State Road 45 is a state route from Bean Blossom,

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

Scotland, Indiana Scotland is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Taylor Township, Greene County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 134. History The Scotland post office was established in 1837. ...

in the southern half of the state.

Route description

From Bean Blossom and through Brown County, State Road 45 is a narrow, shoulderless two-lane road that passes between the Morgan-Monroe State Forest and the Yellowwood State Forest. As the road passes into Monroe County, the woods disappear and farms and homes begin to line the road. The road remains hilly and curvy until it reaches Bloomington, where it bypasses the city concurrent with State Road 46 and then

Interstate 69 Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway in the United States currently consisting of eight unconnected segments. The longest segment runs from Evansville, Indiana, northeast to the Canadian border in Port Huron, Michigan, and includ ...

. West of Bloomington, shoulders appear on State Road 45 and its two lanes become wider. The road meanders with the rolling terrain interchanging again with Interstate 69 until it meets and overlaps State Road 58, after which it is straight and flat until its terminus at

US 231 U.S. Route 231 (US 231) is a north–south U.S highway that is a parallel route of US 31. It runs for from St. John, Indiana, at US 41 to south of US 98 in downtown Panama City, Florida. One of its most notable landmark ...

History

What would eventually become State Road (S.R.) 45 had its origins in the early state highway system. Roads 4 (later changed to 16) and 18 connected Rockport to Haysville via

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

. This would become, in the October 1, 1926 statewide renumbering, the first segment of State Road 45. By 1932, S.R. 45 was being extended north from Haysville to Loogootee, and a separate segment between

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

in Greene County and Bloomington had also been completed. By 1940, the entire route from Rockport to Bloomington was complete, but when the Crane Naval Ammunition Depot was commissioned in 1941, the portion of the highway between Burns City and Cincinnati had to be rerouted to the west perimeter of the installation. When U.S. 231 was extended north through Indiana in 1953, it was routed over S.R. 45 from Rockport to the S.R. 58 junction near

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. However, as with S.R. 43 from Spencer to Lafayette, which also carried U.S. 231, the Indiana State Highway Department (now INDOT) deleted much of the co-signed state route by 1979. The deletion left the current segment along with a short, 5-mile section from Patronville to Rockport that acted as a connector to then-U.S. 231 (now State Road 161) and

Owensboro Owensboro is a home rule-class city in Daviess County, Kentucky, United States, of which it is also the county seat. It is the fourth-most populous city in the state. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. This southern section was decommissioned and turned over to the control of the city of Rockport (within the city limits) and Spencer County (outside of Rockport) in March 2001, about a year before U.S. 231 was rerouted onto the

William H. Natcher Bridge The William H. Natcher Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge that carries U.S. Highway 231 over the Ohio River. The bridge connects Owensboro, Kentucky to Rockport, Indiana and opened on October 21, 2002. It is named in honor of William Huston Natche ...

. The segment of S.R. 45 from Scotland to Bloomington was named for the late former Bloomington mayor and Indiana 8th District Congressman Frank X. McCloskey in 2004. A major construction project to widen the road to four lanes in Bloomington was completed in November 2012.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML 045 Transportation in Brown County, Indiana Transportation in Greene County, Indiana Transportation in Monroe County, Indiana