Nearly all of State Highway 65 was decommissioned at some point between April 1937 and April 1938. Only the portion between the Texas line and US-70 was kept. The non-concurrent sections of the former SH-65 routing north of US-70 were dropped from the state highway system, excepting the portion from Elgin to Sterling, which became a western extension of SH-17. In 1940, this change was mostly undone—all of the highway between Temple and Sterling was restored as SH-65. However, this left the section of highway connecting US-70 to TX-148 discontiguous from the remainder of the highway. At this point in time, the southern section of highway and the portion of the route between Temple and SH-53 had been graveled.