U.S. Route 72
U.S. Numbered Highway in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama in the United States
U.S. Route 72 (US 72) is an east–west United States highway that travels for 317.811 miles (511.467 km) from southwestern Tennessee, throughout North Mississippi, North Alabama, and southeastern Tennessee. The highway's western terminus is in Memphis, Tennessee, and its eastern terminus is in Chattanooga. It is the only U.S. Highway to begin and end in the same state, yet pass through other states in between. Prior to the U.S. Highway system signage being posted in 1926, the section eastward from Corinth, Mississippi (covering nearly three quarters of the route) was part of the Lee Highway.
Route description
The highway passes through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. Most of the original eastern and western portions of the route through roughly follows the path of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, a railroad that predated the American Civil War and now operated by Norfolk Southern Railway as their Memphis-Chattanooga, Tennessee mainline. US 72 Alt. follows the Memphis and Charleston route through North Alabama.
West Tennessee
US 72 begins at Bellevue Boulevard (US 51) in Memphis. From Memphis, the route follows Union Avenue and Poplar Avenue into Collierville.
“U.S. Route 72” enters the record as u.S. Numbered Highway in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Route, Numbered and Highway can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“U.S. Route 72” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Route, Numbered and Highway provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q410334. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926.
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.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 72” 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.