Two Minutes on 20: Lost and Abandoned, Ep 2

Exploring the abandoned alignment of US Route 20 along the New York and Massachusetts border. The highway was moved in the mid 1930s to a less steep grade.

[@caruth5963]

Great video...cool stone marker!!

[@rootedexpeditions]

awesome video!! great work very interesting history behind route 20

[@yttrailman]

During our research for our upcoming book about the Yellowstone Trail we discovered the roads you discuss here. A delightful area rich with interesting history. The question of when the present route of US20 replaced the route you describe has been a frustrating one for us. But your reference to the "new" route being built in the 1930's is most certainly incorrect. The best source we have is a 1919 Automobile Blue Book containing detailed road maps for all of New England. 91 pages of detailed road maps, a rare find for the time. Plate 39 shows a darker line for the present US20 route and a lighter line for the Mt. Lebanon route you visited. Both active in 1919. I do believe that the newspaper article you found was indeed reporting a "rebuilding" of the road, not the original construction of that road. (Of course, US20 as an interstate numbered route didn't exist till 1926-27.) But we are left with the question "just when was the new route built?" I would like to think it was after the formal creation of the Yellowstone Trail in the East in 1919 so we can report that the Trail passed through the area you described, but .... Visit www.yellowstonetrail.org for info about the Trail. When the book is printed this Spring of 2021 there will be an announcement on the front page of the website. Keep up the greater work -- and consider joining the Yellowstone Trail Association. And write up some of that great US20 information which also is part of the Trail history for our newsletter, the Arrow..

[@colclumper]

The road that is now discontinued to the left is the only route route i see on my slides until 1947 where the three lane road appeared and still there present date