1983 Thomas Brothers California Map Scans

[coatimundi]

My infant-driven home sequestration has led me to look for cheap old maps online, so I've been buying quite a few. The last two purchases to come just today were the 1976 Rand McNally Road Atlas and the 1983 Thomas Brothers California Road Atlas & Travel Guide. The latter has been much more interesting than I thought it would be. I wanted to post a few scans. I'm providing links since the images are relatively large, and I know how some of you just love clicking "Quote" without snipping.

From the Freeway map:

Page R: https://flic.kr/p/Labc4o
This is the first time I've personally seen a seemingly realistic routing for SR 190 over the Sierras. It's interesting to me also that, instead of the circles it uses for the sort of "defined but theoretical" corridors, like SR 65, it uses the dashes, as if it's u/c or at least proposed. I'd like to compare it to topo maps to see how it matched to existing trails and topographical features.

Page Q: https://flic.kr/p/LabccQ
You can see the approximate routing of SR 65 along the map, and it shows SR 180 west of Mendota as a circle-line going along Panoche Road and up the Paicines Valley to SR 25. Panoche Road isn't shown on the map, but that's its routing.
There are a couple of other things that struck me here:
1. 168 has a proposed freeway (or expressway) bypass shown north of Fresno. This mostly exists, however today there's a windy two-lane section in between two four-lane sections, and I never thought about the fact that it may have been just an unbuilt part of the bypass. It makes me wonder if there was some pushback there. It's lightly developed now and I believe it was lightly developed in '83 as well.
2. SR 69 is shown. At least according to cahighways.org, it was changed to 245 by 1972. This map is from 1983. 245 is shown on the other, larger scale map in the same atlas though.
3. You can't see it very well in the scan, but there's a proposed SR 69/245 bypass of Woodlake shown. It's interesting to me that that was even a consideration. I mean, there couldn't have been that much traffic on 69/245.

Page P: https://flic.kr/p/Labcp3
This shows a number of proposals in Monterey County: the 101 bypass of Prunedale, the 183 bypass and the 1 bypass of Moss Landing. I had never thought about the fact that the original intention was to have SR 1 intersect 156 & 183 at a 90-degree angle in a freeway interchange, making the later-built SR 1 Castroville Bypass unnecessary. This is the first time I've seen some of this on a map.

Carmel inset: https://flic.kr/p/Labcyw
This shows the routing of the then-proposed Hatton Canyon bypass of SR 1 in Carmel. I don't know what they were thinking with that one. Getting just that much-needed extra lane added to the southbound side north of Carmel Valley Road that they're proposing is going to be enough of an issue with the Carmelites and Coastal Commission.
Another note: the "Hilton Inn Resort" on Aguajito Road. I'm familiar with that corner, and didn't realize there had been anything up there. It's exciting because I thought, for a minute, it could be a recently-abandoned hotel site. I looked into it though, and that hotel was actually what is now the Hilton Garden Inn. Thomas Brothers just got its location wrong.

Something I found interesting in the Inland: old 395 is shown as both I-15E and I-215, on all of the maps, including the San Bernardino inset. I would surmise that this either was an error on the part of Thomas Brothers, or that it was done deliberately, as this was when the change was occurring so there could be old signs or outdated directions out there. Just goes to show that there can be a lot of problems when a route changes numbers.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm fairly certain it's an error but it looks like they had both sections of 146 connecting on page P.

[coatimundi]

I'm fairly certain it's an error but it looks like they had both sections of 146 connecting on page P.

You're right, good catch. I wonder if it was supposed to be just a circle-line or an actual dashed roadway to show a more solidified routing.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm fairly certain it's an error but it looks like they had both sections of 146 connecting on page P.

You're right, good catch. I wonder if it was supposed to be just a circle-line or an actual dashed roadway to show a more solidified routing.

I'll have to dig into some of the older maps and cahighways when I get home.  I've heard rumors for years that there was at minimum a dirt road once planned between both sides of Pinnancles or a connecting park road.  The last talk I heard about it was right when Pinnacles got bumped up from a National Monument to a National Park.  I guess a point of contention within the Park Service was that western park road and western 146 weren't up to the quality they wanted for something with Park status.  There might even be a stray document on NPS.gov somewhere covering a connecting road.

