Re: Another old map

Looks like Hwy 49 wasn't yet built between Mariposa and Oakhurst, and that Chowchilla Mountain Road was still a major route between Mariposa and Wawona as the result.

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Took me awhile to remember that Kings Canyon used to be General Grant NP

Great poster. Why did they change the name of the park?

The name change occurred when Kings Canyon National Park was created in 1940.

General Grant National Park only included the General Grant Grove of Giant Sequoias and just a very small area around that grove. That was basically it! It was created in 1890 (the same year as Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks).

(On the old map shown on the original message of this thread it's that small square box on the Fresno and Tulare county line.)

When Congress created Kings Canyon National Park in 1940 they merged the tiny General Grant National Park with new Kings Canyon National Park.

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Thanks for the info. Greatly appreciated.

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plawrence
Looks like Hwy 49 wasn't yet built between Mariposa and Oakhurst, and that Chowchilla Mountain Road was still a major route between Mariposa and Wawona as the result.

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I recall some of the narrow and twisty roads that preceded Highway 49 between Mariposa and Oakhurst from the 1960's and you did not want to speed or get distracted. I also recall when the buildings of the Murphy family were still standing and Summit Campground was in use.

The map shows the planned route of State Route 190 across the Sierra south of Sequoia National Park as well.

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Rob65
The map shows the planned route of State Route 190 across the Sierra south of Sequoia National Park as well.

I have an old topo map (1950-something I think) that shoes the road to Horseshoe Meadow only partially constructed and it's labeled as 190. But I haven't found any mention of that route anywhere so far.

The current alignment of Hwy 190 has it reaching US-395 at Olancha, not Long Pine.

From the Caltrans Dist 6. State Route 190 Transportation Concept Report (dated 2007):

ROUTE DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE

Begins: At State Route 99 near Tipton in Tulare County

Ends: At Quaking Aspen Camp in Tulare County (Caltrans District 6), the unconstructed
portion ends at SR 127 near Death Valley Junction in Inyo County (Caltrans District 9)

Length: A 231 mile long highway from SR 99 near Tipton to SR 127 near the Death
Valley Junction in Inyo County (approximately 43 miles across the Sierra Nevada
Mountains in Tulare and Inyo Counties are adopted but unconstructed).


Here's the map of the current adopted alignment of Hwy 190:

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http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist6/planning/tcrs/sr190tcr/sr190fulldoc.pdf


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Although this map shows 190 as running from Porterville to Lone Pine, I think that was just a "line on a map" in the early years. Once Caltrans (or the Division of Highways then) got serious about actually building the route, they outlined it as a connection from Porterville via Quaking Aspen to Olancha via Olancha Pass. A Caltrans survey of the route sometime in the 1950s resulted in the adopted alignment being moved to cross at Haiwee Pass instead. I've seen that topo showing Horseshoe Meadows Road as being SR 190, but I think that may just have been a mapping error as I have not seen any Caltrans record of that road ever having been signed as SR 190. Horseshoe Meadows Road was not constructed until 1967 or so and was only intended to serve the proposed Disney ski resort at Trail Pass (which was their "Plan B" after the Mineral King development was shot down). I don't believe there was ever any intention of extending the road farther west over the Sierra crest. Haiwee Pass would have provided a lower altitude crossing (8,700 feet vs. 11,500 feet), with less of a winter snow removal/closure problem as a result. However, SR 190 did used to run from Keeler to Lone Pine. Sometime in the 1970s, it was switched to run from Keeler to Olancha, which would have made it more in line to connect directly to the proposed route over Haiwee Pass.

It's interesting that this map doesn't show the proposed road over Kearsarge Pass from Kings Canyon to Independence. Of all the early proposed trans-Sierran routes, this is the one that had the most political muscle behind it -- more so than the route that 190 would eventually be proposed for. The SR 168 route over Piute Pass, from Kaiser Pass to Bishop was more of a 1950s/60s proposal, and the planned route up the San Joaquin drainage to Mammoth was more of a late 1960s/early 1970s proposal, and was the last one to be shot down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2013 05:56PM by Rob65.

I thank the folks who fought these road proposals over the years. I shudder to think of the impacts if any one of them had been built...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2013 09:06PM by JustKeepWalking.

I think we can also thank the fact that the southern Sierra never experienced the Gold Rush (or any other mineral boom), otherwise these roads would have been constructed -- and later improved into modern highways.

FYI, this appears to be one of the maps produced for the biennial/annual reports of the State Highway Engineer, California Division of Highways. These maps typically show the improvement status of various routes as adopted. The maps, as well as the reports, offer a wealth of information on transportation development in California.

Oh yeah, add the proposal to blast a huge tunnel through Sonora Pass in the 1940s as one we can all be happy did not happen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2013 09:45PM by KC.

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KC


Oh yeah, add the proposal to blast a huge tunnel through Sonora Pass in the 1940s as one we can all be happy did not happen.

Actually, I prefer tunnels through mountains than having a giant ribbon scars across the mountain side. Tunnel are usually far more expensive, but environmentally I think they're more sound.

Note only after a large protest did Caltrans choose the more expensive tunnel option to bypass Devil's Slide on Hwy 1 by the Pacific Coast instead of the far more cheaper road cut through the hills that Caltrans originally sought.

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I agree with you about tunnels. Highway engineers in Europe love tunnels -- there are hundreds of them in Italy, France, and especially Norway. Perhaps they value aesthetics more than we Americans do, but you rarely see big highway scars on mountains there. I can't imagine it's much cheaper to build them there; perhaps they just have superior engineers.

I would have built dozens of tunnels in Appalachia instead of the horrific and ugly road cuts they've inflicted upon that landscape over the past 20 years in the name of highway "improvements". It's truly tragic.

I guess I need to clarify things a bit. The tunnel through the pass was part of a proposal to improve 108 as an all-year truck hauling route during WWII with military needs in mind. Maybe a tunnel at the pass would have been nice, but I'm glad the proposal went down.