Portal:Michigan highways/Selected article/September 2013
US Highway 24 is a United States Numbered Highway in Michigan that is also known as Telegraph Road and runs for 79.828 miles (128.471 km) as a major north–south state trunkline highway from the Ohio state line through Metro Detroit. The highway parallels the Lake Erie shoreline and bypasses Metro Detroit on the west. Telegraph Road connects several suburbs together and passes through the western edge of Detroit before it terminates northwest of Clarkston at an interchange with I-75. The northern part of the highway follows a section of an old Indian trail called the Saginaw Trail that connected Detroit with points further north. The southern sections in the Downriver area south to Monroe parallel telegraph lines from the mid-19th century. These lines gave the road its name. Later this road was added to the state highway system in the early 20th century. It was upgraded and extended during the 1920s to serve as a western bypass of Detroit. The US 24 designation was applied to the highway on November 11, 1926. Since that time, an alternate route was designated between the state line and the Gibraltar area; this highway later became part of I-75. In the 1970s, the northernmost section gained the US 10 designation when that highway was rerouted. That overlap was eliminated in 1986, and US 24 was extended north to Clarkston to replace a segment of US 10. At the same time, a business loop in Pontiac was redesignated for US 24. (more...)