[myosh_tino]

I'm fairly certain it's an error but it looks like they had both sections of 146 connecting on page P.

You're right, good catch. I wonder if it was supposed to be just a circle-line or an actual dashed roadway to show a more solidified routing.

I'll have to dig into some of the older maps and cahighways when I get home.  I've heard rumors for years that there was at minimum a dirt road once planned between both sides of Pinnancles or a connecting park road.  The last talk I heard about it was right when Pinnacles got bumped up from a National Monument to a National Park.  I guess a point of contention within the Park Service was that western park road and western 146 weren't up to the quality they wanted for something with Park status.  There might even be a stray document on NPS.gov somewhere covering a connecting road.

As someone who's been to the Pinnacles and hiked from west entrance to the east entrance and back again, I'm pretty sure route 146 was never a through route through the park/monument.  A possible routing from the east would have taken it along the Old Pinnacles Trail but once it reaches the Balconies Caves, the terrain makes any kind of vehicular travel next to impossible.

Doing a quick look on cahighways.org, Daniel says the route is not contiguous.  No mention of any plans (old or new) to connect the two.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah I got to look at my photos from both ends of the park along with a topographical map. There was a small canyon on the north side of the west parking lot that looked like a potential place for a road, even a single lane one.  Granted this was a couple years ago and it was 110F out so my travels were somewhat limited.  The east side didn't really appear to offer any really obvious road alignment opportunities unless the road swung way north from the high Pinnacles.  I honestly don't think if the idea was ever seriously considered it would have been anyone but the Park Service.  Surprisingly they document the hell out their roads but it takes some digging at times. 

[coatimundi]

I hiked from the west trailhead to the east trailhead a couple of years ago. I've been meaning to get back over there. But I could see where the idea came from based on the terrain there. There are canyons on both sides and the summit isn't that high. I just think it would pretty expensive and, based on population in the region, wouldn't be worth it. It seems like a lot of these early proposals were lines on a map with the idea that they could be developed as growth warranted them. I mean, there could have been some development in that area - maybe a retirement community - that would have necessitated a crossing. If 180 had been built out to 25, it would have been more important. But park or monument designations never seemed to stop the planners from drawing those lines.

[sparker]

Re the Castroville CA 1 bypass:  construction started on this in late 1981 and it was opened to traffic by spring 1984.   The original concept WAS to simply "cross" the roads (the interchange would have been along 156 slightly east of that highway's present interchange with CA 183 just south of Castroville); it would have likely been a cloverleaf with a single flyover for NB CA 1 traffic.  The idea was to have a "double-edged" commercial access point, serving the Monterey Peninsula from northward US 101 (via 156) and serving the Watsonville/Santa Cruz area from southward 101 (via 183).  By the late '70's, the concept had changed; a freeway facility along CA 183 had been "back-burnered" due to a smaller traffic volume than originally anticipated, so a simplified arrangement (the availability of usable land west of Castroville for the bypass was a major factor) was deployed, obviating the need for a major interchange.  The '83 Thomas regional map likely indicated the longstanding original plans rather than the bypass, which would have been under construction at the time.

Since the changeover from I-15E to I-215 officially occurred on 1/1/83, it's likely Thomas was just doing a CYA on the route designation in case the signage hadn't been changed when they went to press. 

[myosh_tino]

Yeah I got to look at my photos from both ends of the park along with a topographical map. There was a small canyon on the north side of the west parking lot that looked like a potential place for a road, even a single lane one.  Granted this was a couple years ago and it was 110F out so my travels were somewhat limited.  The east side didn't really appear to offer any really obvious road alignment opportunities unless the road swung way north from the high Pinnacles.  I honestly don't think if the idea was ever seriously considered it would have been anyone but the Park Service.  Surprisingly they document the hell out their roads but it takes some digging at times.

My visit to Pinnacles was about 25 years ago when I was in scouts.  We arrived and setup camp at the west entrance on a Friday, hiked to the east entrance and back in a big loop on Saturday and returned home on Sunday.  We used the Old Pinnacles Trail to return to our campsite which included going through the Balconies Caves.

The most memorable part for me was waking up Sunday morning to find the water spigots frozen.  Temperatures dipped below 20F that night and recall the park ranger saying that was the coldest it's gotten there in quite some time.

