Skip to main content

Rock River Road (Tuolumne County and Stanislaus County)

By

Rock River Road is an approximately 9.3-mile-long rural highway corridor located in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Tuolumne County and Stanislaus County.  As presently configured Rock River Road begins at Green Springs Road (former California State Route 120) near Keystone in Tuolumne County and terminates in Willms Road near Warnerville in Stanislaus County.  

Rock River Road was originally known as "Oakdale and Sonora Road."  This corridor was developed as highway frontage of the Sierra Railroad in the 1890s following the course of North Fork Dry Creek from Warnerville to Keystone.  The name "Rock River Road" first appears on 1950s era maps and likely is a reference to a gravel pit once located on North Fork Dry Creek.  The paved portion of Rock River Road in Tuolumne County has some of the most haggard asphalt conditions in California whereas the Stanislaus County portion is surfaced in well maintained gravel. 




Part 1; the history of Rock River Road

Rock River Road connects the Sierra Railroad sidings of Keystone and Warnerville via the general course of North Fork Dry Creek.  The corridor was once known as Oakdale and Sonora Road as it was a direct link to the two communities by highway.  

Warnerville is one of many sidings which were established by the Sierra Railway after the company incorporated during February 1897.  The company quickly constructed a line east of Oakdale to Chinese Camp by November 1897.  The company would plot Occidential, Paulsell, Warnerville, Copperstown, Chinese and Crimea (now Keystone) sidings during the initial run of line construction.  The line would later be extended east of Jamestown to the community of Tuolumne by 1900.  The Sierra Railway from the outset has been a freight corridor which has mostly been focused on the hauling of lumber. 

Oakdale and Sonora Road can be seen branching northeast of Warnerville to the Tuolumne County line near the property of G.W. Price on the 1906 map of Stanislaus County.  


Oakdale and Sonora Road can be seen connecting Warnerville to Crimea on the 1914 Weber map of Stanislaus County.  


Oakdale and Sonora Road can be seen in detail on the 1916 United States Geological Survey maps of Cooperstown and Copperopolis.  The roadway corridor name is overtly displayed on the Copperopolis area map.  Rushing Ranch and the Big Hill Lookout (now atop what is known as Rushing Mountain) are both displayed as being accessible just west of the highway withing Tuolumne County. 





Oakdale and Sonora Road is displayed as a minor local highway on the 1935 Division of Highways map of Tuolumne County.  Crimea is shown to have been renamed as "Keystone."


Oakdale and Sonora Road appears renamed as "Rock River Road" on the 1954 United States Geological Survey map of Copperopolis.  It isn't fully clear what the name "Rock River" references.  The corridor is not near a river but is shown as permitting access a gravel pit along Dry Creek near the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct. 


The Tuolumne County portion of Rock River Road was eventually paved.  Within Stanislaus County the highway has never been paved but is often graded and surfaced with gravel.  The asphalt in Tuolumne County is some of the poorest maintained in the state of California (see Part 2 as I'm quite certain this isn't a hyperbolic statement). 



Part 2; a drive on Rock River Road

Southbound Rock River Road begins at Green Springs Road (former California State Route 120) near Keystone siding.  


Southbound Rock River Road crosses North Fork Dry Creek.  The initial asphalt conditions aren't great but not really remarkable until the roadway reaches a private ranch property.  Rock River Road turns left at the ranch property, but it is difficult to identify due to the heavily weathered asphalt. 























Beyond the ranch the asphalt conditions worsen as Rock River Road approaches a vista of San Joaquin Valley.




The broken asphalt on Rock River Road can be difficult to negotiate around in a low clearance vehicle but can be done at low speeds.  The asphalt gives way to gravel at the unmarked Stanislaus County line.  
















The gravel portion of Rock River Road is well maintained and quite the contrast to the asphalt conditions in Tuolumne County.  Nonetheless the remoteness of the terrain is evident due to signage having been blasted by shotgun shells. 



Rock River Road terminates at Willms Road near the siding of Warnerville.  Rock River Road, Willms Road, Copperstown Road, Warnerville Road and Crabtree Road all converge at Warnerville siding.  








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crescent City Connection (New Orleans, LA)

By
The Crescent City Connection is a massive dual-span steel truss bridge that spans the lower Mississippi River at downtown New Orleans, about 95 river miles upstream from the mouth of the great river at the Head of Passes Light. If counted as a single bi-directional highway bridge, the parallel spans combine to form the single busiest bridge on the Mississippi River and its importance as a linchpin in the region’s transportation network cannot be overstated. While there have been various schemes over the years to construct bridges downriver from Algiers Point, this bridge has been the southernmost bridge on the Mississippi River since its initial construction in the 1950s. The years immediately following the end of World War II were a transformational period in the history of New Orleans. Already one of the great economic and cultural centers of the American Deep South, it was recognized at this time that major changes and improvements to the city’s transportation infrastructure would b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Old US Route 99 through Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch

By
This summer I had a look into the alignment history of US Route 99 through the Tulare County communities of Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch.  While this slab below might seem like much it is one of the few remaining reminders of how US Route 99 was during the 1920s in Tulare County. This blog is part of the larger Gribblenation US Route 99 Page.  For more information pertaining to the other various segments of US Route 99 and it's three-digit child routes check out the link the below. Gribblenation US Route 99 Page Part 1; the history of US Route 99 in Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch Tipton and Tulare were both founded in 1872 as sidings of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The Southern Pacific Railroad laid the groundwork for development of southern San Joaquin Valley.  Previous to the Southern Pacific Railroad travel via wagon or foot in Central California tended to avoid San Joaquin Valley in favor of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road.  The Stockton Los Ange...
Post a Comment
Read more

Winnemucca to the Sea Highway

By
The Winnemucca to the Sea Highway was conceived as an idea to establish a continuous, improved route branching from what was then US Highway 40 (now I-80) in Winnemucca, Nevada to the Pacific Coast in Crescent City, California . This highway was to span 494 miles as it crossed through deserts, mountains and forests on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Community leaders from points along this proposed highway formed the Winnemucca to the Sea Highway Association, which worked with state and local governments to obtain funding for the planning, construction and upgrade of the highway. The original proposal was to create one highway, numbered 140, which was to be applied to the complete route as the parent major US highway was coast-to-coast US-40, the Victory Highway. However, this idea never fully came to fruition. Currently, a traveler driving on the Winnemucca to the Sea Highway actually follows seven different highway numbers, which are US 95, NV 140, OR 140, US 395, OR 62, I-5, US 19...
Post a Comment
Read more