State Road 104 (SR 104) is a

state road A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

in the northern section of the US state of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. It serves as a connector between SR 4 near Stillwell to

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

(US 6) in Walkerton. The highway runs parallel to a rail line in a northwest-to-southeast direction in rural LaPorte and

St. Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers ...

counties. SR 104 dates back to the 1940s.

Route description

SR 104 begins in La Porte County at an

all-way stop An all-way stop – also known as a four-way stop (or three-way stop etc. as appropriate) – is a traffic management system which requires vehicles on all the approaches to a road intersection to stop at the intersection before proceeding throu ...

with SR 4 and County Road 300 South, a few miles southeast of the city of La Porte. The route heads southeast towards Walkerton, paralleling a

Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad , also known as the South Shore Line, is a Class III freight railroad operating between Chicago, Illinois, and South Bend, Indiana. The railroad serves as a link between Class I railroads and loc ...

track . The road is two-lane rural highway, passing through farmland with some houses. SR 104 passes through the

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

of Stillwell and crosses the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

. Southeast of Stillwell the highway drifts away from the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad track, for a short distance, before crossing the

Kankakee River The Kankakee River is a tributary of the Illinois River, approximately long, in the Central Corn Belt Plains of northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois in the United States. At one time, the river drained one of the largest wetlands in N ...

. After the river SR 104 passes between the southeast end of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad track and the north end of a

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...

rail track. SR 104 continues southeast now paralleling the Norfolk Southern track and enters St. Joseph County. The route enters Walkerton and crosses the

CSX Railroad CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

track, soon after the tracks the SR 104 designation ends at US 6 (Roosevelt Road). The roadway continues southeast as Industrial Park Drive passing through the Walkerton Industrial Park Southwest. No segment of State Road 104 in Indiana that is included in the National Highway System (NHS). The NHS is a network of highways that are identified as being most important for the economy, mobility and defense of the nation. The highway is maintained by the

Indiana Department of Transportation The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Indiana charged with maintaining and regulating transportation and transportation related infrastructure such as state owned airports, List of numbered ...

(INDOT) like all other state roads in the state. The department tracks the traffic volumes along all state roads as a part of its maintenance responsibilities using a metric called

average annual daily traffic Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a y ...

(AADT). This measurement is a calculation of the traffic level along a segment of roadway for any average day of the year. In 2016, INDOT figured that lowest traffic levels were 1,163 vehicles used the highway daily from at the La Port–St. Joseph county line. The peak traffic volumes were 1,698 vehicles used the highway daily at western end SR 104.

History

SR 104 was added to the state road system between 1942 and 1945, running along its current routing between SR 4 and US 6 in Walkerton. The entire roadway was paved between 1956 and 1959. The routing of SR 104 has remained the same since.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML, display=inline,title Northwest Indiana 104 Transportation in LaPorte County, Indiana Transportation in St. Joseph County, Indiana