Florida Friday; Fort Caroline Natinonal Memorial

Back in 2013 I was visiting the city of Jacksonville and decided to stop in at Fort Caroline National Memorial on the banks of the St. John's River near Florida State Road 116.

Fort Caroline was an attempted French Colony that was established on the St. Johns River in 1564. The French had made an attempt to colonize what was known as French Florida between 1562 and 1565. The exact site of Fort Caroline is not known and the Memorial is just a replica built by the Park Service based off of research. Fort Caroline was attacked by the Spanish who had staked claims to Florida as early as 1513 and had failed to establish a permanent colony. The French attempt at colonization of Florida spurred the Spanish to put greater effort into colonizing. St. Augustine was established as the first true colony of Spain in 1565 which is occupied to this very day. After the French were run out of Fort Caroline in 1565 it was occupied by the Spanish as San Mateo Until 1569.

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I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

Interstate 210 the Foothill Freeway

The combined Interstate 210/California State Route 210 corridor of the Foothill Freeway is approximately 85.31-miles. The Interstate 210/California State Route 210 corridor begins at Interstate 5 at the northern outskirts of Los Angeles and travels east to Interstate 10 in Redlands of San Bernardino County. Interstate 210 is presently signed on the 44.9-mile segment of the Foothill Freeway between Interstate 5 and California State Route 57. California State Route 210 makes up the remaining 40.41 miles of the Foothill Freeway east to Interstate 10. Interstate 210 is still classified by the Federal Highway Administration as existing on what is now signed as California State Route 57 from San Dimas south to Interstate 10. The focus of this blog will mostly be on the history of Interstate 210 segment of the Foothill Freeway. Part 1; the history of Interstate 210 and California State Route 210 Interstate 210 (I-210) was approved as a chargeable Interstate during September of

White Rock Road; the historic highway corridor serving Mariposa County since the 1850s

White Rock Road is a twenty-eight-mile-long highway corridor which begins at the Chowchilla River in Merced County and ends at Old Highway 18 in Mariposa County near the town site of Bridgeport. The portion of White Rock Road between the Merced County and Mariposa County line to Bridgeport (via the town site of White Rock) is one of the oldest continuously used highway corridors in California. Once known as the "Mariposa River Road" the corridor was developed in the 1850s as one of the two primary highways to the mining communities of Mariposa County. White Rock Road was bypassed in 1918 when Legislative Route Number 18 was completed between Merced and Mariposa. The corridor was for time known as Mariposa and Le Grand Road prior to the construction of Mariposa Creek Dam (formerly Mariposa River) in 1948. Following construction of the dam the roadway took the name it has now and was extended through Merced County to the Chowchilla River. Much of modern White Rock Road i