The route travels north through the Skull Valley Indian Reservation and past the ghost town of Iosepa; also, mostly the east side of Skull Valley, at the west foothills of the Stansbury Mountains.

[4] At the urging of Governor Mike Leavitt, the Utah Transportation Commission added the road to the state highway system in January 1998 as SR-196, and in February the state legislature concurred and added the new route to the highway code.

[5][6] Signs were posted in March prohibiting transport of high-level nuclear waste on the new state highway except by permit.

[7] The next year, the commission designated two "statewide public safety interest highways" - State Routes 900 and 901 - each consisting of several low-quality Bureau of Land Management and county-maintained roadways branching off I-80 and SR-196, respectively.

Unlike a typical state highway, the roads were not to be improved to higher standards; the purpose of the designation was to prevent construction of a waste-carrying rail line branching off the Union Pacific Railroad's Shafter Subdivision (ex-Western Pacific Railroad), which would cross these roads.