State Highway 87 (Texas)
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| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by TxDOT | ||||
| Length: | 249.39 mi (401.35 km) | |||
| Existed: | by 1939 – present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| South end: |
 I-45 in Galveston
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   US 69/US 96/US 287 in Port Arthur  I-10/US 90 in Orange US 190 in Newton
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| North end: |
.svg){kind=small}   Future I-69/US 59/US 84/Loop 470 at Timpson
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| Highway system | ||||
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State Highway 87 or SH 87 runs for 249.4 miles (401.4 km) between Galveston, Texas (at a terminus shared with Interstate 45 and Spur 342) to U.S. Highway 59 and U.S. Highway 84 in Timpson, Texas.
Highway 87 has a notable stretch between Sea Rim State Park and High Island, Texas that has been washed out repeatedly over the decades and has been closed continuously since 1990. Portions of this stretch were less than 100 feet (30 m) away from high tide in the 1990s. The storm surge from Hurricane Jerry which made landfall on October 15, 1989, left the highway in a state of disrepair.
While talk about rebuilding the destroyed segment of State Highway 87 happens from time to time (for example, in 1998), there is no serious effort underway to do so.
SH 87 was originally designated in 1926 from Orange to Milam. The route was the previously proposed SH 8A before being renumbered. By 1928, it extended to Port Arthur. By 1933, it extended again, this time to High Island. In 1939, it was extended to its current terminus in Timpson, and replaced the section of SH 124 from High Island to Galveston. In 1970, road machinery used in its construction accidentally dug up several cannonballs and crumbling kegs of black powder about 10 miles west of Sabine Pass. Further excavation eventually produced more kegs of black powder and several hundred cannonballs. The ammunition had been buried there by Confederate soldiers in what were the ditches of Fort Manhassett in 1865. Fort Manhassett was a series of earthworks constructed by the Confederacy in 1863 to defend the western approaches to Sabine Pass.
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