Discovery of Jefferson Davis Highway outrages lawmaker

Discovery of Jefferson Davis Highway outrages lawmaker

Thursday, January 24, 2002

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA -- Since 1940, markers at either end of old Highway 99 have proclaimed the road's official, long-forgotten name: Jefferson Davis Highway No. 99.

The markers outraged a state lawmaker who learned of them recently. He's vowing to rename the road and remove the monuments, even if he gets arrested for it.

"In this state, we cannot have a monument to a guy who led the insurgency to perpetuate slavery and killed half a million Americans," Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, told The Herald of Everett.

Jefferson Davis was the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Highway 99, which used to be called U.S. 99 and is now Washington 99, once ran the length of the state from Oregon to Canada. It was the major north-south route through Western Washington until Interstate 5 was built in the 1960s.

I-5 supplanted Highway 99 in many places, including near the Canadian border. Dunshee noticed the northern marker for the Davis highway, about 10 feet from I-5 in Blaine, as he returned to Washington from a kayaking trip last summer.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy established the Jefferson Davis Highway in 1913 as a chain of highways. With the blessing of state officials, they erected stone markers from Washington, D.C., across the country.

Dunshee said his research showed that in 1939, Democratic state Sen. Howard Roup sponsored the bill that gave the name to U.S. 99.

He introduced a bill in the Legislature on Wednesday to change the highway's name to the "William P. Stewart Memorial Highway," in honor of a man from one of the first black families to settle in Snohomish. Stewart fought with the Union during the Civil War.

If the bill passes, he says, the state Parks Department will remove the northern monument. If it fails, he says, he's willing to drive to Blaine and rip it out himself, even if he has to go to jail.

"Slavery was the greatest injustice of our history. It's not something we should glorify," he said.

The southern marker is in a city park in Vancouver. Dunshee said he hopes the city will remove that one.

"It ought to be an embarrassment to them to have it there, too," he said.

Rep. Ruth Fisher, D-Tacoma, chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee, has agreed to give Dunshee's measure a hearing.

"The reaction is, 'You're kidding. That shouldn't be here,'" Fisher said.

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