Skip to main content

California State Route 284

By

California State Route 284 is an eight-mile State Highway located entirely in Plumas County.  California State Route 284 begins at California State Route 70 in Chilcoot and terminates at Frenchman Reservoir.  California State Route 284 is one of many pre-existing roads which were annexed into the State Highway System by way of 1970 Legislative Chapter 1473.  Above as the blog cover photo is a southward view on California State Route 284 (taken by Josh Schmid) as it descends from Frenchman Reservoir on Frenchman Lake Road.  





Part 1; the history of California State Route 284 and unconstructed California State Route 285

California State Route 284 (CA 284) was adopted as part of 1970 Legislative Chapter 1473.  CA 284 was designated as a highway connecting from Route 70 in Chilhoot to Frenchman Reservoir.  Legislative Chapter 1473 defined numerous State Highways during 1970, some of the others include CA 283, CA 281, CA 271, and CA 270.

Notably the Chapter 1473 State Highways appear to have been contingent that an existing roadway be built to State Highway Standards.  To that end Frenchman Lake was completed as a California Department of Water Resources irrigation project by 1961 along Little Last Chance Creek.  The existing Frenchman Lake Road appears to have been improved during the Frenchman Lake project and was adopted as the alignment of CA 284.  Notably modern Frenchman Lake Road appears on the 1935 Division of Highways Map of Plumas County north of Chilhoot.


On the 1975 Caltrans State Highway Map the full 8-mile route of CA 284 appears as a fully functional State Highway.




Chapter 2; a virtual drive on California State Route 284

From CA 70 west in Chilhoot-Vinton traffic is advised that CA 284 can be found on Frenchman Lake Road.



Below is a northward series of photos by Josh Schmid of CA 284 as it climbs from Chilcoot to a terminus at Frenchman Reservoir.  CA 284 northbound terminates at Post Mile PLU 8.302 at the south shore of Frenchman Lake.




Below of series of photos by Josh Schmid depicts southbound CA 284 descending from Frenchman Reservoir to CA 70 in Chilcoot.  











Update history

-  First published on May 24, 2020.
-  First updated on September 12, 2022.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

By
The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...
2 comments
Read more

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

By
A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...
4 comments
Read more