Skip to main content

NC 172's long-ago partner in crime

One of the interesting things about North Carolina is, almost to a T, any intersection at a very small angle (10 degrees or so) almost always indicates an old alignment of a roadway. I've noticed that NC 133 has one of these intersections just south of a bridge and a sharp curve about halfway between Leland and Southport, and assumed that the roadway used to continue straight ahead. So I decided to trace a route along this roadway, now called Plantation Road after the Orton Plantation located nearby, and lo and behold...

First, here is the intersection of 133 and Plantation. Notice how it's almost straight on with the northern stretch of 133 from the intersection, even though Plantation itself curves to the left to meet 133.

Follow Plantation south, and eventually you cross into land occupied by Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal. Keep going south, and switch over to the Satellite view after the mapped road ends, and you'll come to this point where the road seems to be closed but there's obviously an old roadbed in place, and while there's no bridge over the small creek it's obvious that one existed at some point. After the second waterway (which is an intake canal for the nuclear plant that would have been built well after this road was abandoned), another road picks up, and this one eventually becomes NC 211 near the Southport ferry dock, running straight into downtown Southport.

So at some point, the road from Leland to Southport ran through what's now Sunny Point, and was probably relocated in the late '40s when Sunny Point was being built. It was never NC 133 because that numbering didn't come along until the late '50s, but it could have been the original routing of NC 130 before it was renumbered to NC 40 -- right around 1950, that stretch was given a number for the first time, and it existed unnumbered before then.

With all the military bases in eastern North Carolina, I'm sure this road isn't the only one that was necessarily rerouted to avoid a base. (NC 172, obviously, wasn't rerouted per se, but it was closed as a through route through Camp Lejeune.) Are there any other roads that were rerouted around a base?

Comments

Unknown said…
NC-111 was rerouted when Seymour Johnson AFB was built. If you look at it on Google maps it's pretty clear that "Old NC-111" used to connect to Slocumb Street, which intersects with Ash Street (which at the time would have been US-70 and today is US-70 Business).
Mapmikey said…
The 1930 Brunswick County Map supports the pre-NC 133 routing through Sunny Point

NC 111 has been rerouted twice for the AFB. See the map shown at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Goldsboro,+NC&ie=UTF8&ll=35.341035,-77.944393&spn=0.04936,0.084715&z=14&om=1
which shows two different older NC 111 routings...one onto Slocumb St, and another using Piedmont Airlane Rd to meet 70 business...

Popular posts from this blog

Bleriot Ferry - Alberta

  Alberta operates six ferries scattered throughout the province. Roughly twenty to twenty-five kilometers up the Red Deer River from the town of Drumheller is one of the most scenic ferry crossings in all of Wild Rose Country, the Bleriot Ferry. Using the North Dinosaur Trail (Alberta Highway 838, or AB 838), the Bleriot Ferry provides a scenic river cruise of sorts in the Canadian Badlands. The Bleriot Ferry started operating in 1913 as the Munson Ferry when a few bridges crossed the Red Deer River. The ferry was started by Andre Bleriot, the brother of famed early aviator Louis Bleriot, who became famous for being the first person to fly over the English Channel. At the time, the Alberta provincial government commissioned local residents to run the ferries. There were several ferries along the Red Deer River, and not only did they serve as vital transportation links, but they also served as local social hubs, since everyone had to take the ferries to go places. Over time, as the...

The Pollasky Bridge

The Pollasky Bridge near modern day Friant is a ruined highway bridge which was completed during early 1906 as part of the Fresno-Fresno Flats Road.  The structure is one of the oldest known arch concrete spans to have been constructed in California.  The bridge briefly carried California State Route 41 following the destruction of the Lanes Bridge in 1940.  The Pollasky Bridge itself was destroyed by flooding during 1951, but the ruins can still be found on the Madera County side of the San Joaquin River.   Pictured as the blog cover is the Pollasky Bridge as it was featured in the 1913 book "The Concrete Bridge."  The structure can be seen crossing the San Joaquin River near Friant below on the 1922 United States Geological Survey Map.   Part 1; the history of the Pollasky Bridge The Pollasky Bridge site is near modern day Friant of Fresno County.  The community of Friant was established as Converse Ferry during 1852 on the San Joaquin Rive...

Trimmer Springs Road (Fresno County)

Trimmer Springs Road is an approximately forty-mile rural highway located in Fresno County.  The corridor begins near in California State Route 180 in Centerville and extends to Blackrock Road at the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada range near the Pacific Gas & Electric Company town of Balch Camp. The roadway is named after the former Trimmer Springs Resort and was originally constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.  Trimmer Springs Road was heavily modified and elongated after construction of Pine Flat Dam broke ground in 1947.   Part 1; the history of Trimmer Springs Road Much of the original alignment of Trimmer Springs Road was constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.   The  Kings River Lumber Company  had been established in 1888 in the form of a 30,000-acre purchase of forest lands in Converse Basin.  This purchase lied immediately west of Grant Grove and came to be known as "Millwood."  The co...