Great Lakes Road Trip Day 7 Part 1; Clinching M-26

I started the morning in Houghton just as the sun was coming up. I had a pretty decent view of US 41 northbound on Shelden Avenue and the Portage Lake Lift Bridge from the hotel.

My understanding is that M-26 used to go directly through Atlantic Mine but the modern highway bypasses it. The next major inhabited location south of Atlantic Mine and Houghton is South Range. South Range was settled in 1902 and incorporated in 1906 with said name because it was at the southern end of the copper mining district in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

South of South Range is Trimountain and Painesdale. At least in the case of Painesdale it was built for the Champion Mine in 1889 which operated nearby.

The next community southbound is Toivola which was settled in 1845. Toilova was originally a logging town but became a stop on Copper Range Railroad which operated from 1899 to 1972.

South of Toivola is the ghost town Donken. Donken appears to have never been much more than a rail siding for the Copper Range Railroad. Supposedly postal service operated in Donken from 1919 to some time in the 1930s. There isn't much left of the town other than a couple abandoned buildings off the side of M-26.

South of Donken M-26 enters Ontonagon County and picks up M-38 for about a mile before splitting off towards Mass City.

Mass City was settled in 1848 when copper deposits were found in the area. Apparently the town was never incorporated but more officially plotted out in the 1850s. Apparently Mass City takes it's name from the Mass Mining Company which operated the deposits nearby.

South of Mass City M-26 meets US 45 and terminates. Before the US Route system M-26 actually used to connect to what was WI 26. Odd to think that many of the Mid-West states already had well plotted out highway systems before the US Routes that have stood the test of time over the last century.

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Deer Isle Bridge in Maine

As graceful a bridge that I ever set my eyes upon, the Deer Isle Bridge (officially known as the Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge) surprisingly caught my eye as I was driving around coastal Maine one Saturday afternoon. About 35 miles south of Bangor, Maine , the Deer Isle Bridge connects the Blue Hill Peninsula of Downeast Maine with Little Deer Isle over the Eggemoggin Reach on ME 15 between the towns of Sedgwick and Deer Isle . It should be noted that Little Deer Isle is connected to Deer Isle by way of a boulder lined causeway, and there is a storied regatta that takes place on the Eggemoggin Reach each summer. But the Deer Isle Bridge holds many stories, not just for the vacationers who spend part of their summer on Deer Isle or in nearby Stonington , but for the residents throughout the years and the folks who have had a hand bringing this vital link to life. The Deer Isle Bridge was designed by David Steinman and built by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville,

Former US Route 99 through Athlone and the last Wheeler Ridge-Sacramento corridor expressway

Athlone was a siding of the Southern Pacific Railroad located in Merced County on the alignment of what was US Route 99 between the cities of Chowchilla and Merced. The Athlone corridor of US Route 99 was one of the first in San Joaquin Valley to fully upgraded to four lane expressway standards. The Athlone expressway corridor was inherited by California State Route 99 when US Route 99 was truncated to Ashland, Oregon during June 1965. The four-lane expressway through Athlone was the last segment of what had been US Route 99 in the Wheeler Ridge-Sacramento corridor to be bypassed by a freeway. The Athlone expressway corridor was bypassed by the modern California State Route 99 freeway in 2016. Despite being put on a road diet and narrowed what was the Athlone expressway corridor still displays evidence of being part of US Route 99. Above the blog cover photo displays the Athlone expressway corridor of US Route 99 south of Merced as depicted in the July 1939 California Highways &

California State Route 38

California State Route 38 is a fifty-nine-mile State Highway located entirety in San Bernardino County and a component of the Rim of the World Highway. California State Route 38 begins at California State Route 18 at Bear Valley Dam of the San Bernardino Mountains and follows an easterly course on the north shore of Big Bear Lake. California State Route 38 briefly multiplexes California State Route 18 near Baldwin Lake and branches east towards the 8,443-foot-high Onyx Summit. From Onyx Summit the routing of California State Route 38 reverses course following a largely westward path through the San Bernardino Mountains towards a terminus at Interstate 10 in Redlands. Pictured as the blog cover is California State Route 38 at Onyx Summit the day it opened to traffic on August 12th, 1961. Part 1; the history of California State Route 38 California State Route 38 (CA 38) is generally considered to be the back way through the San Bernardino Mountains to Big Bear Lake of Bear Valley

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