From nostalgia for a dawning Automobile Age to “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” the U.S.’ original Numbered Highway System has become legendary Americana. Between 1924 and 1968, the Pacific Highway (U.S. Highway 99) spanned the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico across Washington, Oregon, and California. Bellingham’s stretches of its earliest highways and roadside businesses survive as relics along the modern interstate.
The Pacific Highway started with the Good Roads Movement, a rural Progressive reform led in Washington by Peace Arch architect Samuel Hill. He envisioned transnational peace and tourism that transportation would facilitate.
Bellingham incorporated roads such as Northwest Avenue, Elm Street, Holly Street, Samish Way, State Street, and Chuckanut Drive – shifting the center of commerce on the road to modern development.
On the Road to (and from) Bellingham
Bellingham’s routes north to Blaine and south to Mount Vernon grew along Highway 99. Both routes comprise highways and bridges that date back to the area’s early pioneer settlements.
The northern route incorporated parts of the Whatcom Trail from the 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush and Bellingham’s first bridge on Dupont Street. Formerly named for George Pickett, whose men built it for a (never completed) Military Road to connect Fort Bellingham and Fort Steilacoom, the 1857 wooden bridge was twice rebuilt before becoming today’s 1918 concrete structure that joined the Pacific Highway.

Highway 99 wound north to Ferndale on present-day Northwest Avenue, where disused patches of the road now lie between Barrett Road and La Bounty Drive. It incorporated Portal Way, which paralleled the BNSF tracks, and Sam Hill’s Peace Arch. The 1921 monument, a State and Provincial Park, joined Semiahmoo Club across the border per Hill’s vision of a transnational resort along the Pacific Highway.
The Pacific Highway route south to Mount Vernon drove the mystique of Chuckanut Drive (present-day State Route 11). Starting as Waterfront Road in 1890, it opened transportation for Skagit Valley farmers. Motorists made it a renowned scenic route to visit beautiful destinations such as Larrabee State Park, Washington’s first state park, in 1915. It wound south to Blanchard, connecting to Fairhaven via Valley Drive (present-day Old Fairhaven Parkway) and Old Chuckanut Drive (present-day Donovan and 24th).
The Pacific Highway’s Samish Branch to Skagit County encompassed present-day Samish Way through Lake Samish Road and Old Samish Road. The latter connects westward to Chuckanut Drive, and the former intersects Old Highway 99 into Burlington.
By 1940, Highway 99 also included the Mount Baker Highway (present-day State Route 542) to Artist Point.

99’s Travel Boom and Bust
As the country’s number of cars reached 23 million by 1930, Highway 99 became Bellingham’s primary route for transportation. Tourist-centered businesses such as gas stations, motels, and diners sprang up to meet the travel boom – some of which survive today.
Near Bellingham International Airport on West Maplewood Avenue, Shamrock Motel has survived several nearby motels between the 1940s and 1960s for its spot near I-5. City Center Motel (circa 1950) on Elm Street is now Heliotrope Hotel. Other lodgings, such as the Northwest Motel log cabins on Northwest Avenue, Bellingham Travel Lodge on Holly Street, and Hotel Henry at the Whatcom Family YMCA Exchange Building on State Street, are lost to time.

Travelers during these decades enjoyed diners such as the 1933 Hamburger Express, built from a Seattle Interurban Railroad car, and the Horseshoe Cafe, which opened in 1886 and is still operating today. Wahl’s and the Grand Theatre provided goods and entertainment, and Ennen’s Thriftway provided groceries for Western students. The 1949 story of the world’s tallest Christmas tree in Bellingham featured Holly Street as the thoroughfare.
The interstate highway system emerging from President Truman’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 spelled the end of the old state highways. The need for speed slowed traffic on Bellingham’s Highway 99 to a crawl and prevented parking. Interstate 5 underwent construction from 1960 to 1966, and the state highway lost its status in 1968. Today, retail stores, gas stations, and tourist businesses now cluster around I-5. Only the location of downtown Bellingham, well away from its path, reflects the landscape through which the old roads ran.

Remembering Our State Highway
The ethos of Pacific Highway 99 has inspired online resources such as the City of Bellingham’s historical tour and the Pacific Highway website by Curt Cunningham. These interactive sites detail history, maps, and prominent businesses that came and went on the road to now.
Picturesque road trip destinations such as Chuckanut Drive, Peace Arch, and Mount Baker Highway continue to put Whatcom County on the map regionally and nationally. Bellingham’s main U.S. Post Office branch also reflects its placement along Highway 99. When we traverse the city’s slow ride of crossroads, lights, and stop signs, we continue in the path of all those travelers before us.