El Camino Real-- Kingshighway-- US-61

While in Sikeston, Missouri, I came across some good information about a major historical road that went through it. There is a downtown marker at Kingshighway and Woodlawn Avenue.

At times, Sikeston has been under French, Spanish as well as US control.

In 1789, the Spanish king ordered an overland route to connect St. Louis and New Orleans and superimposed it on an old Indian and buffalo trail. Hence the name Kingshighway. In the 1920s, it became US-61 which is Sikeston's main street.

In 1939 it became the site of the Missouri Sharecropper Protest. Nearly 1000 black and white sharecroppers gathered to protest the new farm policy called the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

Going Down the King's Road. --RoadDog