandad got a job building that part of the freeway as well! *Since I posted this video, I had a chat with my mom, who is 82 years old, pretty sharp and grew up at my grandparents place I mentioned in the previous paragraph from 1942 to 1952 - knew the Centralia - Chehalis area quite well. She, according to her thoughts, made a couple of corrections: 1- When you drove south on US 99 in Centralia, instead of turning right from Main onto Pearl St., you turned right on then a 2-way Tower Ave., then left at Chestnut St. 2 - She said that when you drove into Chehalis on National Ave, you made a left onto Market instead of the way I drove onto Front Ave., Pacific Ave., Park Ave. and then Market. I had read that the way I drove was southbound US 99 then, so I'll just have to accept who I drove this may have been it ( or a small detour). So please enjoy this, sort of, virtual tour. This is my first epic YouTube video. I did not add any sound - that's up to the viewer. Thanks for stopping by! HH Image Source: HP F200 Dashcam