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Washington State Route 104

highway in Washington

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ834892 ↗
Source-derived summary

State Route 104 (SR 104) is a 31.75-mile-long (51.10 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, serving four counties: Jefferson on the Olympic Peninsula, Kitsap on the Kitsap Peninsula, and Snohomish and King in the Puget Sound region. It begins south of Discovery Bay at U.S. Route 101 (US 101) and crosses the Hood Canal Bridge over Hood Canal to the terminus of SR 3 near Port Gamble. SR 104 continues southeast onto the Edmonds–Kingston Ferry to cross the Puget Sound and intersects SR 99 and Interstate 5 (I-5) before ending at SR 522 in Lake Forest Park. SR 104 also has a short spur route that connects the highway to SR 99 at an at-grade signal on the Snohomish–King county line.

Established during the 1964 state highway renumbering, SR 104 was formed out of four highways, themselves created in 1937: Secondary State Highway 9E (SSH 9E) from Discovery Bay to Port Gamble, Primary State Highway 21 (PSH 21) from Port Gamble to Kingston, SSH 1W within Edmonds, and SSH 2B from Edmonds to Lake Forest Park. PSH 21 was originally part of State Road 21, added to the state highway system in 1915 to connect the Port Gamble–Shine ferry to the Kingston ferry landing. The Edmonds–Kingston ferry at the end of State Road 21 has been in operation under various companies since 1923 and was served by the 14-car City of Edmonds. SSH 9E extended from Discovery Bay to Port Ludlow initially and was moved south and extended to the South Point ferry landing in the late 1940s. The bridge replaced the South Point–Lofall ferry when it opened in 1961, but the ferry was re-used during the construction of the second Hood Canal Bridge after the first bridge sank in 1979 and before the new bridge opened in 1982. The Edmonds–Kingston ferry was added to the state ferry system in 1951 before it was incorporated into SR 104 in 1994.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Washington State Route 104” is highway in Washington. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Washington, State and Route, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1937, 1915, 1923—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964. For this dossier, Washington, State and Route is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “highway in Washington” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q834892. VIAF identifies the subject as 315530842. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1937, 1915 and 1923.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Washington State Route 104”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Washington State Route 104 primary sources, Washington State Route 104 archive and Washington research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Washington State Route 104”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Washington State Route 104” 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.