While that sentiment may have been funny to a fourth grader, actually a lot of thought goes into the naming of paved roads known as secondary routes in the state of Missouri.Only 19 letters of the alphabet are used in naming the roads, such as J and Y near Amsterdam; B near Rich Hill and AA north of Adrian. The letters G, I, L, Q and S are not used, as they may potentially be confused for other letters and numbers.
Why do some have two letters? Routes deemed to carry more traffic get one letter. Minor branch routes and farm-to-market roads, which often end at county roads or are former alignments of the other highways, are typically assigned with two-letter designations consisting of two of the same letter such as TT.
As a side note, combinations beginning with the letter R are also used for routes that connect with state parks or other recreational facilities, which is the only use of R on the system. Strangely, the only current use of X is on Route AX in Macon County.
Rarely is the same letter(s) designation re-used in a county to avoid confusion.
It is erroneously believed that due to these roads being designated by letters rather than numbers is that these are county roads, not state highways. This may have arisen from the signage used prior to the early 1960s that included the verbiage 'state highway' or 'state maintenance', which has since been removed in many areas.
A little highway trivia- Did you know that interstates are numbered as such- those that run generally north and south are odd numbers (I-49); east and west are even numbers (I-70). In the days before GPS, this was done so that travelers would always have a general idea of what direction they were going. Also, east/west interstates are numbered low to high from south to north. North/south interstates are numbered low to high from the west coast to the east coast.
