"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Highway to Hell

by Lee

A New Mexico landmark is no more.

“Goodbye and good riddance,” New Mexico’s transportation chief told a crowd of Navajo onlookers in a ceremony Wednesday marking the end of the most infamous highway in America.

“The devil is out of here.”

So, U.S. Highway 666 bit the dust and an arcane piece of Americana officially came to a close. The number that stands for “the beast” in biblical revelations - a synonym, many believe, for the Devil or the Antichrist - has been retired from the federal transportation system.

This is no small matter for the Navajo, whose 25,000-square-mile reservation includes a section in New Mexico sliced by the north-south highway. Some 89 miles of the 194-mile road, which begins in Gallup, N.M., and terminates in Monticello, Utah, meander through the reservation.

For decades, the highway’s number has been a thorn in the side of the Navajo. Some of these Native Americans believe there’s a curse on the highway, which in fact has recorded an unusually large number of serious accidents and fatalities in its New Mexico stretch, transportation officials confirm. Many Navajo are Christians and take the Bible to heart.

I’ve driven down 666 before.  It was pretty innocuous, just a road in the desert.  Now, if someone wanted to name the freeway leading into San Francisco after the Antichrist, that would be much more appropriate.

Comments

<< Back to main