[Max Rockatansky]

Alright, I've looked at maps all the way back to 1952 and never once saw an implied route through the Pinnacles even for LRN 120.  It doesn't appear there was any interest by Caltrans or the Division of Highways to create a route within what was the Pinnacles National Monument at the time. 

Anyways the trail I was thinking of was the Old Pinnacles Trail which connects from a parking lot in East Pinnacles to the west parking lot that is Chaparrel Trailhead:

https://www.nps.gov/pinn/planyourvisit/maps.htm

Basically if there was enough momentum by the Park Service they should be able to build a connector road that's probably a lane/lane and a half fairly easily:

https://www.nps.gov/pinn/planyourvisit/maps.htm

Word is that the city of Hollister actually petitioned for federal money to build roadways into Pinnacles back in the 1910s after it became a National Monument in 1908.   I can't find boo about any of the speculation about roadway upgrades when the Monument got elevated to a National Park back in 2013.  Maybe it was just Park Ranger conjecture back in those days?...I seem to recall it being a really big deal that Congress made Pinnacles a Park in the NPS circles.

[NE2]

There never was a state highway designated through Pinnacles. But the east portion used to be longer, since the park was smaller: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~247336~5515379:San-Benito-County-
And the alignment on the west side was completely different: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~247320~5515371:Monterey-County-

[Max Rockatansky]

Looks like it was Stonewall Canyon Road on the West Side.  I'm sure the map data off Google isn't reliable given how crappy the terrain is but it appears that the old road is still somewhat traversable:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Soledad,+CA+93960/West+Pinnacles+Visitor+Contact+Station,+Soledad,+CA/@36.4379074,-121.2886204,14z/data=!4m19!4m18!1m10!1m1!1s0x809268df86347e95:0x70474dfe08239d0!2m2!1d-121.3263187!2d36.424687!3m4!1m2!1d-121.2852582!2d36.4537079!3s0x809269b563bb98c3:0x9d3da29bd97d42f1!1m5!1m1!1s0x809243b644eda78f:0x3c7ce0591d514f6e!2m2!1d-121.2258835!2d36.4775109!3e0?hl=en

I suppose it makes sense that the Inn at Pinnacles is down that way now...

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.4624372,-121.2218883,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sx1WXa4VeWUL4aZpDrGBmuA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1?hl=en

[coatimundi]

There's a rock quarry down Stonewall Canyon Road. It's existed since the 20's, so I would assume that's why 146 went there and the quarry is near where the highway stops on that map.

There's a 1920 San Benito County map on Rumsey's site that shows a road going through Pinnacles, along the Old Pinnacles Trail, where I hiked. But, of course, "road" meant different things in the 20's.
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/rh9hn2

And, now that I think about it, I do recall thinking how the section of that trail from the western trailhead to the start of the ascent after the cave entrance was pretty clearly an old road.

It seems strange that Caltrans would number a discontiguous highway without any sort of intention of connecting the two segments. Each of the ones in the Sierras had proposals for connections.

[coatimundi]

This got me curious, so I went on to look at topo maps.
If you look at the 1940 San Benito and 1947 Metz quadrangles, there's very clearly a road shown. What's really interesting though: if you look at the ones from the 20's and 30's, a road is shown most of the way, but it turns to a trail when it roughly reaches what was then the boundary of Pinnacles.

The differences between national parks and monuments was brought up, and that's important to note. It's a big deal. National parks have a much stricter level of conservation and preservation than monuments. But there are also sort of different levels of monuments. For instance, Ironwood Forest in Arizona still allows cattle grazing. Sonoran Desert allows primitive camping anywhere in its boundaries. The one by me, Fort Ord, doesn't allow camping anywhere, or motorized vehicles (most of the time).
It's very likely that, at one time, there was a road that went through the monument but, as time went on, the decision was made to close it and turn it into the trail that is today. I wouldn't be surprised is this were not a safety issue. Maybe it looked a lot different than it does today though.

Once it cools down a bit, I plan to get down there again and take some pictures. But I'm going to try emailing them because it's got me curious.

