CA 88 and NV 88

[Max Rockatansky]

Went through my old photos and I had enough to put together something for the majority of CA 88 along with the route history:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/california-state-route-88-carson-pass.html

Two thing weren't clear while I was researching the alignment history of CA 88:

1.  It appears that the original alignment through Jackson used Main Street, Water Street, and Court Street.  When was the modern Sutter Street alignment built west of downtown?
2.  Early maps from the Division of Highways really lend suggestion that Red Vista Road south of Red Lake is the original routing on the descent from Carson Pass.  If that's the case when did the alignment end up shifting north of Red Lake?  I know there a ton of old dirt alignments approaching the Nevada State Line so I imagine there is something to this.

[sparker]

I've always found CA 88 to be the most efficient way to get from my home territory of San Jose up to either Tahoe or Reno (except possibly in the dead of winter).  Very nice road if you don't get stuck behind a "road boulder" RV (it could use a few more passing lanes; some folks just don't seem to understand the concept of turnouts!).   Always thought that of all the cross-Sierra routes, it would be the most logical to multilane at some future point. 

Most of the "mother lode" town strung out along CA 49 originally featured convoluted state highway routings through their downtown/"old town" sections, either on 49 itself and/or one of the intersecting routes.  Reading old issues of CH&PW seemed to indicate that several of these towns fought the state highway relocations that commenced in the '50's tooth and nail in order to preserve their status as functional tourist destinations; but once delivery trucks increased in both size and number during that same period, the towns started to accept the route revisions as grudgingly necessary.  Ironically (but not surprisingly) once the highways were relocated a matter of a few blocks distant from the historical town centers, the on-street parking situation improved dramatically, and, with proper signage, tourist dollars started flowing in better than ever.   

[Max Rockatansky]

I've always found CA 88 to be the most efficient way to get from my home territory of San Jose up to either Tahoe or Reno (except possibly in the dead of winter).  Very nice road if you don't get stuck behind a "road boulder" RV (it could use a few more passing lanes; some folks just don't seem to understand the concept of turnouts!).   Always thought that of all the cross-Sierra routes, it would be the most logical to multilane at some future point. 

Most of the "mother lode" town strung out along CA 49 originally featured convoluted state highway routings through their downtown/"old town" sections, either on 49 itself and/or one of the intersecting routes.  Reading old issues of CH&PW seemed to indicate that several of these towns fought the state highway relocations that commenced in the '50's tooth and nail in order to preserve their status as functional tourist destinations; but once delivery trucks increased in both size and number during that same period, the towns started to accept the route revisions as grudgingly necessary.  Ironically (but not surprisingly) once the highways were relocated a matter of a few blocks distant from the historical town centers, the on-street parking situation improved dramatically, and, with proper signage, tourist dollars started flowing in better than ever.

In that regard I've always been surprised that 49 never was shifted out of downtown Sonora and Placerville.  Sonora is a little more forgiving terrain wise but you are in the thick of the city driving on 49, there are some really awful back ups in places.  49 still uses the massive 13% downhill grade on Sacramento Street to downtown Placerville, that must be "fun" even in a box truck:

IMG_0174 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

But that said most of the previous alignments are easy enough to figure out by just looking at maps.  Jackson seems to be the one that had the strangest alignment given all the sudden 90 degree turns 49 and 88 would have had to take.  San Andreas and Mokelumne Hill seemed to have oddly shaped early routings, that must have weird to see multiplex signage for 49/8 in the latter.

[sparker]

Yeah -- as the original SSR 8 intersected SSR 49 from the west in Mokelumne Hill and then multiplexed north to Jackson on that route in order to then head east across Carson Pass in the original numbering iteration, there must have been multiple 8/49 arrays along the 7-8-mile stretch between the two towns -- particularly when the route twisted and turned in the towns themselves.  Even after SSR 8 was replaced by 88 over Carson Pass in the late '30's, the multiplex with 49 persisted until the 1964 renumbering.  After that CA 26 initially terminated at CA 49; it was later extended up the hill to West Point.  For a while in the '70's and early '80's, an outflung section of CA 104 was signed from CA 88 SE to West Point (26 and 104 had a mutual terminus there); that section was later redesignated as the east end of CA 26.     

[Max Rockatansky]

Took CA 88 over Carson Pass today from CA 49 to CA 89 and cut a new photo album.  Had a minor slush of flurries starting to come down at Carson Pass:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmoLwVeh

[Max Rockatansky]

Made some heavy updates to my previous CA 88 blog with lots of new photos of the highway from CA 49 to CA 89:

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/california-state-route-88-carson-pass.html

[Max Rockatansky]

I don't think anyone has really given the Nevada side of the State Route 88 equation a serious look.  Took a crack at it myself running through the Nevada Highways Biennials reports and found quite a bit of historical information:

"Nevada State Route 88 is a 7.868-mile corridor located in Carson Valley of Douglas County.  Nevada State Route 88 is part of the Carson Pass Highway and a continuation of California State Route 88.

