Minnesota State Highway 149 (MN 149) is a

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

that runs from its

intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, thei ...

with State Highway 3 in

Inver Grove Heights Inver Grove Heights is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 35,801 at the 2020 census. The city was formed on March 9, 1965, with the merger of the village of Inver Grove and Inver Grove Township. It is one of ...

to its northern terminus at its intersection with State Highway 5 (W. 7th Street) in

Saint Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

. Outside of the Saint Paul city limits, Highway 149 is known as ''Dodd Road''. 149 is known as ''Smith Avenue'' within Saint Paul and passes over the Smith Avenue High Bridge crossing the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

Route description

Highway 149 serves as a north–south route between the communities of Eagan, Mendota Heights, West St. Paul, and the "West Side" neighborhood of Saint Paul. The northern terminus of the route is at W. 7th Street / Fort Road near downtown Saint Paul.

History

Highway 149 was marked in 1981. The route was originally authorized in 1920 as Trunk Highway 1. It was later part of U.S. Route 65 from 1927 to 1934. The route was paved (as ''65'') by 1929. In 1934, this route was renumbered ''State Highway 88'' when U.S. 65 was rerouted on a different alignment. The route was renumbered again in 1950 as an extension of ''State Highway 49''. By 1981, the route was renumbered ''149'' when a portion of ''State Highway 49'' through downtown Saint Paul was turned back to local maintenance. The Smith Avenue High Bridge over the Mississippi River was originally a steel truss bridge built around 1895 and rebuilt as a concrete arch in 1987. On July 30, 2015, the highway was dedicated the ''Officer Scott Patrick Memorial Highway'', named in honor of a police officer killed during a traffic stop along the highway near Bernard Street. The memorial signs were unveiled in a ceremony on the one-year anniversary of his killing.

Historic Dodd Road

Before it was a numbered highway in the 1920s, Dodd Road was a historic route in Minnesota. It was originally built in 1853 by Minnesota pioneer William B. Dodd and his crew. The road was built as a connection between the city of Mendota and the city of

St. Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupation ...

(in south-central Minnesota) to help the development of St. Peter during its frontier days. Dodd Road was financed using private funds at a time when most roads were financed by the government to aid settlers. After years of lobbying by Lieutenant (later General) Jesse Reno a remaining portion of the funds allotted to his 1853 survey of the military road from the Missouri River to Mendota which was saved by the work on the Mendota/St. Peter section by the Dodd crew was awarded by the U.S government to the private builders. Present day Highway 149 bears little resemblance to the frontier road but follows the route in parts between Highways 3 and 55.

Major intersections

References

* {{cite news , first=Curt , last=Brown, pages=A1, A12 , title=Odd old Dodd Road , date=June 11, 2003 , publisher=Minneapolis Star Tribune

149 149 may refer to: *149 (number), a natural number *AD 149, a year in the 2nd century AD *149 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC *British Airways Flight 149 British Airways Flight 149 was a flight from London Heathrow Airport to Sultan Abdul Azi ...

Transportation in Dakota County, Minnesota Transportation in Ramsey County, Minnesota Transportation in Saint Paul, Minnesota U.S. Route 65