met county road F-97 at a junction with Artesia Beach Road. The two roads ran concurrently into town along the east end of Lake St. Helen. Near the airport in town, M-76 turned back northwesterly along Washington Street, parting from F-97 in the process. The highway ran along the northeastern shore of Lake St. Helen and near Mud Lake as it continued toward Roscommon. As it entered that town, the trunkline passed the Roscommon Conservation Airport and followed Elm Street on a northwest track through the middle of the village. M-18 joined M-76 in the center of town, and the two turned parallel to the Roscommon–Crawford county line on Federal Highway. Northeast of Higgins Lake, the highway transitioned to a freeway; that freeway ran northwest into Crawford County. M-18/M-76 terminated at a junction south of Grayling with US 27. This partial interchange marked the point where I-75 resumed its course north through the state. Traffic could not directly access southbound US 27 from northbound M-76 and northbound US 27 could not access southbound M-76. History On July 1, 1919, the initial routing of M-76 connected Standish with Roscommon via a circuitous path through Sterling, Alger, West Branch, and St. Helen. By 1927, M-76 was extended north to Grayling and west to Kalkaska. Before the construction of its later routing along the present-day Lake State Railway between St. Helen and Roscommon, the route of M-76 followed present-day Saint Helen Road (present-day F-97), then Au Sable, Keno, and Silsby roads; at the Crawford-Roscommon county line, it then followed present-day M-18 westerly into Roscommon. A short non-contiguous segment of M-76 opened near Empire, extending eastward to County Road 669 in 1934. In late 1940 or early 1941, M-76 was truncated to Roscommon; all of M-76 from Grayling to Kalkaska and the segment near Empire was redesignated as M-72. Beginning in 1958, I-75 in Michigan was constructed in several discontinuous segments. M-76 was to become one of the portions incorporated into the route of I-75. Although other portions of I-75 were completed and designated in noncontiguous segments, the portion from Standish to Roscommon was first signed as M-76 and the entire stretch rebuilt as freeway before it was redesignated as I-75. This was done while a temporary connecting To I-75 designation between Bay City and Grayling followed a different path along US 10 and US 27. Starting in 1968 through the early 1970s, M-76