Regional Boards > Pacific Southwest
1963 photo taken at the East LA interchange
agentsteel53:
in fact, I believe the sign that is patched (to have a CA-60 shield on the last line) is the one in the distance in that last photo!
I cannot make out the third line, but the second line is Santa Monica Fwy, with no number. The first line is Soto St, and the third ... any idea??
TheStranger:
--- Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 03, 2010, 12:47:27 PM ---
--- Quote ---I don't think a US highway shield's "peaks" would be hidden by a state shield, and don't remember seeing that at all.
--- End quote ---
it seemed to me like the patches are big enough to hide an older US shield. these are small shields; as they appear on advance-mileage signs for the next three exits. the signs with larger shields at the intersection itself do not have patches.
they're this style of shield
(incidentally, that sign is still around! it now says "110", though, for both freeways)
--- End quote ---
I do remember seeing that - and a few other vintage signs - near the Four-Level in February. (The signage in that area is fascinating, not only due to the US route history of the junction, which included Route 66, but also due to the lack of clarity whether all of the Harbor Freeway is part of Interstate 110 or not, which seems to have been improved somewhat in the last two years.)
--- Quote from: agentsteel53 ---
--- Quote ---I HAVE also heard (but can't confirm) that the Pomona Freeway had, at one time, US 60 shields greened out before the route opened and covered up with (State) Route 60 signage, much like at the eastern end of the Moreno Valley Freeway.
--- End quote ---
I have no idea. I'm a bit confused about the history of route 60 through the area; for example, I-10 (San Bernardino Fwy) was once signed as US-60. Here is a 1955-57 sign (note the logos on both black signs) in a 1958 photo.
and here is a 1963 photo, with a sign whose spec I do not know. Definitely after 1959, and possibly as early as 1960, but maybe as late as 1963. (Ramona Fwy was renamed to San Bernardino Fwy in 1959, I think.)
there is a 60 patch at the east LA interchange on 5 southbound - the entire third row on the advance-exit sign is patched, not just the shield, implying to me that possibly the freeway was renamed as well as renumbered.
so I do not know when US-60 was moved from the Ramona/San Berdoo Fwy to the Pomona Fwy (and, at the same time, to the Moreno Valley Fwy?)
--- End quote ---
Based on historical maps, here's the chronology, which involves many reroutings:
1933: http://members.cox.net/mkpl2/hist/droz-laca33n.jpg
US 99 follows US 66 east of Pasadena to San Bernardino; it is unclear if 99's routing followed then-future Route 118, today's I-210, in the Sunland area, or if 99 continued to downtown Los Angeles.
US 60 followed today's Valley Boulevard from east of Los Angeles through Puente and Walnut to Pomona, on a corridor that partially parallels I-10 and partially actually is much closer to the Pomona Freeway alignment, past El Monte. (However, the Garvey Avenue corridor - which more closely follows today's I-10 - was under construction at the time to provide a more direct route towards Pomona.)
1936: http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/ca/map1936/detail/san-bernardino.html
http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/ca/map1936/detail/la-detail.html
US 70 is introduced...but not quite on the routing that it would take for most of its life in the Inland Empire. It did follow US 60 and US 99 along the Garvey Avenue pathway eastward, but then followed US 60 through Pomona and Riverside (including the concurrency with then-US 395 between Riverside and Moreno Valley) eastward to Beaumont. US 99 ran alone east of Pomona along today's I-10 corridor, before rejoining 60 and 70 in Beaumont.
1941: http://members.cox.net/mkpl5/hist2/LA-1941.jpg
No real changes to the LA-area routing here, along Garvey.
1955: http://members.cox.net/mkpl2/hist/map-ca1955-ssw.jpg
Not clear when the shift of 70 from the 60 path through Riverside, to the 99/today's 10 path through San Bernardino occurred, though it was some time between 1936 and 1955.
1959: http://www.cahighways.org/maps/1959rmn.jpg
San Bernardino Freeway name in place for US 60/70/99 from Los Angeles to Pomona, with 60 continuing to begin its southerly trek towards Riverside in Pomona (as opposed to beginning it today in Los Angeles) and 70/99 having a business route along Holt Avenue.
1963: http://www.cahighways.org/maps/1963routes.jpg
Although 60/70/99 still run concurrent (along with I-10, which is not noted on this map), the Pomona Freeway paralleling Valley Boulevard is shown as under construction.
--- Quote from: agentsteel53 ---in fact, I believe the sign that is patched (to have a CA-60 shield on the last line) is the one in the distance in that last photo!
I cannot make out the third line, but the second line is Santa Monica Fwy, with no number. The first line is Soto St, and the third ... any idea??