Also you can check out this: http://www.pinnaclespartnership.org/about
It explains why there's an east and west side to the park. The "Melville Mines" in that 1920 map and referenced in that link are now Copper Mountain Mining Company. If you look online, you can find some info on it. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah back in those days a road could have even been a dirt wash or something that was vaguely thin enough for a car to access.  Anyways, I found my photos from back in 2014 and the Old Pinnacles Trail sure looks suspiciously like a road.  There is large rock falls in sections but it is possible that they weren't there yet in the 1920s to 1940s era?  I've found stranger road beds where they ought not to be, so there is a pretty solid chance that we're onto something.

Regardless now I want also to go back and check both Stonewall Canyon in addition to maybe the full Old Pinnacles Trail.  I'm figuring it ought have cooled down significantly by early October to make the trip worth while.  The mine sounds intriguing and definitely explains the old western alignment then why the current roads were built.  I'll do some digging tonight on the mine since it sounds like there is plenty of information.

Speaking of Ironwood Forest National Monument it's one of those post-Clinton era Monuments that largely stayed in BLM hands as opposed to the Park Service.  They have become a lot more common since Clinton was in office because he declared almost 20 National Monuments. lol  Some other notable BLM run National Monuments in Arizona would be Aqua Fria NM, Sonoran Desert NM, and my personal favorite the Vermillion Cliffs...which I think ought to be NPS run.  I'm sure budget constrains is playing a huge part of why the BLM is maintaining control of a lot of these newer monuments but they sure don't put on a good presentation for the casual tourist.  The good news is that for someone like me they tend to offer a lot more freedom when the BLM is involved especially when it comes to thinks even like off-road usage.

The only reason I can think of as to why LRN 120 and CA 146 never had a planned connected alignment versus the Sierra Mountain Routes it was a National Monument well before the 1930s.  If I recall correctly Tioga Pass Road was something largely the Park Service pushed to complete otherwise there wouldn't be a road connecting the gap in the CA 120 alignment.  Environmental Red Tape got more and more in the way as time pushed on into the late 60s then 70s which basically killed those proposals.  You even had the proposed CA 276 on Mineral King Road which was basically stalled out when Sequoia National Park snatched up Mineral King and quashed the ski resort idea.  Even CA 178 will never be complete with Death Valley National Park expanding so much and taking up a bunch of new land in the Panamint Range.

[coatimundi]

Monument status doesn't inherently preclude highway construction though. In fact, just like the forest service, both NPS and the BLM have directives to improve the land that they manage. NPS regularly builds and improves roads. It just takes a really, really long time to do it because the environmental review process is so rigorous, and they're a lot less likely to actually build the roads now. It's only when there's a wilderness area designation that roads will never be built, but those can even be in national forest units.
It's only NFS that has the commercialization part of their mission. You can actually see the remnants of that mission in the Mineral King Valley: all those private cabins are on NFS leases that were grandfathered into the national park when it took over. Normally, NPS kicks everyone out and often levels the buildings unless they have some sort of historic value. Those people never actually owned the land though and still don't.

[myosh_tino]

Yeah back in those days a road could have even been a dirt wash or something that was vaguely thin enough for a car to access.  Anyways, I found my photos from back in 2014 and the Old Pinnacles Trail sure looks suspiciously like a road.  There is large rock falls in sections but it is possible that they weren't there yet in the 1920s to 1940s era?  I've found stranger road beds where they ought not to be, so there is a pretty solid chance that we're onto something.

I seemed to recall the ranger at the Visitor Center saying what is now the Old Pinnacles Trail used to be a road before a flood wiped it out.  Rather than rebuilding it, they converted it into a trail which probably explains why much of that trail looks like an old road.

[Max Rockatansky]

Mineral King was it's own thing though at one point with the mining before tourism really got big in the area.  The 1906 San Francisco earthquake basically buried almost all the traces of the mining operations that were up there in the late 1800s.  Almost every structure up there today was built post 1906.  Ironically Sequoia/Kings Canyon has another cabin village called Wilsonia near Grant Grove that I'm pretty sure is just largely historic preservation coupled with some Park Service housing nowadays.  An even better example is Fruita out in Capitol Reef where basically the Park Service preserved the town but gave everyone the boot. 

I'd say the evidence is pretty solid about Old Pinnacles at least be a dirt road at one point.  It might be interesting to petition the Park Service to do some sort of study to determine it's use and origins in a publication.  Hell they already have stuff just as mundane like Colony Mill Road, so why not?  Anyways come fall it's going to be something worth checking out once the weather cools.

