Signed County Route E18

This past weekend I took a detour off of California State Route 49 in Tuolumne County onto Signed County Route E18 north to CA 4 in Calaveras County.

CR E18 is a 12.8 mile Signed County Route that was defined in 1974 according to CAhighways.org.

CAhighways.org on Signed County Route E18

CR E18 is signed completely on Parrotts Ferry Road. While CR E18 wasn't added to the Signed County Route program until the 1970s Parrotts Ferry Road was noted as a significant County Maintained Roadway in Calaveras County and Tuolumne County on the 1935 California Division of Highways Maps.

1935 Calaveras County Highway Map

1935 Tuolumne County Highway Map

I approached CR E18 from CA 49 northbound. Along CA 49 northbound there are several signs directing traffic to Columbia State Historic Park.

CR E18 northbound is well signed as has numerous reassurance shields.

CR E18 quickly junctions Columbia State Historic Park only a couple miles north of CA 49.

Columbia State Historic Park preserves the historic downtown section of Columbia. Columbia dates back to 1850 and was once incorporated. The population of Columbia at the height of the Gold Rush apparently ranged from 2,000-5,000 people depending on the productivity of mining in the area. Main Street was declared a State Historic Park in 1946 and presently over 30 structures preserved from the height of the Gold Rush

CR E18 bypasses Main Street in Columbia to the west on Parrotts Ferry Road.

Vallecito is signed as 8 miles to the north of Columbia along CR E18.

North of Columbia CR E18 begins to descend towards the Stanislaus River and New Melones Lake. The descent on CR E18 is rather steep compared to CA 49 to the west.

CR E18 crosses the Stanislaus River/New Melones Lake on a modern bridge into Calaveras County. Parrotts Ferry used to be located near modern highway bridge. Parrotts Ferry was in operation from 1860 until a bridge replaced it in 1903.

New Melones Lake is a reservoir along the Stanislaus River which was originally created when the first Melones Dam was completed in 1926. The modern New Melones Dam was completed in 1980 which raised the level of the reservoir and flooded out the community of Melones.

The ascent along CR E18 from the Stanislaus River/New Melones Lake is fairly steep. The alignment of CR E18 meets the Natural Bridges Trail Head and entrance to Moaning Caverns Park before terminating at CA 4 in Vallecito.

Comments

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

Gribblenation

Search This Blog