U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) is a north–south highway

United States Numbered Highway The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these hi ...

in eastern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. It runs from Pleasant Prairie on the

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

border north to Marinette on the

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

border. Most of the route is concurrent with

Interstate 41 Interstate 41 (I-41) is a north–south Interstate Highway connecting the interchange of I-94 and U.S. Route 41 (US 41), located south of the Wisconsin–Illinois border at the end of the Tri-State Tollway in metropolitan Ch ...

in the state, with the exception of the portion between

Howard Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

, a suburb of Green Bay, and Marinette.

Route description

US 41 is a

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

for nearly 85 percent of its route through Wisconsin, with the exceptions being a

expressway Expressway may refer to: * Controlled-access highway, the highest-grade type of highway with access ramps, lane markings, etc., for high-speed traffic. * Limited-access road, a lower grade of highway or arterial road. *Expressway, the fictional s ...

section from the US 141 interchange in Oconto County to Marinette and a surface arterial section within Marinette. The highway runs concurrently with I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois border and concurrently with I-41 from Howard to the Illinois border. US 41 runs northwest from Milwaukee and passes Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, and Appleton before heading to Green Bay. The route is a major access point for

American Family Field American Family Field is a retractable roof stadium used primarily for baseball. It is located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just southwest of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Brewers Boulevard. It is the home of Major League Baseball's Milwauk ...

, home of the

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division. The Brewers are named for t ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

club, the

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin ...

air show in Oshkosh, and for

Lambeau Field Lambeau Field is an outdoor athletic stadium in the north central United States, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The home field of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL), it opened in 1957 as City Stadium, replacing ...

, the home of the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

football team. After leaving Green Bay, US 41 continues north to

Abrams Abrams may refer to: * Abrams (surname), a list of notable people with the surname * '' Abrams v. United States'', 250 U.S. 616 (1919), U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding free speech during times of war * M1 Abrams, main battle tank * Abrams, W ...

co-signed with US 141, and then it turns east off the co-signed route toward Marinette and into Michigan.

History

The first alignment of US 41 in Wisconsin, which extended south from Marinette to the Illinois state line, was defined generally by two state trunk highways in existence in 1926: WIS 15 from Marinette to Milwaukee, and WIS 57 from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line. Signs for the newly established highway were to be placed in spring of 1927. A meeting of the Wisconsin Highway Commission in 1926 decided that no new U.S. Highway number would overlap with an existing state route number; therefore, WIS 41 was retired and renumbered when US 41 came into existence. In Milwaukee the original routing of US 41 used Lisbon Avenue east to North 27th Street, then south along that road to the Illinois state line. After the Stadium Freeway was built in the 1960s, US 41 followed that road from Lisbon Avenue south across I-94 to National Avenue and then east to 27th Street, which is known as Layton Boulevard between National Avenue and Lincoln Avenue. WisDOT rerouted US 41 along I-94 from the Stadium Interchange to the Illinois state line, removed Layton Boulevard north of Forest Home Avenue from the state highway system and gave Layton Boulevard and 27th Street south of Forest Home Avenue the designation of WIS 241 in a compromise to avoid expansion of the original route. The old US 41 freeway section south of I-94 to National Avenue (which was realigned to accommodate the construction of

merican Family Field]) was designated Wisconsin Highway 341, WIS 341 but is unsigned. Trailblazer signs label it Miller Park Way. By 1955, US 41 was relocated from the corridor of today's WIS 175 and its successors to a nearby expressway in

Winnebago Winnebago can refer to: * The exonym of the Ho-Chunk tribe of Native North Americans with reservations in Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin ** Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, a federally recognized tribe group in the state ** The Winnebago language of the ...

, Fond du Lac,

Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, Waukesha, and

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Counties. In Green Bay, the road was rerouted in 1953 to make a curve to the right west of

De Pere De Pere ( ) is a city located in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 25,410 according to the 2020 Census. De Pere is part of the Green Bay Metropolitan Statistical Area. History At the arrival of the first European, Je ...

, going onto Ashland Avenue to the Green Bay city limits. It then turned left onto Highland Avenue (after 1968, Lombardi Avenue), going past

and curving right onto Military Avenue. It then turned left at Velp Avenue. US 41 then followed present day Velp Avenue north to Suamico where it merged with what is now the US 41 freeway. Until 1968 this was the outer highway for Green Bay; the area now is urbanized. The 1953–1968 Green Bay bypass was once again bypassed, sequentially, with the present US 41 freeway beginning at Velp, southerly to Lombardi in 1968; Velp north to Suamico in 1971; then from Lombardi south to De Pere in 1974. Appleton also saw US 41 realignments over the course of time, beginning with the 1937 two-lane bypass (along the present freeway route) from

Neenah Neenah () is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, in the East North Central States, north central United States. It is situated on the banks of Lake Winnebago, Little Lake Butte des Morts, and the Fox River (Wiscon ...

northerly to a T-intersection with US 10 (today's Wisconsin Avenue, WIS 96). There, US 41 turned east with US 10, back to its original route at the intersection of US 10 (Wisconsin Avenue) and Richmond Street north of downtown Appleton, then north on Richmond to present day Northland Avenue. There it turned east on new alignment back to the original route northeast of

Kaukauna Kaukauna () is a city in Outagamie and Calumet counties, Wisconsin, United States. It is situated on the Fox River, approximately north of Milwaukee. The population was 15,462 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Appleton, Wisconsin Metr ...

. In 1940, US 41 was extended northerly from the T-intersection at US 10 for , before making a large sweeping curve onto present day Northland Avenue to join back up with the previous bypass at Richmond Street. By 1962, the original Appleton bypass had been converted to four-lane divided highway from Oshkosh north to Northland Avenue, then north and east on new alignment bypassing the Northland Avenue bypass with the current freeway easterly to Kaukauna. In the 1990s, a strategic effort was made along US 41 to convert the remaining expressway segments between Richfield and

to freeway. The freeway conversion, which was completed by 2001, cleared the way for

to be designated along the corridor from the Illinois state line to Green Bay. Additionally, in the 2000s, the highway was upgraded to an expressway from Abrams to just west of Marinette, and included freeway bypasses around the cities of Oconto and Peshtigo.

Exit list

References

External links

Route description

History

Exit list

See also

References

External links