Skip to main content

California State Route 177

By
The first Californian signed highway I ever fully clinched was the quiet California State Route 177 out in the middle of the Sonoran Desert of Riverside County in 2011.  At the time I was working frequently in the Inland Empire Area and would use CA 177 as a shortcut to Mohave County, Arizona and Clark County, Nevada.  The last time I visited CA 177 in any capacity was in 2016.


The current CA 177 is the second highway to carry the designation and was authorized by the Legislature in 1972 according to CAhighways.org.  The current CA 177 is 27 mile north/south highway between I-10 north in Desert Center to CA 62.

CAhighways.org on CA 177

CA 177 was built over existing Rice Road out in the Sonoran Desert.   The full route of CA 177 appears a fully fledged State Highway first on the 1975 State Highway Map.

1975 State Highway Map

As a route the southern terminus of CA 177 is at I-10 in Desert Center.  Desert Center is a ghost town that was founded in the early 1920s as a transportation hub and grew from local mining activity at Eagle Mountain.  North of I-10 the route of CA 177 crosses former US Route 60/70 on Ragsdale Road.  More about US 60/70 on Ragsdale Road and the ghost town of Desert Center can be found on the blog below.

Old US Route 60/70 through Hell (Chuckwalla Valley Road and Ragsdale Road)

Below is a photo of a CA 177 shield I took from Ragsdale Road looking south at the terminus of I-10.


CA 177 has one major junction heading north out of Desert Center at Signed County Route R2//Kaiser Road.  CR R2 heads directly northward away from Desert Center towards the Eagle Mountain mine site.  CR R2 is 11.26 miles in length according to CAhighways.org.

CAhighways.org on CR R2

The remainder of CA 177 north out of Desert Center is a largely flat desert highway that is signed at 65 MPH all the way to CA 62.  Of note, Chuckwall Valley Raceway is located a couple miles north of Desert Center on CA 177.  Sections of CA 177 also skirt the eastern edge of Joshua Tree National Park.

CA 177 ironically is one of the first State Highway shields that I added to my sign collection.  I obtained this CA 177 shield from an eBay auction in 2013.


The first CA 177 was located between US 60 and modern CA 79 near Beaumont.  The first CA 177 was carved out of the segment of CA 79 on Gillman Springs Road which was re-designated as LRN 186 in 1959 according to CAhighways.org.  CA 79 was realigned in 1964 which coincidentally was the year the State Highway Renumbering occurred.  CA 79 being realigned and the first CA 177 can be seen by comparing the 1963 State Highway Map to the 1964 edition.

1963 State Highway Map 

1964 State Highway Map

According to CAhighways.org the first CA 177 was deleted in 1965 but it still appears on the 1966 State Highway Map.

1966 State Highway Map

The first CA 177 finally disappears by the 1967 State Highway Map edition.

1967 State Highway Map
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

By
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
2 comments
Read more

Mines Road

By
Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre
Post a Comment
Read more

Former California State Route 41 past Bates Station

By
When California State Route 41 was commissioned during August 1934 it was aligned along the then existing Fresno-Yosemite Road north of the San Joaquin River.  Within the Sierra Nevada foothills of Madera County, the original highway alignment ran past Bates Station via what is now Madera County Road 209, part of eastern Road 406 and Road 207.   Bates Station was a stage station plotted during the early 1880s at what was the intersection of the Coarsegold Road and Stockton-Los Angeles Road.   The modern alignment bypassing Bates Station to the east would be reopened to traffic during late 1939.   Part 1; the history of California State Route 41 past Bates Station Bates Station was featured as one of the many 1875-1899 Madera County era towns in the May 21, 1968, Madera Tribune .  Post Office Service at Bates Station is noted to have been established on November 23, 1883 and ran continuously until October 31, 1903.  The postal name was sourced from Bates Station owner/operator George Ba
Post a Comment
Read more