[coatimundi]

Ironically Sequoia/Kings Canyon has another cabin village called Wilsonia near Grant Grove that I'm pretty sure is just largely historic preservation coupled with some Park Service housing nowadays.  An even better example is Fruita out in Capitol Reef where basically the Park Service preserved the town but gave everyone the boot.

Yes, but my point was that what's exceptional about the Mineral King Valley cabins is that they're neither owned by NPS nor managed by a concessionaire. It's set up like a forest service lease. I've never seen that elsewhere. It surprised me when I saw it.

It might be interesting to petition the Park Service to do some sort of study to determine it's use and origins in a publication.

You're going to FOIA the park service? I mean, if you want studies and papers, each unit does these "general plans" every so often. Most are pretty mundane with lots of detail about environmental impacts, detailed geology and which random beetle lives there. It's only parks like Yosemite that get any sort of attention when they're released. But Pinnacles has theirs online, as do most of the parks:
https://books.google.com/books?id=xjU3AQAAMAAJ&num=13

I've admittedly just skimmed it, but the most exciting thing seemed to be that they talk about a park shuttle service. But this was in the days that everyone was going to have a shuttle service, and people were going to have to park their cars in massive lots on the fringes. Ed Abbey wasn't original in his call for just that in "Desert Solitaire".

And, if you want Pinnacles history to the point of meticulous detail that it's a bit painful, there's this that was also produced by the DOI:
https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/historyculture/upload/Heart-of-the-Gabilans_2009_small.pdf

I have not read this but would like to sit down and do so soon. The sections I've read are fairly well-written.

But, also, you have a ton of scientific studies and papers by various academic and research institutions. They like national parks and monuments because they're contained and managed, and there's a lot of baseline and historical data. A lot of these are around on Google or, at the least, are in libraries and sometimes digitized and available on those research search engines that you can only access for free at libraries.

So, I mean, it's not as if there's some sort of conspiracy to hide the fact that there was a road. I'm sure it's documented somewhere; it's just not necessarily available through a quick Google search.

[Max Rockatansky]

Now that I've had some time to think about you're right with the situation with Mineral King.  The only other situation I've encountered that was kind of similar in 44 National Parks and 46 Monuments was the use of Canyon de Chelley by the Navajo Tribe.  In that particular circumstance the tribe uses the Canyon floor for livestock, homes, and the top of the rim has a lot of roadside traders.  Granted this is smack dab in tribal land so it's a much different ball game all together.

It wouldn't be the first time I've sent something over to them that I was interested in. Usually I don't do it unless I absolutely can't find any document and for some reason I care enough.  The last one was in regards to some roads and town sites out in the Everglades in addition to Big Cypress.  I'm sure that document you posted mentions something about a connecting road somewhere though, might be worth a lite read over the next couple weeks in small portions.

Edit:  Speaking of the Everglades there is a couple tribal villages in the National Park that are still there.  I'll have to double check to see Pinecrest (the Al Capone Mansion one) is actually in the Park limit along with Trail City on the Loop Road.

[NE2]

And, if you want Pinnacles history to the point of meticulous detail that it's a bit painful, there's this that was also produced by the DOI:
https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/historyculture/upload/Heart-of-the-Gabilans_2009_small.pdf

I have not read this but would like to sit down and do so soon. The sections I've read are fairly well-written.

I just skimmed it and found the following:

[1921] The trail through Old Pinnacles Gorge and the Root homestead was at that time the only established route across Pinnacles. The road leading up from Bear Valley terminated at one end of this trail, while the Soledad road terminated at the other.

In July [1923], Hermansen also spoke to members of the Soledad Chamber of Commerce, warning them about Henry Melville's control of the west entrance to the monument and proposing to donate a right-of-way through his own land, which bordered the monument along the north, if Monterey County officials would build a road along this route to connect with the east side at Bear Gulch. This cross-monument road would circumvent Melville and the Copper Mountain Mining Company's lands altogether, but it would also compliment Hermansen's proposed Bear Gulch Entrance Road by providing an additional connection from Monterey County, thereby giving access to the same point of entry into the Pinnacles from both east and west. The Soledad businessmen expressed interest in this proposal, but no action was taken at that time.

As noted above, the old Spanish trail already crossed the Pinnacles, but it was passable only on foot or horseback.

