The Meridian Road was organized in 1911 by a group of good roads boosters as a proposed direct north-south automobile route through the central United States, with a name derived from the Sixth Principal Meridian. By 1912 the route was largely established through six states, connecting Winnipeg, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Later renamed the Meridian Highway, it eventually extended to Mexico and became U.S. Highway 81. In northern Nebraska, the road connected Norfolk, Hadar, Pierce, Wausa, and Crofton, crossing the Missouri River at Yankton, South Dakota. In 1939 the highway route was relocated and eventually bypassed all of the smaller communities from Norfolk to Yankton. A surviving segment of the original highway laid out in the fall of 1911 followed section line roads north and west to Pierce and includes a steel truss bridge built in 1915 and improvements such as concrete culverts and a graveled roadbed dating to the 1920s.