Look: This Is Colorado’s Oldest Highway in Mesa County

Grand Junction, Colorado, is the largest metropolitan area between Denver and Salt Lake City. By 1882, roads and railways had carried settlers over the Rocky Mountains to establish the city. Mesa County was created the following year, in 1883.

Read More: Have You Driven Down the Oldest Road in the State of Colorado?

Get our free mobile app

Colorado's Highway 50 (Originally a Stagecoach Route)

If you guessed Colorado Highway 50, that is incorrect. While the route dates back to Captain John W. Gunnison's expedition across Colorado in 1853, the highway itself was not commissioned until November 1926. Before then, Highway 50 was a stagecoach route that linked counties and settlements along the Western Slope, such as the one at Fort Uncompahgre, Delta, and Montrose.

Colorado's "Crookedest Road in the World"

Another road considered one of the oldest in Mesa County is the "Serpents Trail" in the Colorado National Monument. According to the Mesa County Library, the first road was carved out by John Otto in 1912. The road connected Grand Junction to Cold Shivers Point via No Thoroughfare Canyon. Upon completion, people nicknamed Otto's road "the most crooked road in the world."

Read More: Grand Junction to Delta: What Highway 50 Looked Like in 1906

Mesa County's Oldest Highway

North Avenue in Grand Junction could easily be the oldest road in Mesa County dating back 141 years. It would officially become the first highway in Mesa County when it was included as part of the Roosevelt Midland Automobile Trail (Midland Trail) from New York to California in 1913. While the Midland Trail offered several routes over the Continental Divide, all routes rejoined in Grand Junction and continued West into Utah.