Why Wisconsin's county highways are lettered, not numbered (2019)
25 comments
·August 5, 2025bombcar
Siri calls them highways, they’re County Roads!
And I’m still searching for County Road PP. once I find it I’ll drive to it and the kids will laugh at Siri.
jaredsohn
Visiting my parents in Wisconsin and I'm about a mile away from it right now. We also have PPP.
dpe82
I drove it 2 weeks ago: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tzDq1cP7WEngYCaH7
bigstrat2003
There's more than one, since the different counties can reuse codes. The one I know of goes from Brillion, WI out towards Chilton. I grew up in the area so I know that one quite well.
epcoa
They’re still county highways, at least according to the person interviewed in the article. It’s even called the Wisconsin County Highway Association.
hypercube33
I used to live near P and OO in Chippewa Falls
czwief
I spent the first 18 years of my life in Chippewa Falls (near the intersection of J and X near Wissota), and TIL there’s a P/OO
bigtunacan
I live just off J in the Hatfield area. Been to Chippewa Falls countless times.
jtbayly
CTH-PP Tomah, WI 54660
43.99805° N, 90.36020° W
I believe that is what you’re looking for.
jethkl
This is an instance where Conway's Law applies: state and county systems were kept separate so that maintenance and repairs crews wouldn’t accidentally duplicate work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
jonstewart
I grew up in Iowa and Wisconsin. Iowa’s road system is beautiful—a road every mile, every few miles a paved road, all either east-west or north-south. If you know the general direction of where you’re going, you can bumble around with confidence. It’s Manhattan over an entire state.
Wisconsin, nothing makes any sense. Sure, sure, Wisconsin is maybe a little hillier, but the roads curve and splice together in crazy ways in the flat valleys, too, and the roads adhere to no particular direction, and of course County B in one county bears no relation to County B in the adjacent county. And there are so many routes where I live in southwest Wisconsin where you might as well say, “you can’t get there from here,” given how indirect and circuitous the best route is in relation to how the crow flies. If you like driving for hours at 35mph while watching out for deer, Wisconsin’s county highway system is for you.
analog31
I live in Wisconsin. I'm a cyclist, and I love the roads. The urban folklore was that the state maintained good paved roads in order for the milk trucks to reach the dairy farms during the winter, when everything would otherwise turn into a mud pit. I read about "mud season" in Ukraine, and it was instantly familiar.
I hadn't thought much about the circuitous-ness, but it's true. My assumption all along has been that the roads have to work around the labyrinth of rivers and streams. In fact my biggest annoyance as a cyclist is finding routes where I don't reach a dead end and have to back-track. And now it's not just rivers but major highways.
Still, it's easier for a cyclist because our hours don't cover as many miles.
jonstewart
It is great for cycling, for sure.
zdragnar
This is somewhat unique to Southwest Wisconsin due to all the bluffs. I've lived in Eastern Wisconsin and the Northwest, and while they aren't quite Iowa's grid, they're generally all east-west or north-south running.
null
superkuh
I also grew up in Wisconsin and Iowa. Iowa's road system may be comprehensive but a very substantial fraction of those are unpaved gravel roads. Wisconsin's roads are paved.
bigtunacan
In both cases it depends on the area of the state and how populous. Far southern Iowa near Whatcheer for example is mostly gravel with paved roads only in the cities and major highways, but by contrast nearly the entire corridor area is well paved. Same for most of the Boone area.
Wisconsin is no different in that. Most of Jackson, Levis, BRF, and that whole area is gravel except for major highways and in town. Pretty poorly maintained gravel at that.
The roads do seem disorganized and wandering, but much of that is because the roads are built wherever they won’t flood since we’re nothing but marshes, wetland, lakes, rivers and ponds
superkuh
Iowa has about 40/60 paved/unpaved ratio. Wisconsin has about 85/15. (stats counting only primary and secondary (county) roads).
ref: https://bikeiowa.com/Feature/1543/iowa-gravel-what-makes-it-..., https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2008/h..., https://topslab.wisc.edu/research/tsmo/topms/data/
I acknowledge this may not be a 'bad' attribute, it could be Iowa just has so many unpaved extra roads it skews it. But when I think Iowa, I think driving on rough roads.
jonstewart
The point is that the roads in Iowa are straight and regular.
Most roads in Wisconsin are paved, but the paving quality varies depending on whether a state, county, or “town” (it’s a trick!) road. Property taxes in Wisconsin are also reputedly higher.
PaulDavisThe1st
Because no other state has a combination of state and county roads.
skywhopper
Missouri also does letters for county highways. But one thing unique to Wisconsin is that some highways aren’t just single or double letters, but an abbreviation of their destination, like the road to Whitefish Dunes state park in Door County is “WD”.
sanex
Best lake Michigan beach in Wisconsin!
Someday Google Maps will learn not to pronounce County N as "County Road North"... That's not as hard as AGI right?