U.S. Route 285
U.S. Numbered Highway in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado in the United States
U.S. Route 285 is a north–south United States highway, running 846 miles (1,362 km) through the states of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The highway's southern terminus is in Sanderson, Texas at an intersection with U.S. Route 90. US 285 has always had an endpoint in Denver, Colorado, although the original US 285 went north from Denver (that segment is now a part of U.S. Route 287). Today the highway's northern terminus is in Denver, at exit 201 on Interstate 25.
US 285 is a secondary route of US 85, which it crosses in metro Denver, and technically crosses again in Santa Fe, New Mexico (today its parent route is largely concurrent with Interstate 25 through New Mexico, and as a result US 85 is no longer signed in New Mexico). US 285 also intersects a sibling route, US 385, in Fort Stockton, Texas.
Route description
Texas
The southern terminus of US 285 is at U.S. 90 in Sanderson. Proceeding northward, it crosses I-10 at Fort Stockton, then meets I-20 at Pecos on its way to New Mexico.
New Mexico
As 285 traverses north on the eastern plains of New Mexico, it passes through Carlsbad, Artesia and then Roswell. In Artesia the route intersects with U.S. Route 82.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “U.S. Route 285” is u.S. Numbered Highway in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado in the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Route, Numbered and Highway, not as a finished interpretation.
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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 Jan 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q981591. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 285” 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.