The highway was named "Airline" because it runs relatively straight on a new alignment, rather than alongside the winding Mississippi River.

[3] It was begun by the Jefferson Parish Police Jury as a local road and incorporated into the plan for Airline Highway during construction.

[9] At this time, traffic was routed from Prairieville into Baton Rouge over the Jefferson Highway (today's LA 73).

The first improvements to the Airline Highway began in 1935 and consisted of widening and re-surfacing the Kenner-Shrewsbury link built a decade earlier.

The eight-lane extension into Tulane Avenue (reached by a now-demolished six-lane bridge over the former New Basin Canal) was officially opened on August 26, 1940.

For a short time in that decade, it was the longest toll-free four-lane highway in the nation, as the multilaned portion ran 124 miles from the Atchafalaya River to New Orleans.

In 1951, Louisiana truncated the route lengths, and the highway, with the exception of a portion in north Baton Rouge, is signed as US 61.

In an effort to clean up the highway's notorious history due to the seedy hotels and motels that once lined it, the portion in Jefferson Parish has been renamed Airline Drive.