Oregon Route 126
state highway in Oregon, United States

Oregon OR 126 (OR 126) is a 204.63-mile-long (329.32 km) state highway that connects coastal, western, and central parts of the U.S. state of Oregon. A short freeway section of OR 126 in Eugene and Springfield is concurrent with Interstate 105 (I-105).
Route description
Florence to Eugene
The western terminus of OR 126 is in Florence at a junction with US 101, the main north–south route along the Oregon Coast. The junction is located north of downtown Florence near the municipal airport and the mouth of the Siuslaw River, which empties into the nearby Pacific Ocean. OR 126 travels east on the Florence-Eugene Highway No. 62 (see Oregon highways and routes), which follows the Siuslaw River and the Coos Bay Rail Line out of Florence and into the Siuslaw National Forest and the foothills of the Coast Range. The highway turns north along a bend in the river to reach Mapleton, where it intersects OR 36 and leaves the river and railroad for Knowles Creek. OR 126 continues east along the creek to the Ralph A. Petersen Tunnel, a 1,450-foot (440 m) long tunnel that opened in 1957.
From the tunnel, the highway descends from the mountains along Turner Creek to briefly rejoin the Siuslaw River and the Coos Bay Rail Line. OR 126 and the railroad split from the river to follow Wildcat Creek northeast to Cougar Pass, which marks the boundary between the Siuslaw and Willamette river basins.
The public source identifies “Oregon Route 126” as state highway in Oregon, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oregon, Route and state.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Oregon Route 126”, the useful work is to connect “state highway in Oregon, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2454946. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oregon Route 126” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.