page_title: British Columbia Highway 3
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: British Columbia Highway 3 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Rock Creek Canyon Bridge on Highway 3 in British Columbia.
context_page_description: Highway 3, officially named the Crowsnest Highway, is an 841-kilometre highway that traverses southern British Columbia, Canada. It runs from the Trans-Canada Highway at Hope to Crowsnest Pass at the Alberta border and forms the western portion of the interprovincial Crowsnest Highway that runs from Hope to Medicine Hat, Alberta. The highway is considered a Core Route of the National Highway System.
context_section_description: Highway 3 is predated by the Dewdney Trail, a 720 km (445 mi) trail used in the mid-19th century that connected the Lower Mainland to present-day Fort Steele, roughly paralleling the Canada-United States border; about 80% of the present-day highway follows the historic trail. In the early 20th century, the province began to upgrade its trails to roads, and in 1928, it was the first automobile route that connected to the Alberta border. Designated as the Southern Trans-Provincial Highway, it ran from Vancouver to Crowsnest Pass and later designated as Route 'A'; the route followed Kingsway and Yale Road from Vancouver to Hope, then turning north to Spences Bridge. The route then turned southeast and passed through Merritt and Princeton along present-day Highway 8 and Highway 5A before travelling east through Osoyoos, Grand Forks and Trail.  The route included major ferry crossings at Castlegar, Nelson, and Balfour, before continuing through Creston and Cranbrook to the Alberta border.
  In 1932, a more northern route following the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway known as the Central Trans-Provincial Highway and designated as Route 'B' was chosen as the future alignment of the Trans-Canada Highway. In 1941, British Columbia transitioned from lettered to numbered highways, with the Lower Mainland section of Route 'A' and all of Route 'B' becoming Highway 1, while the remainder of Route 'A' became Highway 3.  Post-World War II, the BC government began to upgrade its highway system and on November 2, 1949, the Hope-Princeton Highway through Allison Pass and Sunday Summit was opened, reducing the highway distance from approximately 300 km (185 mi) to 135 km (85 mi). In 1954, a new highway was constructed from Trail to Salmo and was designated as Highway 3A. Highway 3A and Highway 6 shared a common alignment from Salmo to Nelson, meeting with Highway 3. On November 7, 1957, the $4 million West Arm Bridge (also known as the Nelson Bridge) was opened across the West Arm of Kootenay Lake in Nelson, replacing ferry service.
  The 1960s saw the construction of several major realignments and upgrades along the highway. In 1961, the Rossland-Sheep Lake Highway was completed, linking to the new Christina Lake-Castlegar section through Bonanza Pass (opened in 1962 with the completion of the Paulson Bridge), replacing a gravel mountain road that had connected Cascade City and Rossland. The Kootenay Skyway from Salmo to Creston through Kootenay Pass opened in 1964, reducing the distance from 160 km (100 mi) to 80 km (50 mi), bypassing Nelson and Kootenay Lake Ferry.  As part of the Kootenay Skyway project, the bypassed section of Highway 3 became Highway 3A, while the bypassed section of Highway 3 between Trail and Castlegar became part of Highway 22.  Highway 3A between Trail and Salmo, as well as the new Rossland-Sheep Lake Highway, became Highway 3B.  In 1965, the Richter Pass section between Keremeos and Osoyoos opened (the bypassed section became Highway 3A), along with the Kinnaird Bridge in Castlegar, bypassing the final ferry crossing.  In the morning hours of January 9, 1965, one of the largest landslides occurred in Canadian history occurred near Hope, killing four people; known as the Hope Slide.  As a result, the highway has to be rerouted around and over the base of the slide's debris field.
  With the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway through Rogers Pass in 1962, Highway 1 became the preferred route between the Lower Mainland and Alberta.  Efforts were made to promote the southern route as a more scenic alternative to the Trans-Canada Highway, beginning in the 1970s with a group from southern Alberta spearheading a proposal to rename Highway 3 in both provinces. Their efforts were successful when the route was renamed the Crowsnest Highway in 1977, with new route shields appearing a few years later. As part of the first phase of the Coquihalla Highway which opened in 1986, a 7 km (4 mi) section of the Crowsnest Highway was upgraded to a freeway, including a small section that was bypassed within Hope, now known as Hope-
caption: Crossing the Rock Creek Canyon Bridge between Osoyoos and Rock Creek.
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