I'm seeking clarity. From what i gather about the Ocean to Ocean Highway, it was to essentially go rom New York City to San Francisco. But shortly after the idea was conceptualized, they had problems between Salt Lake City and and San Francisco and rerouted the plan out of Salt Lake from San Fran to Los Angeles. So i guess it existed from NY to LA via Salt Lake.
So my question is this. Why is there a bridge in Yuma called the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway Bridge? A)My research reveals that the road was never to or never did go through Yuma. B) No one in their right mind going from Salt Lake to LA would go via Yuma.
You're looking at the Pike's Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. Apparently the bridge at Yuma was built for the National Old Trails Road Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, though it wasn't part of the final route:
Quote from: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/trailsc.cfmE. J. Kirker, representing the Old Trails Road, had visited Needles a few days earlier to perfect a branch organization. Kirker informed boosters that the decision on routing through the Southwest would be made at the annual meeting-and it would be a hard fight. As the Eye had explained in its April 26 edition, the "so-called Ocean-to-Ocean Highway via Yuma" had an advantage in population. Although the Needles boosters felt they had the advantage of climate, proximity to railroad, and accommodations, "the greatest advantage we have is that most of our road is built."
the Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway was called that, in 1918, just to try to leech some of the fame of the National Old Trails Road variant that had been signed a few years earlier in 1914.
the National Old Trails Road was just that: a collection of several old trails. It essentially followed US-1 from New York to Washington DC along various old post roads, then US-240 to US-40 across on the National Road, then somehow around St. Louis it managed to switch to a US-50 alignment that started to approximate a Santa Fe Trail alignment (there were many alignments of the Santa Fe trail; one could pick the best one given prevailing conditions), which went down US-50 to US-350 to US-85 to Santa Fe, and at that point it followed the Trail of the Padres to Los Angeles, which became US-66.