Former CA 180 on Ruth Hill Road

[Max Rockatansky]

I stumbled upon a super early alignment of CA 180 along what is now Ruth Hill Road (former Old Dunlap Road) in eastern Fresno County.  The Ruth Hill Road corridor appears as part of CA 180 on the 1935 Division of Highways survey map of Fresno County passing through Squaw Valley (now Yokuts Valley) to Dunlap. 

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~247281~5515351:Fresno-County-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:fresno%20county;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=182&trs=189

It appears as though the modern alignment of CA 180 appears as a budgeted project east of Boulder Creek (which I can't seem to find) in the JAN 1937 CHPW (Page 236):

https://archive.org/details/california193638highwacalirich/page/n235/mode/2up?q=dunlap&view=theater

Ruth Hill Road appears as the then current alignment of CA 180 (called Squaw Valley Grade) on the cover of the November 1938 CHPW.  The namesake Ruth Hill and switchbacks present even now can be seen (Page 933).  The cover caption notes construction of the new alignment was stalled by funding running short.

https://archive.org/details/california193638highwacalirich/page/n935/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Squaw

The new alignments of CA 180 bypassing both Ruth Hill Road and Dunlap Road appear as a 30-mile budgeted allocation in the FEB 1939 CHPW (page 52):

https://archive.org/details/california193940highwacalirich/page/n51/mode/2up?q=Squaw&view=theater

The entire project corridor is touched upon in the June 1940 CHPW as a State and Federal corporative project (Page 580):

https://archive.org/details/california193940highwacalirich/page/n579/mode/2up?q=Squaw&view=theater

The new alignment of CA 180 appears in the November 1941 CHPW.  The then new road bypassed what is now Ruth Hill Road is displayed prominently (Page 323).  The article is more about the bypass of Dunlap Road and the construction of the Kings Canyon Road:

https://archive.org/details/californiahighwa194144calirich/page/n323/mode/2up?q=Squaw&view=theater

Given I won't get around to making a blog out of this here is the photo set I took on Ruth Hill Road yesterday.  The grade dropping east from Ruth Hill definitely carries a grade greater than 10%:

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC4VcE