Why this dangerous road in Colorado is called the Million Dollar Highway

The Million Dollar Highway is one of the most breathtaking drives in Colorado, but it’s also a dangerous road.

Officially part of US Route 550, the 20-mile stretch cuts through the San Juan Mountains, clinging to cliff faces with dizzying drops and hairpin turns.

It’s a road where avalanches, snow, and a lack of guardrails make even seasoned drivers grip the wheel tighter.

Yet it’s also famous for its sweeping alpine views, leading to one big question: how did it get such a flashy name?

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This dangerous road wasn’t cheap to drive on

Like many Rocky Mountain legends, the answer depends on who you ask.

Some say the name came from the price tag of building it.

In the late 1800s, when the road was first built by Russian-born entrepreneur Otto Mears, tolls ranged from $1 to $5 depending on your wagon and horses.

That may sound modest today, but in modern terms it was the equivalent of around $150, which makes the $8 tolls on the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge feel like peanuts.

Locals, perhaps grumbling at the steep fees, allegedly joked that the road must cost a million dollars to drive.

Others prefer a more dramatic tale: that the Million Dollar Highway earned its name from the fear factor.

Travelers so unnerved by the sheer cliffs and perilous switchbacks swore they wouldn’t drive the dangerous road again ‘for a million dollars’, which is pretty outlandish.

To be fair, they probably haven’t seen how Indian bus drivers casually navigate hairpin bends on mountainside roads.

Considering that dozens of crashes still occur each year on this dangerous road despite strict speed limits, this version doesn’t feel too far-fetched.

The Million Dollar Highway has many origin stories

Then there’s the literal camp, who claim the road costed a million dollars to build.

Of course, by that logic, this bridge in China needs a new nickname, given how it can’t be cheap to cut a mountain in half just to build a highway.

Others claim a million dollars worth of ore was accidentally mixed into the roadbed during construction.

More modern storytellers like to keep things light, insisting the nickname is just a nod to the ‘million-dollar views’ in Colorado.

This is naturally a story the Colorado tourism boards happily lean into.

The truth? It’s probably a blend of history and tall tale.

Mears really did make a fortune from tolls, and contracts for construction could have totaled near a million in the era’s accounting.

But like the highway itself, the full story winds between fact and folklore, which makes it even more exciting.

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