Because of unintended conflict between the National Auto Trail movement and the federal government, it is unclear whether it ever really existed in the complete form that its United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) founders originally intended.

[2] In the first quarter of the 20th century, as the automobile gained in popularity, a system of roads began to develop informally through the actions of private interests.

The UDC planned the formation of the Jefferson Davis as a road that would start in Arlington, Virginia, and travel through the southern states until its terminus at San Diego, California.

More than ten years after the route-planning and marking of the Jefferson Davis on existing roadways was begun, it was announced that it would be extended north out of San Diego and go to the Canada–US border.

The UDC petitioned the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to designate the Jefferson Davis as a national highway with a single number.

[6] The highway's original eastern terminus marker was located at the Virginia end of the 14th Street Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

[16] Any portions whose names remained unchanged were legally renamed Emancipation Highway on January 1, 2022,[17] although this only applied to Fredericksburg.

[21] In Alabama, the segment of US 80 from Selma to Montgomery is the most famous part of the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway today.

The original alignment of the main route traversed from Sabine River to El Paso, via Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Alpine and Van Horn.

"Officials of the state Department of Transportation now believe they have removed the last remaining memorials to Confederate President Jefferson Davis from Interstate 10 rest areas in New Mexico.

[30] The western terminus of the highway was identified by a Jefferson Davis plaque at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.

)[citation needed] Markers were also placed in the California municipalities of Bakersfield, Fort Tejon, Hornbrook, and Winterhaven.

[32] The Jefferson Davis monument at Horton Plaza was removed on August 16, 2017, in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Virginia.

[34] On August 17, 2017, the Jefferson Davis Highway road-side marker beside U.S. Route 60 near Gold Canyon was "tarred and feathered",[35] presumably in response to the Unite the Right rally the previous weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

[citation needed] The marker is a remnant of when U.S. Route 80 previously existed over the same roadway, which was designated as the Jefferson Davis Highway by the Arizona state legislature in 1961.

[36][37] On November 6, 2020, an article from The News & Observer indicated that NCDOT was in the process of removing Jefferson Davis highway signs and markers along state-owned right-of-way.

[20][38] The northeastern Virginia section of the highway approximated the route of the older Washington and Alexandria Turnpike, which received its charter from the United States Congress in 1808.

However, the name of the county's section of Jefferson Davis Highway itself, a portion of U.S. 1 that only the Virginia General Assembly could legally rename in 2011, remained unchanged.

[45] After receiving a letter of support from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, the CTB voted on May 15 to change to Richmond Highway the name of the portions of U.S. Route 1 and Virginia State Route 110 within Arlington County that at the time bore the name of Jefferson Davis Highway.

[56] In 1998, officials of the city of Vancouver removed a marker of the Jefferson Davis Highway and placed it in a cemetery shed in an action that several years later became controversial.