Minnesota State Highway 1
Minnesota State Highway 1 is a state highway across northern Minnesota, United States, which runs from North Dakota Highway 54 at the North Dakota state line and continues east to its eastern terminus at Minnesota [State Highway 61|MN 61] at the unincorporated community of Illgen City in Beaver [Bay Township, Lake County, Minnesota|Beaver Bay Township] on the North Shore of Lake Superior. At in length, MN 1 is the longest state route in Minnesota.
Route description
MN 1 serves as an east–west route between Oslo, Warren, Thief [River Falls, Minnesota|Thief River Falls], Lake, Minnesota|Red Lake], Northome, Cook, Tower, Ely, and Beaver Bay Township.The roadway passes through the following forests:
- Finland State Forest in Lake County
- Superior National Forest in Lake and Saint Louis counties
- Bear [Island State Forest] in Lake and Saint Louis counties
- Kabetogama State Forest in Saint Louis County
- George [Washington State Forest] in Itasca County
- Koochiching State Forest in Koochiching County
MN 1 also runs concurrently with MN 89 for on the southwest side of Red Lake. This is the longest concurrency with another state highway within Minnesota.
History
Most of MN 1 was authorized in 1933, except for a section between U.S. [Route 75 in Minnesota|U.S. Highway 75] and MN 32 at Thief River Falls, which was part of Minnesota Constitutional Route 33 authorized in 1920.The route was given the MN 1 designation because it was one of the longest trunk highways, and would allow re-use of the MN 1 markers removed from along US 61 and U.S. [Route 65 in Minnesota|US 65] in 1934.
When it was marked in 1934, it was only paved from US 75 to MN 32 and from MN 169 to Ely.
As recently as 1963, significant portions of MN 1 were unpaved.
MN 1 still had an unpaved segment in 1996, between US 53 and MN 169 in northern Saint Louis County. At that point it was swapped with paved County Road 22.