Throwback Thursday - June 28, 2018

Vermont once had a series of route numbers that were specific for roads leading to ferries across Lake Champlain to New York State's Adirondack Coast. One such route remains, Vermont Route F-5, which spans from US 7 to the Charlotte-Essex Ferry landing, all within the Town of Charlotte. The first time I had the opportunity to drive on VT F-5 was in May 2005, when I snapped this photo.

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California State Route 190; a Trans-Sierra Highway that could have been

This past week I decided to take a small scale road trip on California State Route 190 from CA 99 east to the unbuilt section over the Sierra Nevada Range. While I was in for what turned out to be a fun drive following the course of the Tule River watershed what I found researching the back story of CA 190 was one of the most complex and unusual stories of any California State Highway. Given that I had a ton of older photos of the eastern segment of CA 190 in the Mojave Desert of Inyo County I thought it was time to put something together for the entire route. The simplified story of CA 190 is that it is a 231 mile state highway that has a 43 mile unbuilt gap in the Sierra Nevada Range. CA 190 is an east/west State Highway running from CA 99 in Tulare County at Tipton east to CA 127 located in Death Valley Junction near the Nevada State Line in rural Inyo County. The routing CA 190 was adopted into the State Highway system as Legislative Route 127 which was adopted in 1933 acc

Old US Route 40 on Donner Pass Road

While completing California State Route 89 between Lassen Volcanic National Park and US Route I took a detour in Truckee up the infamous Donner Pass Road. Generally I don't dispense with the history of a roadway before the route photos but the history of Donner Pass is steeped within California lore and western migration. The first recorded Wagon Crossing of Donner Pass was back in 1844. The infamous Donner Party saga occurred in the winter of 1846-47 in which only 48 of the 87 party members survived. Although the Donner Party incident is largely attributed to poor planning and ill conceived Hastings Cutoff it largely led to the infamous reputation of Donner Pass. The first true road over the Sierra Nevada Range via the Donner Pass was known as the Dutch Flat & Donner Lake Road. The Dutch Flat & Donner Lake Wagon Road was completed by 1864 to assist with construction of the Central Pacific build the First Trans-Continental Railroad over Donner Pass. The websit

Old Stage Road in Tulare County and Kern County

Old Stage Road is an approximately 30-mile rural highway comprised of Tulare County Mountain Road 1, Kern County Mountain Road 447 and Tulare County Mountain Road 109. Old Stage originates at Jack Ranch Road near Posey and ends at the outskirts of Porterville at Deer Creek. Old Stage Road notably is comprised of two 19th Century stage routes. From White Mountain Road northwest to Fountain Springs, Old Stage Road overlays Thomas Baker's 1860s era stage road to Linn Valley (now Glennville) and the Kern River Gold Rush Claims. From Fountain Springs to Deer Creek, Old Stage Road is comprised of the 1853 Stockton-Los Angeles Road. Featured as the blog cover is the northward descent on Old Stage Road along Arrastre Creek to the town site of White River. What became White River was settled along a spur of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road as "Dog Town" when gold was discovered nearby. By 1856 the community had been renamed Tailholt. A stage road from Tailholt to Linn Valley w

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