Skip to main content

CA 168 Road Work Update and Friant Dam

In my previous post about CA 168 West I noted that Caltrans was working on a new roundabout in Prather.  The new roundabout is being built at the junction of CA 168 and Auberry Road which was a somewhat infamous local spot for traffic accidents.  As of yesterday it appears the roundabout is functionally open although far from complete.






I ended up taking Auberry Road and Millerton Road west to Friant to back to San Joaquin Valley.  That put me at the foot of the Friant Dam which was opened in 1942.


The Friant Dam impounds the San Joaquin River to create Millerton Lake which has a catchment area of about 1,600sq miles.  The Friant Dam was constructed between 1939 and 1942 by the Central Valley Project.  Today the Friant Dam is part of the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project and the lowest reservoir in the system.  The scope of Big Creek Project can be seen on this map:

Big Creek Hydroelectric Project Map

What I find interesting about the Friant Dam project was that it flooded over the area that once the town of Millerton which was original Fresno County Seat from 1856 to 1874.  Millerton was located on the San Joaquin River and was part of the Stock-Los Angeles Road which largely used to the Sierra Foothills to avoid what was once marsh lands in the San Joaquin Valley.  Problems in Millerton began when the town flooded over in 1867 and was largely abandoned.  Eventually county voters moved to the Fresno County seat to Fresno proper which was the final nail in the coffin for Millerton.  Eventually Madera, Kings, Tulare, Inyo, Mono, and San Benito counties all split off from Fresno which is why the site of Millerton is now in Madera County.  There wasn't much left of Millerton when the 1930s and the Friant Dam project got going.  The Millerton Courthouse was preserved above the Friant Dam and still stands to this day.


The alignment of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road largely followed the alignment of several state highways in San Joaquin Valley such as; CA 59, CA 140, CA 145, CA 180, and CA 65. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The 1915-era Teilman Bridge (the only known Concrete Pony Truss Bridge in California)

The Teilman Bridge is a semi-abandoned structure over Fresno Slough west of Burrell siding near the intersection of Elkhorn Avenue and Elkhorn Grade.  This structure is the only known Concrete Pony Truss Bridge constructed in California and was designed by Ingvart Teilman.  Teilman's Bridge would open in late 1915 when the Elkhorn Grade was the primary road between Fresno and Coalinga.  The structure would be replaced in 1991 but was left standing as it carries pipelines over Fresno Slough.  Part 1; the history of the Teilman Bridge In the early Twentieth Century the most direct highway between Fresno and Coalinga followed the Elkhorn Grade.  The Elkhorn Grade began at Fresno Slough a short distance west of Burrell siding.  From Fresno Slough the Elkhorn Grade followed a generally southwestern course through San Joaquin Valley into the Kettleman Hills towards Coalinga.   The Elkhorn Grade can be seen on the  1914 C.F. Weber map of Fresno Coun...

The Dummy Lights of New York

  A relic of the early days of motoring, dummy lights were traffic lights  that  were  placed  in the middle of a street intersection. In those early days, traffic shuffled through busy intersections with the help of a police officer who stood on top of a pedestal. As technology improved and electric traffic signals became commonplace, they were also  originally  positioned on a platform at the center of the intersection. Those traffic signals became known as  " dummy lights "  and were common until  traffic lights were moved  onto wires and poles that crossed above the intersection.  In New York State, only a handful of these dummy lights exist. The dummy lights  are found  in the Hudson Valley towns of Beacon and Croton-on-Hudson, plus there is an ongoing tug of war in Canajoharie in the Mohawk Valley, where their dummy light has been knocked down and replaced a few times. The dummy light in Canajoharie is currently...

Prunedale Road (Monterey County)

Prunedale Road is a short 2.6-mile-long frontage corridor of US Route 101 in the namesake Monterey County community of Prunedale.  Prior to 1932 US Route 101 bypassed Prunedale in favor of the San Juan Grade to the east.  Prunedale Road along with nearby Moro Road served as an alternative connecting highway between Salinas and San Juan Bautista.  Following the realignment of US Route 101 onto the Prunedale Cutoff the former through route along Prunedale Road would be rendered as a western frontage.   Part 1; the history of Prunedale Road Prunedale Road is located in and is named after the Monterey County community of Prunedale.  Said community was founded near the junction of San Migeul Canyon, Langley Canyon and Echo Valley.  Watsonville settler Charles Langley (namesake of Langley Canyon) was one of the prominent early community settlers.  The Prunedale Post Office would open for the first time in 1894 but would close by 1908.  Early agricu...