Lundy Lake Road and the Tioga Road extension

[Max Rockatansky]

I just finished up working on blog about Lundy Lake Road which publishes on 12/4/26 on the Gribblenation webpage.  It turns out that Lundy Lake Road was once favored for the Tioga Road extension before it was legislatively adopted in 1899.  This is what I put on our Facebook page tonight:

"This view is facing westward along Lundy Lake Road at the Lundy Lake Reservoir.  Left of the reservoir the abandoned May Lundy Mine Toll Road can be seen ascending towards Lake Canyon.  Both Lundy Canyon and Lake Canyon were once under consideration for the State Highway extension of the Tioga Road to Mono Basin.
Lundy Lake Road is an approximately 7-mile rural highway located in the eastern Sierra Nevada range of Mono County.  Lundy Lake Road begins at the junction of US Route 395 and California State Route 167.  The corridor heading westbound passes the Lundy Lake Reservoir where the mining town of Lundy once stood and terminates at the Lundy Canyon Trailhead.

Lundy Lake Road was constructed in the late 1870s to serve the sawmill of William Lundy.  In 1880 operations at the May Lundy Mine began which was located above the sawmill on a franchise toll road in Lake Canyon.  The Lundy sawmill would expand into a town site which became one of the largest communities of the era located near the Mono Basin.

The road to Lundy was heavily studied by the California Department of Highways for an extension of the Tioga Road between 1897-1902.  The Lundy Canyon Road was initially favored in 1897 due to the existing infrastructure tied to the Lundy community.  Further studies found the Lundy Canyon route to be inferior as it would require crossing above 10,400 feet above sea level and descend into the Mono Basin via grades averaging around 10%. 

In 1899 the State Highway extension of the Tioga Road was legislatively defined.  Ultimately the corridor of Lundy Canyon was passed over by the Department of Highways for the Tioga Road extension in favor of the gentler 7% grade of Lee Vining Canyon in June 1902.  In 1911 the May Lundy Mine and Lundy town site were heavily impacted by avalanches.  The community would never recover and lost Post Office Service by 1914.  The May Lundy Mine would also close the same year.
 
The May Lundy Mine Toll Road was constructed in 1881 from the Lundy town site through Lake Canyon.  This toll road corridor was not part of the 1897-1898 Tioga Road extension studies.  Later studies included the Lake Canyon routing which was among a list of four alternatives by 1902 (the fourth was Bloody Canyon).  The road to the May Lundy Mine remained open for decades but is now closed to traffic."

This is the post in question:

https://www.facebook.com/gribblenation/posts/pfbid0ZLVJZLz5pE9uCxMYF4qgE1FykbZ46Wq99ahLKKJmya7vT2W9MnZFt8gAnJdQF3oWl

This is the photo I used on the Facebook post:

0 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

And this was the album said photo is from when I drove Lundy Lake Road in 2020:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQrwNpr

The early studies on the Tioga Road extension are extensively detailed in the 1898, 1900 and 1902 Department of Highways Biennials:

https://cdm16436.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16436coll9/search