U.S. Route 491 was created in 2003 as a renumbering of US Route 666. The highway runs through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, as well as the tribal nations of the Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. It was nicknamed the “Devil’s Highway” because of the significance of the number 666 to many Christian denominations, which believe it to be the Number of the Beast.
About U.S. Route 491 in brief
U.S. Route 491 was created in 2003 as a renumbering of U. S. Route 666. The highway runs through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, as well as the tribal nations of the Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. It was nicknamed the “Devil’s Highway” because of the significance of the number 666 to many Christian denominations, which believe it to be the Number of the Beast. The alignment of the highway is mostly north–south, however the Utah portion is signed east–west. US 491 begins at Gallup, at a junction with Interstate 40, and currently runs north along Muñoz Drive. It is on the Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of the designated New Mexico Scenic Byways. At several points along the highway, mountain ranges in all of the Four Corners states are visible from a single location. The New Mexico portion has been designated the “John Pinto Highway” by the New Mexico state legislature. All highways in Utah are codified into law; US 4-not72 is codified at Utah Code: Annotated US491-4-72. The Arizona portion was renumbered separately and is now part of US 191. The former US 666 was the only highway to have passed through each of the four states, even though it never came near the FourCorners Monument, which is accessed via US 160. The largest city served by US 492 is Shiprock, which takes its name from one of several extinct volcano cores in the area. The road passes through the small tribal communities and trading posts of Tohatchi, Buffalo Springs, Naschitti, Sheep Springs and Newcomb.
The Navajo tribal capital at Window Rock, Arizona, is just west of the road corridor, accessed by State Road 264. The highway passes to the east of the tribe’s namesake, Ute mountain, believed to belong to a great warrior god of the Ute People. After leaving Cortez, the road gradually rises in elevation while proceeding towards Utah. Here, the route features large pinto bean farming regions including Dove Creek, which bills itself as the self-proclaimed pinto-bean capital of the world. A portion of the Colorado portion of US 491 is designated the Trail of the Ancient Ancients, which uses the road in the southwest as an access road for these parks and monuments. Once in Utah, the highway gradually ascends to the Abajo Mountains and reaches an elevation of 7,000 feet and reaches a weigh station on the town of Monticello. It terminates at an intersection with Main Street and terminates near the city of Central Street and near the Central Street park in Central City, Utah. It then proceeds diagonally to the northwest in the extreme southwestern corner of the state. The highway exits tribal lands near Cortez and Mesa Verde National Park. The route continues north to the Colorado state line, where the highway passes from the Navajo nation to Ute Mountains Ute tribal lands.
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This page is based on the article U.S. Route 491 published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