In Monterey County, the press reported with enthusiasm that the event had given new hope to the idea of building a good road into the monument from Soledad, an effort that had languished since its abortive beginnings back in 1912. Only a few days before its delegates attended the San Jose meeting, the Soledad Chamber of Commerce had proposed the idea of a cross-monument road. "It was the unanimous opinion of those present that a movement should be started to boost such a road to the Pinnacle National Monument with the idea in mind of connecting the road through the Little Pinnacles with the road on the Hollister side."  The following day, a committee appointed by the Chamber of Commerce visited the proposed route, which circumvented the Copper Mountain Mining Company's land to the south and crossed the Little Pinnacles through the low saddle between Scout and North Chalone Peaks, continuing from there down the Bear Gulch drainage until it met the new San Benito County road on the east side of the monument. Despite the challenges posed by this alignment–the road would have to be blasted through the narrow chasm of the Bear Gulch Caves–this would remain the preferred alternative for west side boosters for some years, primarily because it was the only alternative within the monument that avoided the Copper Mountain Mining Company's inholding. Rancher Fred Fabry, who owned the adjacent land west of the monument, supported the plan and was willing to provide an easement across his property.

On February 2, 1925, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors met to discuss the matter of a road to Pinnacles. Their meeting was attended by members of all the local chambers of commerce as well as by delegates from Hollister and the newly formed Pinnacles National Park Association. The supervisors voted unanimously to endorse the idea of a cross-monument road, and a team of engineers from the California Highway Commission, headed by Division Engineer J.H. Skeggs, was assembled to survey potential alignments for it. In his final report, Skeggs proposed two alternatives through the monument. One was the route that had already been selected by the county promoters, running through the Little Pinnacles at Bear Gulch. The other followed the existing hiking path through the Old Pinnacles Gorge. Although the Balconies alternative would require purchasing the Copper Mountain Mining Company's land, Skeggs preferred this route, since he believed it would be considerably less expensive than the one through Bear Gulch. (The latter he estimated would cost about $50,000 per mile–oddly, Skeggs and his team never considered the possibility of running their road around the monument, as Hermansen had proposed doing.) Skeggs' proposed alignment through the Old Pinnacles would go through the Balconies Caves, widening this narrow chasm to accommodate two-way automobile traffic. The Skeggs report also considered various alternatives for an improved road from Soledad to the San Benito County line just west of the monument. The survey team's preferred alignment here would climb up Stonewall Canyon north of the existing road, then through Lopez Canyon to the county line at the top of the grade. This followed an existing dirt grade that had been constructed in 1910. Another alternative followed the present alignment of Highway 146 up Shirttail Gulch a few miles south of Stonewall Canyon. (This was also the route of the original Rootville mining road from the 1870s.)

[...]

The PNPA was arguing that the Soledad Road from Lopez Canyon through the Old Pinnacles Gorge and continuing–as a trail–all the way to the east side of the monument was a public highway established by traditional use. (This route was thought to have been used since Spanish times and possibly earlier.)

[...]

In a separate irony, the PNPA's campaign for the cross-monument highway died in the weeks following the May 1st celebration. The appropriations bill, on which everything depended, had passed unopposed through the legislature only to be vetoed by Governor Richardson.

In the same correspondence, Albright mentioned a survey made by Chief Engineer Kittredge earlier that month to locate a cross-monument highway.

Although the cross-monument highway was never built, the legacy of this idea is still evident in the enigmatic State Highway 146, which travels westward from Highway 25 only as far as the 1931 boundary of the monument, then resumes on the other side of the Pinnacles from the western boundary of the monument down to Soledad without connecting in between. Hawkins and all those with him who promoted the state highway in 1932, believed that the middle section would eventually be constructed by the Park Service. Their expectation helped get the new Bear Gulch entrance road started.

The sole project carried out by the CWA at Pinnacles was the improvement of the old truck road from the Chalone Wye, where the new Bear Gulch Entrance Road crossed Chalone Creek, north to the CCC camp. The new road was designed to be eighteen feet wide with three-foot shoulders on either side, giving it a total width of twenty-four feet, which brought it up to existing state highway standards. The project administrators still assumed that a cross-monument state highway would eventually be built along this alignment, and the proposed CWA road was to be a segment of it. Work began on December 11, 1933, with about 120 local laborers.

