[3] The highway travels south for a short distance then immediately east through rural Luna County intersecting with former NM 331 at Hermanas Road.

[3][4] When NM 418 was still part of US 80, the highway continued on a sweeping curve that merged into Spruce Street rather than the T-shaped intersection that exists today.

The Dixie Overland Highway was the first marked route to run between Savannah, Georgia and southern California.

[10] The auto trail entered New Mexico through El Paso, Texas, then traveled north to Mesilla Park where it turned west to Deming, Lorsburg and Steins, before heading south into Rodeo and southwest into Arizona towards Douglas.

[10] US 80 followed much of the same routing as the previous auto trails, but turned west at Las Cruces instead of Mesilla Park.

Between 1930 and 1931, the highway between Deming and Gage was rebuilt onto a straighter diagonally shaped alignment, which remains the path NM 418 takes today.

[2] In 1935, US 70 was extended west from Clovis to Los Angeles, California, becoming concurrent with US 80 between Las Cruces and Lordsburg.