U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee
section of U.S. Highway in Tennessee, United States
U.S. Route 23 (US 23) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that travels from Jacksonville, Florida, to Mackinaw City, Michigan. In the U.S. state of Tennessee, the highway travels 57.48 miles (92.51 km) in the northeastern part of the state from the North Carolina state line at Sam's Gap in the Bald Mountains to the Virginia state line in Kingsport. The entire route in Tennessee is a four-lane controlled-access highway and is concurrent with Interstate 26 (I-26) for most of its length. The freeway is also designated James H. Quillen Parkway for its entire length in Tennessee. US 23 in Tennessee is part of Corridor B of the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) and serves as a major thoroughfare in the Tri-Cities region of the state. Although I-26 is technically an east–west route, the road predominantly travels in a north–south alignment in Tennessee. The highway reaches a maximum elevation of 3,760 feet (1,150 m) at the North Carolina state line, which is the highest elevation on the Interstate Highway System east of the Mississippi River.
US 23 was first established in Tennessee in 1930 following State Route 36 (SR 36), and paving of the route was completed the following year. The freeway was first authorized by the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, and the stretch between Johnson City and the Virginia state line was constructed in segments between 1968 and 1986. In addition to US 23, this freeway was designated as State Route 137 (SR 137) and later Interstate 181 (I-181) and was commonly referred to as "Appalachian Highway" in its early years.
“U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee” enters the record as section of U.S. Highway in Tennessee, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Route, Tennessee and section can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22073715. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 1965, 1968 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee” 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.