Skip to main content

Cat Canyon Road

By
After completing California State Route 135 I jumped on the US 101 expressway and quickly pulled off onto Cat Canyon Road to reach Sisquoc which was the eastern terminus of CA 176.  I had scouted out Cat Canyon Road the day prior to my drive but it turned out to be far more fun than originally anticipated.






Cat Canyon Road is a little longer than 9 miles and stretches from US 101 north to Palmer Road.  When I had scouted out Cat Canyon Road it seemed pretty normal on all the Google Images that I had observed.  The first four miles were pretty tame aside from following a tanker truck that was going way too fast towards a refinery.  The trucker pulled away onto an unnamed refinery road and I stayed on Cat Canyon Road as it began to ascend.  Quickly I encountered a cattle guard above the cliffs of Cat Canyon and the road narrowed to a single lane.





I was expecting a tame drive and not something resembling a hauling road from the Sierras but that's what Cat Canyon Road morphed into.  Cat Canyon Road descended about a mile and a half down a steep grade into Cat Canyon.  There was some really cool vistas of Cat Canyon Road snaking down the flanks of its namesake canyon along with various pieces of random broken down machinery from the nearby oil wells. 










Cat Canyon Road crossed another cattle guard and resumed being a normal roadway.


There was still lots of green hills and dips in the roadway to see north to Palmer Road.  The oil wells were very apparent on both sides of Cat Canyon Road.











It turns out the reason there was so many weird roads near Sisquoc and Cat Canyon was due to the some large Cat Canyon Oil Field which was discovered in the Solomon Hills of Santa Barbra County in 1908.  The Cat Canyon Oil Field has close to 250 active oil wells and approximately 700 that have been closed off over the years.  I was able to find Cat Canyon Road stretching in it's modern configuration from Palmer Road south to US 101 on the 1935 California Division of Highways Map of Santa Barbra County.  Interestingly Palmer Road is listed as County Maintained from US 101 north to Legislative Route 148 in Sisquoc.

1935 Santa Barbra County Highway Map
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New River Gorge National Park & Preserve - Thurmond

By
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is best known for whitewater rafting and other forms of adventure tourism.  Yet, found in the hollows and isolated valleys are quiet farms and former coal mining towns.  Well off the beaten path and isolated from much of its surroundings, Thurmond provides a unique view into Central West Virginia's industrial past. Thurmond began as a railroad town in the late 1800s.  Sparked by the arrival of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and the local coal industry, Thurmond quickly grew into a sizeable transportation and coal center.  When it incorporated as a town in 1903, Thurmond was a full-fledged community - home to two banks, two hotels, and many other services and stores. A CSX freight train passes the old coaling tower in Thurmond.  It was here that many steam locomotives would refill and refuel. Thurmond was home to a C&O railyard which serviced the numerous steam engines passing through the narrow valley.  Thu...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tale of Tollhouse Road, western California State Route 168 and failed Piute Pass Highway

By
Western California State Route 168 is entirely located in Fresno County and is linked historically to the Tollhouse Road corridor.   Tollhouse Road is one of the oldest highways in the Sierra Nevada range of Fresno County. The corridor presently begins in at Clovis Avenue in downtown Clovis and extends northeast to Huntington Lake. In 1866 the Woods Brothers established mining claims on Pine Ridge. In 1867 Fresno County would grant the brothers a toll franchise to construct a roadway to the desirable logging areas atop Pine Ridge and near Dinkey Creek. The Woods would establish a tollhouse at the start of their franchise road and lumber mill. The lumber mill attracted settlers which led to the establishment of the mountain town of Tollhouse. Fresno County would purchase the Tollhouse Road in 1878 and make it a public highway. The county would remove the tolls and incorporate the corridor into the existing county road network. Prior to the establishment of Clovis in 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

Old Dunlap Road (former California State Route 180 in Yokuts Valley)

By
When California State Route 180 was commissioned in August 1934 the alignment in took in Sierra Nevada range was very different than from today.  The original highway alignment from Squaw Valley (now Yokuts Valley) to east Grant Grove (then part of General Grant National Park) originally followed what is now Ruth Hill Road, Dunlap Road, Pinehurst Road (modern California State Route 245), Dark Canyon Road (partially now Forest Road 14S45).  After funding fell through for the planned Kings Canyon Road the was corridor eventually picked up as a 30-mile-long cooperative project between the Division of Highways and Federal Government.  Much of current alignment of California State Route 180 bypassing Squaw Valley (now Yokuts Valley) and Dunlap was complete by 1941.  The post-1941 alignment of California State Route 180 in Squaw Valley was shifted onto what was once Dunlap Road in Squaw Valley.  This alignment itself was later bypassed by modern California State Route...
Post a Comment
Read more