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Success Valley Drive

Success Valley Drive is a 5.4-mile mountain highway located in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Porterville.  The roadway (assigned as Tulare County Mountain Road 160) follows the South Fork Tule River from County Route J42 northwest to California State Route 190 near Lake Success.  Success Valley Drive has been present in Tulare County since the 1870s and was heavily used during the Tule River magnesite boom in the early twentieth century. Part 1; the history of Success Valley Drive Success Valley is where the South Fork and main course of the Tule River meet in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Porterville.  Success Valley would become part of the Tule River Farm in 1860 following the conclusion of the 1856 Tule River Indian War.   During 1864 Tule River Farm was reorganized as the Tule River Reservation by authorization of Congress.  The original reservation is thought to have had about 450 members of the Yokut tribe and approximately 350 Paiute who...
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The Name Fits - Allegheny County's Green Belt

On the Allegheny County Belt Route System, as you get closer to the bottom of the rainbow, you get closer to Downtown Pittsburgh.  So, with the Green Belt, you begin to move closer to the inner suburbs, and for a brief moment or two, within the limits of the City of Pittsburgh.  With this, I had expected to travel through some of the higher-density neighborhoods and communities surrounding the city.  As I drove through the hollows and cut across the North Hills, I did not expect the scenery of the Green Belt to closely resemble its name. Take your pick! Two different Green Belt signs along PA 837 in Duquesne. The Green Belt, for most of its nearly 40-mile arc around the eastern and northern city limits of Pittsburgh, offered far more "green" than you'd expect. The Route: The Green Belt runs a 2/3 loop around the eastern, northern, and northwestern communities that border the City of Pittsburgh.  Since it is not a full loop, there is a definite beginning and end to th...