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U.S. Route 49

highway in the United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ409710 ↗
Source-derived summary

U.S. Route 49 (US 49) is a north–south United States highway. The highway's northern terminus is in Piggott, Arkansas, at an intersection with U.S. Route 62 (US 62). Its southern terminus is in Gulfport, Mississippi, at an intersection with US 90. US 49 is approximately 516 miles (830 km) in length.

It was at the junction of US 49 and U.S. Route 61 that blues singer Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the Devil. The highway is also the subject of songs by Big Joe Williams and Howlin' Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett).

Route description

Mississippi

US 49 has historically been one of the most important highways in Mississippi. It was the state's first highway to see a significant rural segment four-laned. Today, it is the only four-laned route directly connecting Jackson, the state's capital and largest city, to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Some urban segments along this portion of the route maintain three or more traffic lanes in each direction.

Editorial summary

“U.S. Route 49” enters the record as highway in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Route, highway and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 164-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1926. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Route, highway and United.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“U.S. Route 49” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Route, highway and United provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q409710. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “U.S. Route 49”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow U.S. Route 49 primary sources, U.S. Route 49 archive and Route 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 “U.S. Route 49”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 49” 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.