One
of the named highways upon which Route 40 was built is the Victory Highway.
It ran from Kansas City to San Francisco and for the most part follows
the path of contemporary Route 40. There were two major differences
between the Victory Highway and Route 40 west of Kansas City:
- Between Oakley, Kansas and Limon, Colorado - the
Victory follows part of Route 40N (roughly
the path of I-70)
- Between Sacramento and Oakland,
California - the Victory Highway follows a more southerly route, thereby
avoiding the challenge of crossing the Sacramento River.
Unlike Route 40 and the Lincoln Highway, the western
terminus for the Victory Highway is in South San Francisco.
The
Victory Highway was established following WWI as a memorial to those
who fought and died in that conflict. While the Lincoln
Highway traversed Nevada slightly to the south, the Victory was
one of the first highways to follow the path of the California Trail
across the Silver State.
The 2,010 miles of the Victory Highway are well documented
in the so-called Hobbs guide, a 20-page touring guide jointly published
by the Mohawk Rubber Company and Howard F. Hobbs. The
entire Hobbs Guide is available for viewing online.
While the Lincoln Highway is certainly more celebrated,
a few artifacts remain to remind us that the Victory Highway once passed
through. This is especially true in Colorado and Utah where the Victory
Highway was the first major through road in many areas. Every once and
a while you will stumble across a street sign for Victory Street or
an old sign for the Victory Motor Court.
