Finding 6

In my planning on a July trip to the northeast, one of the issues I've come across is actually finding the original route of US 6. Much of the route in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts has been moved to freeways, plowing it through the major cities, and allowing drivers to reach its destinations - like Cape Cod - at high speeds. The idea of exploring both these high-speed and original, now back road options is most appealing. But with the latter, the challenge becomes finding that original, now back road option.
This is particularly the case in the cities, where the streets came long before the highway designations, and the original US 6 often snakes around town, at times splitting into different routes. The best I can do at this point is rely on historic maps.
One of the best resources for this is the David Rumsey Map Collection, a private collection of various historic digitized maps from around the world, most importantly (for my purposes) including an impressive and rather comprehensive collection of Shell Oil maps from the 1950's and '60's. This was the prime time for the federal highway system: after the idea of following numbers and not names became more accepted, but before the interstate highway system swallowed the original routes.

Section of a 1956 Shell Oil map of Massachusetts in Barnstable County, showing three parallel sections of US 6, including the then-proposed highway bypass through the center of the peninsula. Courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection.

The challenge is going to be finding and then following these different routes. Streets have changed names, some streets have outright been removed or repurposed, highways have been renumbered, and US 6 has been routed on several different interstate highways and several different freeway bypasses, resulting in the loss of the ability to simply follow signage.

The plan of action is to print out sections of these old maps, and write specific directions based on comparisons between them and current maps, showing how the streets are laid out now (which is an interesting study, in itself).

My goal for this July trip is to scope out different parts of this section of US 6. The fact is, I haven't even been on much of US 6 in the Northeast, so it will also involve covering a lot of new territory. Cape Cod, in particular, has always been high on my list of things to see in the US, and seeing the end points of the highway is really a top priority. I have seen both the former Long Beach and current Bishop, California end points, so seeing the eastern side is something that will be worth the drive to me.