One of the largest jobs undertaken this period was the continuation of the Old Pinnacles Road above the CCC camp. [...] In 1934, just a few years after acquiring the land from the homesteaders, the Park Service approved plans to upgrade the old road to state highway standards. This proposal was made on the assumption that the road would eventually be extended all the way through the Old Pinnacles Gorge and connect with the Soledad Road on the west side, completing the cross-monument highway that had been proposed since 1925. [...] In January, as the road improvement work neared the Balconies, Custodian Hawkins suddenly announced that he had changed his mind about the cross-monument highway. According to a memo for the Regional Director, this unexpected decision came after long consideration of the detrimental effects that would be caused by construction of the road through the Old Pinnacles Gorge.

The third project with which Hawkins concerned himself during the war years was the cross-monument road. This remained a cherished ambition, something he had been trying to put through from the beginning of his involvement with the Pinnacles in 1924. By 1940, the only alignment still considered practicable followed the Old Pinnacles Road through the Balconies.

[1963] When asked by the audience why the Park Service was so interested in obtaining the remaining private inholdings at the north end of the monument–the Juri, Hawkins and Kelly parcels–Ramstad explained that "this is merely to round out the park boundaries,"  but Stevens unexpectedly added that the parcels were also wanted because they included parts of the only feasible route for a through road along North Chalone Creek.

In the following year, a new and final revision of the Mission 66 Master Plan for Pinnacles was prepared under Superintendent Stevens' supervision. This version contained plans for the proposed west side development but also included a road running through North Chalone Canyon along the present route of the North Wilderness Trail. The proposal called for a one-way interpretive road. This was substantially less than the state highway that road advocates had once desired, but there could be no doubt that it was the same cross-monument road that the park had agonized over for so long.

Two years later, on October 20, 1976, President Ford signed Public Law 94-567 establishing 12,952 acres within Pinnacles National Monument as wilderness. The bill also established wilderness areas in other national parks and monuments throughout the United States. In addition to creating the Pinnacles Wilderness, the bill authorized Pinnacles to add 1,717.9 acres to the monument, most of which lay along Chalone Creek on the east side. It noted that 990 acres of this potential addition would be eligible for wilderness designation as well and could be so-nominated without further legislative action. This resulted in nearly all of Pinnacles being designated wilderness, with 672 more acres than the environmentalists had wanted back in 1967. The only areas not designated were those that had already been developed. Future development could not expand beyond the existing developed areas, unless new lands were added to the monument. The cross-monument road was now effectively prohibited by legislation.

The North Wilderness Trail was put in during the latter half of the 1980s and remains one of the longest in the monument. It follows the east fork of Chalone Creek for most of its course, before turning south near the western boundary of the monument and descending to the Chaparral Ranger Station. This was roughly the same route that had only recently been considered for the cross-monument road, though the modern hiker might find it difficult to imagine a car bumping along these rugged canyons.

The South Wilderness Trail was also put in during the late 1980s. It originates on the Chalone Bench and follows Chalone Creek for a little over three miles to a dead-end just south of Horse Valley at Little Sycamore Flat. This route was followed by one of the earliest roads in the area, once used by homesteaders to connect their settlements in Bear Valley with those in Dry Lake. The original road continued all the way to the Salinas Valley through the Topo Ranch, but successive floods had all but obliterated it by the 1920s. [This was apparently the closest thing to an actual road across the park, following Chalone Creek all the way to Metz.]

[Max Rockatansky]

I wanted to have a closer look at the PDF since they chose some odd wording on page 76.  That made me think for a second that there was some part of the Old Spanish Trail that branched way north that I didn't know about...bad choice of words with "old Spanish trail" which clearly was just an old trail.  Regardless that's a pretty fascinating summary of how the in the roadway stayed in place up until modern times. 

I guess it goes back to what was "once" considered a road.  Back in the 1800s there wasn't much of a difference between what we would call a trail today and a "road."  Probably the best thing they had back in those days was stage routes which were meant for wheeled vehicles to pass which in turn largely became US Highway, or at least major routes in general in modern California.  Considering how close I am to Pinnacles it's still worth a look, at least I'll have to dig into the document a lot more over the weekend while I'm out on the road.