MONTICELLO, San Juan County — Dean Collard, a Port of Entry agent in southeastern Utah, has seen people traveling on the road headed east out of town suddenly gasp as they glanced at something and then quickly turn their vehicles around and redirect to another route.
"A few drivers," he said, "were too spooked to drive on it."
You would've thought they'd seen a ghost on the side of the road. Or maybe the creepy old lady who some claim they've seen wandering along desolate parts of this highway at night. Or perhaps a skinwalker, one of those powerful, shape-shifting spirits that Navajo legend claims have been cursed and roam the area.
Or none of the above.
What they saw, Collard says, was the road sign that made them wonder if they were on the Highway to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks, Purgatory Pathway or Lucifer's Lane.
That's because here the official U.S. government-issued signs by mere coincidence display a road name that the Bible claims to be the "Number of the Beast" — 666.
This supposedly satanic strip stretches through 190 miles in three states — basically going east-west from Monticello to Cortez, Colo., and then north-south to Gallup, N.M.
It's been infamously known as "The Devil's Highway."
Until now.
U.S. 666 is losing its unintentional alliance with the Archfiend. The Utah Department of Transportation joined forces with New Mexico and Colorado to persuade the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials to exorcise Satan's serial number from their streets.
It will be dubbed U.S. 491 — 393 was another option — now that the AASHTO board of directors on Monday approved renaming recommendations made by two committees at annual meetings in Lexington, Ky. "I guess it'll calm a few nerves," Collard said.
New Mexico's governor initiated this latest attempt at casting evil images of the devilish drag, which got its unintended demonic distinction in 1926 simply because it was the sixth branch of U.S. 66. Gov. Bill Richardson wants to repave the road (with good intentions, of course) from two lanes to four and purge it from netherworld connotations and from thieves who often snatch the signs for souvenirs.
New Mexico legislators concurred and passed a resolution, according to the Washington Post, because they were eager to dissipate the "cloud of opprobrium" that loomed over the road. Sounds spooky.
They might have just been tired of hearing stories of highway troopers being told by pulled-over motorists, "The devil made me do it."
Here in Utah, Monticello residents seem split. Some won't mind the change, but that faction hasn't made a big fuss, either. Some believe the government is about to dance with the Devil by meddling for no good reason.
It's now up to each state to change signs and maps.
David Redd, owner of two Monticello motels, thinks it's a good idea to change the identity. One of his motels, the Best Western, is on U.S. 666, although in town it's referred to as "Central," or the road that isn't Main.
"One, it will draw attention to this town," he said, hopeful that would bring an influx of tourists the way of this spot southeast of Canyonlands. "And I think there are people who are superstitious that won't travel on it. They'll avoid it just because of that number."
Like her restaurant co-workers at Bev's Barn, waitress Mary Sparks doesn't mind the Diablo's digits that made quite an impression on her brother. An avid fan of the heavy-metal band, AC/DC, he couldn't believe his eyes when he visited from Oklahoma.
"He said, 'There's a Highway to Hell?' I said, 'Oh, yeah, it starts right here,' " Sparks mused. "He had to have that sign."
She got him one legally — from an old scrap pile. Utah hasn't had as many problems with sign swiping the past 10 years, according to UDOT spokesman Tom Hudachko, because a redesign in poles made stealing more challenging. The signs should really be in high demand by collectors now. Sparks really desires sign status quo because she believes getting used to a new number could cause confusion.
"You have dumb people like me," she said with a smile, "who won't remember what road they're on."
Kent Rowley, owner of the cafe and a city policeman, was even a bigger devil's advocate, so to speak, when it came to challenging the transportation officials' decision.
"Six six six? None of us has a stigma about it," he said. "It's the rest of the world that does.
"You want to know the truth? I'm ticked off. It's not right," he fumed. "That road has been 666 since I was born. It makes me mad. I thought it was pretty cool we were 666, and I'm LDS, go to church every Sunday and pay my tithing."
Rowley says the road gets a bad rap, not unlike the Bermuda Triangle or 13th floors in hotels. He said a tourist from 2,000 miles away will get a flat or have a minor accident "that could've happened on any other road in the world," and they'll start blabbing about it being Beelzebub Boulevard.
"Because it's 666, people think it's voodoo," he said. "I think it's a sham."
As, he says, are the tall tales that some imaginative minds conjure up. Rowley's lived in San Juan County for 55 years, and he couldn't spin one campfire-worthy spine-chilling yarn about the road.
"No haunted stories," he said.
Not any supernatural ones at least.
"Do we have some problems because it's 666? No," he said. "Because it's a highway that runs east-west when the snow blows from north-to-south? Yes."
UDOT's latest statistics support Rowley's belief that U.S. 666 — at least the 17-mile portion in Utah and then on to Cortez, the closest big town — is as safe as one could expect a two-lane highway to be. From 1997 to 2001, the semitrailer-truck-traffic-heavy road averaged only 19.4 accidents per year, and the seriousness of those accidents was below the expected severity rate (1.42 actual average vs. 1.65 expected rate, with 1 representing a fender-bender type and 5 being a fatality).
"People think that's the devil's number," Rowley said. "Well, he hasn't done a very good job."
Just last year, however, a woman apparently had a heart attack and drove head-on into an oncoming truck that then hit another vehicle just outside of Monticello on 666. Four people died and a baby was seriously injured. Before that, only three people had been killed in accidents since 1997.
Horrible happenings? Of course. Hauntings? Heck no, Rowley says.
In fact, John Merrill, a trucker who delivers milk to Idaho and often hauls this way, said 666 is better than it used to be because police have taken some of the drunken drivers off the road. As for the scary paranormal stuff, Merrill doesn't think about the triple-sixes so it doesn't faze him. Plus, not only does he come from Roswell, N.M., "with the aliens," he says, but he is a former holy man of the cloth.
"I used to be a minister," he said, "so nothing bothers me."
As for cult appeal, that seems to be nonexistent as far as Rowley knows. This local arm of the law says it's not a magnet for mischief by the town's teenagers, either. They get their kicks elsewhere.
"They raise hell in town," Rowley joked. "They don't do it on the highway."
So much for 666, at least this one, being the route of all evil.
E-MAIL: jody@desnews.com