The entire length of SR 544 is also served by Whatcom Transportation Authority bus route 71X, which connects Bellingham to Everson, Nooksack, and Sumas. The route from Bellingham to Everson was originally part of the Whatcom Trail, used by the indigenous Nooksack people and later prospectors during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in the 1850s and 1860s. The Bellingham and Northern Railway was later built in the 1880s along the route from Bellingham to Everson and Sumas and included a crossing of the Nooksack River west of Everson. The Everson bridge was later joined by a road bridge that was constructed a decade later to replace a ferry on a major wagon road. The east–west road connecting Everson and Nooksack to the Guide Meridian was paved in the early 1930s by the county government. The Everson road was designated as a branch of Secondary State Highway 1A (SSH 1A) by the state legislature in 1951. SR 544 was created during the 1964 renumbering to replace the Everson branch, while the rest of SSH 1A became SR 9. After suffering damage during a major flood in November 1990, the original truss bridge over the Nooksack River was replaced with a longer span, which opened in 1994. The entire highway was repaved by WSDOT in summer 2005, requiring the three-month closure of sections near Everson. The project cost $2.6 million to complete and was delayed by the discovery of gasoline-contaminated soil under Everson's Main Street.