Surrounding landscapes along the highway system range from the urban areas in Omaha and Lincoln to scenic journeys through uninhabited grasslands in the Nebraska Sandhills.

[3] The Mormon Trail is a 1,300-mile (2,100 km) route that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled from 1846 to 1868 which also generally follows the Platte River from Omaha to Wyoming.

In 1926, the Nebraska Bureau of Roads and Bridges began erecting route markers along highways, the first of which contained the famous covered wagon emblem, developed by State Engineer Robert Cochran, that is still in use today.

[6] Over the next couple of decades the state struggled with continued maintenance of the existing highway system and stagnant funding as well as difficulty procuring necessary materials with the onset of World War II.

These highways are named with a number and letter combination that indicates the order of addition of that route within a particular county or region.

[9] The need for appropriate signage on state highways had been apparent in the early 1920s, but Nebraska held off until the development of a national standard.

The following year the Nebraska Department of Public Works began placing numbered markers along the state highways.

Farmers experienced difficulties delivering their harvest to markets, especially so when heavy rains caused any trails to become impassible muddy quagmires.

[12] During the late 19th century, various interest groups began putting pressure on the Federal Government to examine its role in national road development.

Farmers, in particular, pressed for improved farm-to-market roads as they began purchasing automobiles to transport their goods.

In 1912, Congress passed the Post Office Appropriation Act which allotted $500,000 (equivalent to $11.4 million in 2023[7]) for rural road construction to improve mail delivery.

Entrepreneur Carl Graham Fisher envisioned a transcontinental highway, allowing vehicular travel from Jersey City to San Francisco.

The bill promoted cooperation between the states and federal government, as equals, in the development and improvement of the nation's highways.

The conversion of gravel highways to hard surfacing became a priority of the department in 1950s, but limited funding meant this plan had to be executed strategically.

As such, the department engineers developed a sufficiency rating system to prioritize projects based on their condition, economic factors, safety and service.