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 State Road 45 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frank McCloskey Highway | ||||
 SR 45 highlighted in red | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained byINDOT | ||||
| Length | 55.65 mi[1] (89.56 km) | |||
| Existed | October 1, 1926[2]–present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| South end |   US 231 /SR 58 nearCrane | |||
| Major intersections |  I-69 nearCraneI-69 atBloomington | |||
| North end |  SR 135 atBeanblossom | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | Indiana | |||
| Highway system | ||||
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State Road 45 is a state route fromBean Blossom,Indiana, toScotland, Indiana, in the southern half of the state.
From Bean Blossom and throughBrown 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 intoMonroe County, the woods disappear and farms and homes begin to line the road. The road remains hilly and curvy until it reachesBloomington, where it bypasses the city concurrent withState Road 46 and thenInterstate 69. 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 overlapsState Road 58, after which it is straight and flat until its terminus atUS 231.
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 connectedRockport toHaysville viaJasper. 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 toLoogootee, and a separate segment betweenCincinnati inGreene County and Bloomington had also been completed. By 1940, the entire route from Rockport to Bloomington was complete, but when theCrane Naval Ammunition Depot was commissioned in 1941, the portion of the highway betweenBurns 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 nearScotland. However, as with S.R. 43 fromSpencer toLafayette, 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 fromPatronville to Rockport that acted as a connector to then-U.S. 231 (nowState Road 161) andOwensboro,Kentucky. This southern section was decommissioned and turned over to the control of the city of Rockport (within the city limits) andSpencer County (outside of Rockport) in March 2001, about a year before U.S. 231 was rerouted onto theWilliam H. Natcher Bridge.
The segment of S.R. 45 from Scotland to Bloomington was named for the late former Bloomington mayor and Indiana 8th District CongressmanFrank X. McCloskey in 2004.[3]
A major construction project to widen the road to four lanes in Bloomington was completed in November 2012.[4]
| County | Location | mi[1] | km | Destinations | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greene | Scotland | 0.00 | 0.00 |   US 231 /SR 58 west toI-69 –Loogootee,Elnora,Bloomfield | Southern end of SR 45; southern end of SR 58 concurrency; I-69 Exit 87 |
| Owensburg | 9.07 | 14.60 |  SR 58 east –Bedford | Northern end of SR 58 concurrency | |
| Jackson Township | I-69 –Evansville,Indianapolis | I-69 exit 98 opened December 9, 2015 | |||
| Cincinnati | 16.56 | 26.65 |  SR 54 east –Bedford | Southern end of SR 54 concurrency | |
| 16.70 | 26.88 | SR 54 west –Bloomfield | Northern end of SR 54 concurrency | ||
| 18.58 | 29.90 |  SR 445 | Former northern terminus of SR 445 | ||
| Monroe | Bloomington | 29.82 | 47.99 |  I-69 south –Evansville | Southern end of concurrency with I-69 |
 SR 48 west | Eastern terminus of SR 48 | ||||
| 32.88 | 52.92 |  I-69 north –Indianapolis SR 46 west –Spencer | Northern end of I-69 concurrency; southern end of SR 46 concurrency | ||
| 36.23 | 58.31 | SR 46 east –Columbus | Northern terminus of SR 46 concurrency | ||
| Brown | Beanblossom | 55.65 | 89.56 | SR 135 –Nashville,Morgantown | Northern terminus of SR 45 |
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi
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