U.S. Route 31E

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U.S. Highway 31E is the easternmost of two parallel routes for U.S. Highway 31 from Nashville, Tennessee to Louisville, Kentucky. (At one time, it split with U.S. Highway 31W at Sellersburg, Indiana, north of Louisville.)

Route description

Tennessee

After its Nashville beginning, the highway passes through Hendersonville and Gallatin, Tennessee.

Kentucky

In Kentucky, it enters Scottsville, Glasgow, Hodgenville, Bardstown, New Haven and Mount Washington, Kentucky. It passes the entrance to Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site near Hodgenville, through Barren River Lake State Resort Park between Scottsville and Glasgow, and near My Old Kentucky Home in Bardstown.

The highway intersects with the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway at Glasgow, with the Martha Layne Collins Blue Grass Parkway near Bardstown, Interstate 265 (Gene Snyder Freeway) in the outer suburbs of Louisville, and Interstate 264 (Watterson Expressway) in Louisville proper. It crosses U.S. Highway 68 at Glasgow and U.S. Highway 62 at Bardstown.

From Bardstown to Louisville, the highway overlaps with U.S. Highway 150. From Scottsville to a point about five miles south of Westmoreland, Tennessee, the highway overlaps with U.S. Highway 231.

The highway follows the approximate route of the earlier Jackson Highway.

History

The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) adopted a resolution against split routes in 1934. In order to eliminate the US 31E/US 31W split, it commissioned a new U.S. Route 37, replacing US 31E from the Louisville area south to Glasgow, and then following Kentucky Route 63 and several routes in Tennessee to Chattanooga. The rest of US 31E, from Glasgow to Nashville, was assigned U.S. Route 143; this proposed route was extended southwest to Centerville in 1938 and Jackson in 1944 via State Route 100 and State Route 20. US 31W would have become the main route of US 31. Kentucky and Tennessee refused to accept the renumbering, and never changed signs, leading AASHO to re-recognize the split in 1952.

References