--- End quote ---
Here's what it looks like today - note that the first line is for Fourth Street, and the third line has greenout for "Pomona Fwy/Route 60":
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Monterey+Park&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.677964,78.662109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Monterey+Park,+Los+Angeles,+California&ll=34.057877,-118.214393&spn=0,0.009602&z=17&layer=c&cbll=34.057748,-118.214381&panoid=JiTOA9Ma6Ey6wD2sjAGEYg&cbp=12,185.3,,0,7.61
I can't tell in the older photo if that third line had an outline US 60 shield, though I would be far from surprised if that was it.
agentsteel53:
--- Quote from: TheStranger on June 03, 2010, 01:25:25 PM ---
I do remember seeing that - and a few other vintage signs - near the Four-Level in February. (The signage in that area is fascinating, not only due to the US route history of the junction, which included Route 66, but also due to the lack of clarity whether all of the Harbor Freeway is part of Interstate 110 or not, which seems to have been improved somewhat in the last two years.)
--- End quote ---
I thought it switched designation just a bit south of the four-level, with a few erroneous I-110 shields north of that switch. I do not remember exactly where the switch is.
--- Quote ---1963: http://www.cahighways.org/maps/1963routes.jpg
Although 60/70/99 still run concurrent (along with I-10, which is not noted on this map), the Pomona Freeway paralleling Valley Boulevard is shown as under construction.
--- End quote ---
that must be just before that freeway section opened, with US-60 getting rerouted onto it. I think the existence of the sign showing only US 70/99 on the San Berdoo implies that 60 was on the new freeway as a US highway in 1963, before getting switched to CA-60 in 1964.
This means that the 1963 photo has an erroneous sign: the one in the background should have a 60 shield. It's gotta be somewhere, and if it's not 70/99...
but I do not believe there is an outline 60 on that sign. I can't verify that, but it looks to be just letters to me, referring to the older surface street.
I cannot tell if the foreground sign has a scraped-off 60. The sign is at most 4 years old in the picture, and likely newer*, and therefore wouldn't have had time to build up a residue of dust and grime on which the missing 60 shield would be visible.
(I say likely newer because that style of non-porcelain sign entered heavy use in 1963, with a single set of 1960 examples being the only older ones I know of - and, as far as I know, no black signs were made of that style.)
So the foreground sign is either (likely) a brand new 1963 sign with 10/70 the only shields it ever had - or it once had a scraped off 60 as well.
--- Quote ---Here's what it looks like today - note that the first line is for Fourth Street, and the third line has greenout for "Pomona Fwy/Route 60":
--- End quote ---
oops, Fourth, not Soto. I misremembered. Silly me; I saw the sign three days ago. Okay, I was doing 90mph :sombrero:
--- Quote ---I can't tell in the older photo if that third line had an outline US 60 shield, though I would be far from surprised if that was it.
--- End quote ---
I do not believe so. It would've been a white US-60 shield, if the number was put on between August, 1962 and April, 1964 (which is likely when the freeway opened) - and Div Hwys used the latest spec (hit or miss :-D).
that implies the sign was patched twice in very rapid succession. First, to change the surface street (as seen in the '63 photo) to "Pomona Fwy [60]" (with a US shield), and then, around April, 1964, the replacement of the US shield with a state shield. If the US-60 shield were a separate piece of white porcelain (probable), as opposed to just being printed white, then the second replacement wasn't a patch. Instead, they unscrewed the US-60 shield and put up a CA-60.
On Monday, I saw no evidence of there ever being a US-60 shield on the patch, but, again, I was doing 90. Furthermore, if the patch was there only a few months, then it would've have developed a wear pattern. But, I do believe there was one, because US-60 had to be signed somewhere.
(Unless of course they plain old forgot for a while, and put the Pomona Fwy SR-60 patch on only after April, 1964.)
So now the question remains - what is under the patch? The '63 map doesn't identify that road by name, and the sign does not look like it says "Valley Boulevard" (or any Boulevard at all) - so I'd be interested to know what it does say.
I will have to email that photo to a friend of mine who could answer the "where's US-60" question.
agentsteel53:
the more I look at it, there's something odd about the Santa Monica Fwy (2nd line) of the distant sign. It looks to me like they moved the letters closer together to squeeze in the I-10 shield.
which implies that the sign is not the current one, since you can't move letters around like that on porcelain, and the current sign is unpatched.
The current sign is very very similar, and I have no idea what year it is (have never gone through there slowly enough to check!) but it can't be the same one. It must be a '63 or '64, given that it got patched with a SR-60 in 1964, and wasn't there in 1963.
maybe that answers the "where's US-60" question. The sign in the foreground was just installed, and the sign in the background had yet to be replaced to reflect the new freeway.
the question then becomes - why patch over "Pomona Fwy" on the 1963-64, and not just switch the US-60 to a CA-60?
agentsteel53:
someone want to walk up to that sign and take a look at the date stamp? :-D
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