(Redirected from U.S. Highway 466)
'U.S. Route 466' was an east-west
United States highway. Though it reached a length of around 500 miles (805 km), the route was co-signed with other US routes for much of its length. When
California decommissioned most of its US highways in the mid-
1960s, including US 466 in
1965, there was no longer a need for the designation.
The general route from Kingman to Barstow is now served by
I-40.
Historic termini
★ In an early
1925 plan, US 466 was proposed to run from
U.S. Highway 66 at
Los Lunas, New Mexico (south of
Albuquerque) to
El Paso, Texas. This north-south route was never signed in the field; instead, the route was designated as part of border-to-border
U.S. Highway 85. This proposed routing is often referred to as "US 466 (I)".
★ In
1931 German film director
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, best known for his film
Nosferatu was killed in a car crash.
★ The first US 466 signed in the field, sometimes called "US 466 (II)", was commissioned in
1935. It extended from
U.S. Highway 66 in
Kingman, Arizona to the
Pacific Ocean at
Morro Bay, California. Between
Las Vegas, Nevada and
Barstow, California, the route was co-signed with
U.S. Highway 91.
★ In
1951, the
U.S. Highway 93 designation was extended to include the section of US 466 from its eastern terminus at Kingman, Arizona to the US 91 junction in Las Vegas, Nevada. This left the
California segment as the only section of the route not co-signed with another route.
★ Finally, in
1965,
California decommissioned the US 466 designation.
Arizona eliminated the designation in
1969. When
Nevada followed suit in
1971, the route ceased to exist.
★ In
1955, actor
James Dean was driving from
Los Angeles to the
Laguna Seca Raceway near
Salinas. Dean was a few miles east of the western terminus of 466 where it met present-day
California State Highway 41 when the
Porsche Spyder he was driving crashed into a full-sized
Ford sedan, killing him. That stretch between Bakersfield and Paso Robles is signed today as
California State Highway 46.
States traversed

Map of the highway by National Geographic in 1961.
The highway passed through the following states:
★
Arizona (
1935-
1969)
★
Nevada (
1935-
1971)
★
California (
1935-
1965)
Related US Routes
★
U.S. Highway 66
★
U.S. Highway 166
★
U.S. Highway 266
★
U.S. Highway 366
★
U.S. Highway 566
★
U.S. Highway 666
Sources
★ Endpoints of US highways:
US 466 (I) and
US 466 (II)