The original planned route of US 99 through Visalia

[Max Rockatansky]

Most people who are familiar with US 99 in California know it was never aligned through Visalia.  What isn't known is that through almost the entire planning stages of the US Route System that US 99 was intended to pass through Visalia via; Mineral King Road, Main Street, and Mooney Boulevard.  A straightening of Legislative Route 4 between Goshen and Tulare ultimately was the instigator that had US 99 bypass the City of Visalia by the time the US Route System was approved during November 1926:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/04/us-route-99-to-visalia.html

[sparker]

Most people who are familiar with US 99 in California know it was never aligned through Visalia.  What isn't known is that through almost the entire planning stages of the US Route System that US 99 was intended to pass through Visalia via; Mineral King Road, Main Street, and Mooney Boulevard.  A straightening of Legislative Route 4 between Goshen and Tulare ultimately was the instigator that had US 99 bypass the City of Visalia by the time the US Route System was approved during November 1926:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/04/us-route-99-to-visalia.html

From the local lore I've gleaned from my relatives in the Dinuba/Reedley area over the years, LRN 4, normally paralleling the old SP main line through the Valley, originally took the Visalia "detour" not only to serve that town, the largest between Bakersfield and Fresno, but also because the ROW straddling the RR tracks between Tulare and Goshen was owned by Tagus Ranch, which was reluctant to grant an easement for the highway through its land (and was politically well-connected enough to mount that resistance).  Eventually an agreement was reached and the highway constructed -- although an old US 99 landmark pre-freeway was the Tagus Ranch "farm store", a sort of "farmers' market" a couple of miles north of Tulare.  But it, like the old "big oranges" dotting the side of that highway, eventually disappeared once the freeway was built and direct private access eliminated (although a few of the old "oranges" stuck around on frontage roads for a couple of decades). 

[Max Rockatansky]

Most people who are familiar with US 99 in California know it was never aligned through Visalia.  What isn't known is that through almost the entire planning stages of the US Route System that US 99 was intended to pass through Visalia via; Mineral King Road, Main Street, and Mooney Boulevard.  A straightening of Legislative Route 4 between Goshen and Tulare ultimately was the instigator that had US 99 bypass the City of Visalia by the time the US Route System was approved during November 1926:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/04/us-route-99-to-visalia.html

From the local lore I've gleaned from my relatives in the Dinuba/Reedley area over the years, LRN 4, normally paralleling the old SP main line through the Valley, originally took the Visalia "detour" not only to serve that town, the largest between Bakersfield and Fresno, but also because the ROW straddling the RR tracks between Tulare and Goshen was owned by Tagus Ranch, which was reluctant to grant an easement for the highway through its land (and was politically well-connected enough to mount that resistance).  Eventually an agreement was reached and the highway constructed -- although an old US 99 landmark pre-freeway was the Tagus Ranch "farm store", a sort of "farmers' market" a couple of miles north of Tulare.  But it, like the old "big oranges" dotting the side of that highway, eventually disappeared once the freeway was built and direct private access eliminated (although a few of the old "oranges" stuck around on frontage roads for a couple of decades).

I knew that there had to be a reason for it to be like that for so long.  I couldn't find the slightest mention of the realignment in any early CHPW volumes.  Granted those early volumes were far more "Public Works"  as much as they were highways.