The 1925 study of the State Highway System by the California Highway advisory committee has a lot of interesting information I haven't seen previously. In particular, there is a list of State Highway additions asked for by the counties and local interests. A map of the proposed corridors can be seen on Page 48:
https://archive.org/details/reportofstudyofs00high/page/n57/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Yosemite
Along with a full listing here:
https://archive.org/details/reportofstudyofs00high/page/88/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Yosemite
Of particular interest to me was the Washburn Brothers Yosemite Stage Road (Proposal 152). I'm unclear why this routing wasn't chosen given it had the best utility to reach Yosemite National Park from the south in the 1920s.
Some other interesting rejected corridors I noticed:
225 - Essentially this would have connected General Grant National Park to Sequoia National Park. Not quite the Generals Highway but a close analog.
154 and 202 - This was the proposed Piute Pass Highway where CA 168 presently has a gap.
138 - This was mostly what became CA 132 but would have extended to modern CA 140 in Briceburg.
210 - This essentially is San Franscisquito Canyon Road and the old Stockton-Los Angeles Road corridor.
There were a couple of references in the second link that misspelled Gorman as German.
Nice find!
Of local interest to me were these rejected routes:
148 - Extension of today's CA-35 southeast from CA-17, largely along today's Summit Road, and
150 - Soquel to Woodwardia - today's Soquel-San Jose Road
These combined would have provided some relief on the Santa Cruz side of the mountain commute (and do indeed provide some today), but not solved the San Jose side. When I was in college I had found a document that made mention of a surveyed corridor from the Almaden Valley up to the summit, but haven't been able to track it down since.
Quote from: pderocco on February 03, 2025, 02:27:37 PMThere were a couple of references in the second link that misspelled Gorman as German.
ACHTUNG!