Carson Pass was a known crossing of the Sierra Nevada by the Washoe and was surveyed in an 1844 expedition led by John C. Fremont.  The Carson Pass Highway was plotted as a wagon road by the Mormon Battalion in 1848 and was once the primary crossing of the Sierra Nevada.  The Nevada portion of Carson Pass Highway was originally known as Woodfords Road and was part of Forest Route 4. 

After Woodfords Road was improved via Federal funds in 1934 it became part of Nevada State Route 37.  The corridor came to be known as part of the Carson Pass Highway and was renumbered to Nevada State Route 88 in 1956 to provide continuity with California State Route 88.  Nevada State Route 88 is one of only three highways which still carries a pre-1976 Nevada State Highway numbering designations."

https://www.gribblenation.org/2026/09/nevada-state-route-88.html?m=1

[gonealookin]

My question is whether the state highway routing ever ran along Foothill Road (in California) and Fredricksburg Road (in Nevada) from the CA 88/Diamond Valley Road intersection heading north across the state line to what is now Nevada SR 206.

The modern routing of CA 88 and NV 88 from Diamond Valley Road north is a dead straightaway all the way to Minden, while Foothill Road/Fredricksburg Road hugs the edge of the hills and is more winding.

Your blog entry doesn't specifically state that the straightaway is a relatively new alignment.  However, if you look at the 1940 and 1948 California Division of Highways maps you included, you can see a little squiggle in the highway right around the state line, which corresponds to what Foothill/Fredricksburg does and suggests to me that perhaps the straightaway hadn't been constructed at that time.

[Max Rockatansky]

My question is whether the state highway routing ever ran along Foothill Road (in California) and Fredricksburg Road (in Nevada) from the CA 88/Diamond Valley Road intersection heading north across the state line to what is now Nevada SR 206.

The modern routing of CA 88 and NV 88 from Diamond Valley Road north is a dead straightaway all the way to Minden, while Foothill Road/Fredricksburg Road hugs the edge of the hills and is more winding.

Your blog entry doesn't specifically state that the straightaway is a relatively new alignment.  However, if you look at the 1940 and 1948 California Division of Highways maps you included, you can see a little squiggle in the highway right around the state line, which corresponds to what Foothill/Fredricksburg does and suggests to me that perhaps the straightaway hadn't been constructed at that time.

Yes, you can see early CA 8 using Foothill to reach the Nevada state line on the 1935 Division of Highways map of Alpine County:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~247265~5515343:Alpine-County-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&mi=0&trs=1&qvq=q:Alpine%20county%201935;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1

[gonealookin]

My question is whether the state highway routing ever ran along Foothill Road (in California) and Fredricksburg Road (in Nevada) from the CA 88/Diamond Valley Road intersection heading north across the state line to what is now Nevada SR 206.

The modern routing of CA 88 and NV 88 from Diamond Valley Road north is a dead straightaway all the way to Minden, while Foothill Road/Fredricksburg Road hugs the edge of the hills and is more winding.

Your blog entry doesn't specifically state that the straightaway is a relatively new alignment.  However, if you look at the 1940 and 1948 California Division of Highways maps you included, you can see a little squiggle in the highway right around the state line, which corresponds to what Foothill/Fredricksburg does and suggests to me that perhaps the straightaway hadn't been constructed at that time.

Yes, you can see early CA 8 using Foothill to reach the Nevada state line on the 1935 Division of Highways map of Alpine County:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~247265~5515343:Alpine-County-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&mi=0&trs=1&qvq=q:Alpine%20county%201935;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1

That makes sense, as Foothill Road/Fredricksburg Road is very similar in character to Carson River Road, being narrow and curvy, just not right along the river as Carson River Road is.

The 1948 USGS topo map puts the CA/NV state highways on the straightaway north of Diamond Valley Road, so I guess the state highways were relocated to bypass Foothill/Fredricksburg sometime between 1935 and 1948.  However, as you note in your Carson River Road blog entry, CA 88 didn't bypass Carson River Road between Diamond Valley Road and Woodfords until sometime around the late 1960s.

[Max Rockatansky]

If anything, now I have a reason to check out Foothill now I'm more keenly aware that it is an older alignment of CA 8.  The whole area around Woodfords seems to be awash in older realignments.