Metcalf Gap is a mountain pass in the Palo Pinto Mountains of northern Texas, named along with the nearby community for local rancher and surveyor J.J. Metcalf, who also helped survey Palo Pinto when it was known as Golconda. Long a natural opening through the escarpment, it became regionally and then nationally significant in the automobile age. In 1917, it was placed on an alternate branch of State Highway 1, and in 1926 that road became U.S. Route 80 Alternative, tying the pass to a transcontinental corridor. In 1943, that prominence declined when the route was shifted and the road redesignated as U.S. Route 180.