Skip to main content

Madera County Road 620

By

Madera County Road 620 is an approximately six-mile-long rural highway in the Sierra Nevada range north of Oakhurst. The corridor spans from California State Route 41 west to Madera County Road 628. The segment west of Old Yosemite Road alternates between asphalt and dirt surfaces.
What is now Madera County Road 620 was originally built as a trail from Bissett's Station at the Fresno-Yosemite Road (now Old Yosemite Road) west to the junction of the Mariposa Road (now Road 628) and the Wawona Stage Road (now Miami Mountain Road). In 1934 Bissett's Station would be bypassed to the east by the then new California State Route 41 which followed Lewis Creek. The Bissett Station trail was extended east to California State Route 41 and improved to facilitate automotive travel. When Madera County dropped road names in favor of a numbering system Bissett's Station Road became Road 620.




Part 1; the history of Madera County Road 620

During 1908 Elick and Emma Bissett established Bissett's Station five miles north of Fresno Flats along the Fresno-Yosemite Road.  Bissett's Station housed machinery which was frequently used to haul materials to both Sugar Pine and Wawona.  The location can still be found today at the northeast corner of modern Old Yosemite Road and Madera County Road 620.  

What is now Road 620 was originally built as a trail from Bissett's Station at the Fresno-Yosemite Road west to the junction of the Mariposa Road (now Road 628) and the Wawona Stage Road (now Miami Mountain Road). Said trail can be seen on the 1912 United States Geological Survey Map of Mariposa.


During 1933 the Fresno-Yosemite Road would be added to the State Highway System as a component of Legislative Route Number 125.  The new State Highway annexed numerous existing plans to straighten the Fresno-Yosemite Highway, including a bypass of Bissett's Station.  Said bypass was announced as an advertised project north of Oakhurst in the March 1934 California Highways & Public Works.  


The bypass of Bissett's Station was complete during 1934 which led to the business being shuttered.  The new State Highway north of Oakhurst followed Nelder Creek and Lewis Creek.  The entirety of Legislative Route Number 125 north of Fresno would be assigned as California State Route 41 during August 1934.  

The trail to Bissett's Station would be extended east to the then new alignment of California State Route 41 and improved to facilitate automotive travel.  The corridor would be named "Bissett Station Road" and can be seen on the 1935 Division of Highways Map of Madera County.  


Madera County would drop road names in favor of a numbering convention during the middle of the twentieth century.  Bissett's Station Road would be reassigned as Madera County Road 620.  



Part 2; a drive on Madera County Road 620

Westbound Road 620 begins from California State Route 41 a couple miles north of Oakhurst.


Road 620 ascends to a bluff which faces south overlooking Oakhurst.







Road 620 continues west and intersects Old Yosemite Road at the site of Bissett's Station.  










Road 620 west of Old Yosemite Road continues for several miles before becoming a dirt surfaced highway.














Road 620 continues west and crosses Carter Creek via a concrete ford.  The dirt surface appears to be top layering weathered asphalt.  











Road 620 begins to ascend a steep grade and resumes a normal paved surface approaching the western terminus at Road 628.  























Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

By
Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...
2 comments
Read more

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

By
In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

By
At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...
1 comment
Read more