Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway; US Route 97 and CA 161

[Max Rockatansky]

Did a historical retrospective on US 97 and CA 161 on Surewhynotnow today.  The first alignment of US 97/LRN 72 when it was routed into California is all sorts of weird and surprisingly haggard before it was improved to the modern route in 1938.  State Line Road appears to have been built by Siskiyou County in the late 1940s before it was transferred to the Division of Highways as an extension of LRN 210 in 1959:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/09/volcanic-legacy-scenic-byway-us-route.html

[sparker]

Did a historical retrospective on US 97 and CA 161 on Surewhynotnow today.  The first alignment of US 97/LRN 72 when it was routed into California is all sorts of weird and surprisingly haggard before it was improved to the modern route in 1938.  State Line Road appears to have been built by Siskiyou County in the late 1940s before it was transferred to the Division of Highways as an extension of LRN 210 in 1959:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/09/volcanic-legacy-scenic-byway-us-route.html

The original LRN 72/US 97 route between Grass Lake Summit and McDoel followed the (then) SP main line, which curved around Mount Hebron through Bray and the mountain's namesake town in order to maintain an appropriate gradient; much of that original gravel and/or oiled earth facility was in fact the railroad's parallel service road.  The saddle on the north side of the mountain was surmounted by the current route by '38; the railroad, of course, maintains its original alignment.

[Max Rockatansky]

Did a historical retrospective on US 97 and CA 161 on Surewhynotnow today.  The first alignment of US 97/LRN 72 when it was routed into California is all sorts of weird and surprisingly haggard before it was improved to the modern route in 1938.  State Line Road appears to have been built by Siskiyou County in the late 1940s before it was transferred to the Division of Highways as an extension of LRN 210 in 1959:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/09/volcanic-legacy-scenic-byway-us-route.html

The original LRN 72/US 97 route between Grass Lake Summit and McDoel followed the (then) SP main line, which curved around Mount Hebron through Bray and the mountain's namesake town in order to maintain an appropriate gradient; much of that original gravel and/or oiled earth facility was in fact the railroad's parallel service road.  The saddle on the north side of the mountain was surmounted by the current route by '38; the railroad, of course, maintains its original alignment.

Now that I have an SUV in my family line of vehicles I might try to give that old segment a go the next time I'm heading up to Crater Lake.  Surprisingly I found during my research that the road south of Klamath Falls on the Oregon side was up to modern specifications in terms of alignment far before California.  The California Route of US 97 seemed like a way better fit than the original alignment it took up in Oregon. 

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^
The California section of US 97 wasn't even considered until SP's "Cascade Line", which rerouted most of their CA-OR rail traffic via Klamath Falls, Chemult, and Oakridge (essentially following US 97 & OR 58) from the original line through Medford, Grants Pass, and Roseburg, now mostly tracking I-5, was completed in late 1927 (the lines split in CA just southeast of Weed and rejoin in Springfield, OR).  Prior to that, the RR line northeast of Weed was simply a logging and agricultural spur out to McDoel and Dorris (principal area crops: sugar beets and horseradish); the rail tunnels between Dorris and Klamath Falls (one is directly north of the US 97 grade crossing in Dorris) were part of the '27 line improvement to trunk status.