Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What was the first highway built in California?
The first state road was authorized on March 26, 1895, when a law created the post of "Lake Tahoe Wagon Road Commissioner" to maintain the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road (the 1852 Johnson's Cut-off of the California Trail), now US 50 from Smith Flat - 3 miles (5km) east of Placerville - to the Nevada state line.[1] The 58 mile[2] (93km) road had been operated as a toll road until 1886, when El Dorado County bought it; the county deeded the road to the state on February 28, 1896.[3] Funding was only enough for minimal improvements, including a stone bridge over the South Fork American River in 1901.[4]
An extensive section of this highway (over 600 miles or 965 km), from approximately Stockton, California to Vancouver, Washington, follows very closely the track of the Siskiyou Trail. The Siskiyou Trail was based on an ancient network of Native American Indian footpaths connecting the Pacific Northwest with California's Central Valley. By the 1820s, trappers from the Hudson's Bay Company were the first non-Native Americans to use the route of U.S. Highway 99 to move between today's Washington state and California. During the second half of the 19th Century, mule train trails, stagecoach roads, and the path of the Central Pacific railroad (later the Southern Pacific railroad) also followed the route of the Siskiyou Trail. By the early 20th Century, pioneering automobile roads were built along the Siskiyou Trail, including most notably the Pacific Highway. The Pacific Highway ran from British Columbia to San Diego, California and is the immediate predecessor of much of U.S. Highway 99. The highway was continuous pavement by the middle 1930s.
In April 1955, a Caltrans official announced that US 80 would be built as a freeway for its entire length in California, as it was to be included in the Interstate Highway System. In the meantime, while plans moved further along on US 101, the mayor of San Diego asked the California Highway Commission to keep the US 80 project on track. However, the construction was put on hold because of lower traffic levels on US 80, compared to other local highways. State Assemblyman Hegland raised the issue in the Assembly Highway subcommittee in December, stating that the construction of the freeway would help the economy and the Port of San Diego. State Senator Collier went even further and blamed the delay on San Diego County officials, in addition to linking the delay to damaging the program to develop the port. The bridge over the Colorado River was replaced in 1956, at a cost of $1.2 million, and was in use until 1978, when the I-8 bridge was built.
The name Corseburn is first recorded at the time of the Highway Act of 1835. Crossburn Bridge was situated in the formation of the highway, constructed over what had previously been a ford of the Craiksland or Sculloch Burn crossed the highway as a ford until the Corseburn or Crossburn Bridge was built.
The area was first settled by the Chumash Native Americans around 10,000 years ago. As the Alta California (Upper California) coast was settled by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the late 18th century, the El Camino Real (the Royal Road or King's Highway), a road from Loreto, Baja California, Mexico to Sonoma, California, and connecting the Spanish missions in California, was established through the heart of what would later be known as Agoura Hills.
This is a list of state highways in the U.S. state of California that existed before the 1964 renumbering. It includes routes that were defined by the California State Legislature but never built, and is sorted by the unmarked legislative route number. For details on routes added before 1931, see history of California's state highway system#List of route numbers, 1917-1931; the dates given here are when the numbers were assigned (1916 for routes added in the first two bond issues, 1917 for routes added by the legislature before 1917).
The Arrowhead Trail or Arrowhead Highway was the first all-weather road in the Western United States that connected Los Angeles, California to Salt Lake City, Utah by way of Las Vegas, Nevada. Built primarily during the auto trails period of the 1910s, prior to the establishment of the U.S. numbered highway system, the road was replaced in 1926 by U.S. Route 91 (US 91)and subsequently Interstate 15 (I‑15). Small portions of the route in California and Las Vegas, Las Vegas Boulevard, are sometimes still referred to by the name, or as Arrow Highway.
With the projected growth of the Central Valley, interest has reemerged in constructing all or part of the unconstructed portion of SR 65. A multi-county committee has been formed to discuss the transportation needs of the Eastern Central Valley, including the construction of SR 65 over twenty years. The committee will look at what route the road will take, what type of road would be built (highway, expressway, or freeway), and what the road would eventually become (also known as the ultimate transportation corridor or UTC).
The first parts of SR 125 were added to the state highway system in 1933, connecting Route 94 with U.S. Route 80 (US 80). In the 1964 state highway renumbering, what was signed as Route 67 was transferred to the new SR 125. After several delays in funding and in planning, the highway was extended north to SR 52 and south to SR 54 in the early 2000s.
Between 1869 and 1887, the Oregon & California Railroad Company built a railroad along this route, crossing Siskiyou Summit in 1887. In the mid-1910s, the pioneering Pacific Highway, later numbered as U.S. Highway 99, provided the first easy automobile access along the path of the trail. Interstate 5 was built in the 1960s along the route of the original 1820s Siskiyou Trail. About 4 miles (7 km) north of the California border, and just south of Ashland, Oregon, the highway crosses Siskiyou Summit, the highest point on I-5 (elevation ). The railroad and interstate highway deviate from the original trail in small ways according to the needs and engineering available to their builders.
This is one of the oldest highways in Nevada. The route was first part of the lesser used Sonora Pass branch of the California Trail. The route appeared as a highway on maps since at least as far back as 1919. The highway was first numbered as a portion of State Route 3, a designation in use by 1929. The State Route 3 designation extended from Reno to the California state line in Fish Lake Valley west of Lida. This route is drivable today as U.S. Route 395 Alternate, State Route 529 and U.S. Route 395 to the modern terminus of Route 208. It extended past Yerington via what is now U.S. Route 95 Alternate, U.S. Route 95 and SR 266.
An extensive section of this highway (over ), from approximately Stockton, California, to Portland, Oregon, follows very closely the track of the Siskiyou Trail. This trail was based on an ancient network of Native American footpaths connecting the Pacific Northwest with California's Central Valley. By the 1820s, trappers from the Hudson's Bay Company were the first non-Native Americans to use the route of today's I-5 to move between today's Washington State and California. During the second half of the 19th century, mule trains, stagecoaches, and the Central Pacific railroad also followed the route of the Siskiyou Trail. By the early 20th century, pioneering automobile roads were built along the path of the Siskiyou Trail, notably the Pacific Highway. The Pacific Highway ran from British Columbia to San Diego, California, and was the immediate predecessor of much of US 99. The route of US 99 was in turn used as a basis for much of the route of today's I-5.
The northern portion is also part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, as is the piece south of SR 12 near Rio Vista, though, of the latter, only the southernmost piece in Antioch is built to freeway standards. Both pieces are also part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. The entire southern portion, from SR 4 to Sacramento, is eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System, and is officially designated as a scenic highway by the California Department of Transportation, meaning that it is a substantial section of highway passing through a "memorable landscape" with no "visual intrusions", where the potential designation has gained popular favor with the community.
None of the highway from Bladensburg to Parole was completed by 1915. Construction of this highway started after a 1918 appropriation from the Maryland General Assembly specifically to construct the National Defense Highway, so named because it would connect the national capital with the Naval Academy. The first section built was from the Baltimore–Washington Boulevard east to approximately the location of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in 1919. The second section of the Defense Highway, from there to near what is now MD 410 in Landover Hills, was started that same year and completed by 1921. Near Annapolis, another portion of the highway was built near the Annapolis Waterworks in 1920 and 1921. The western portion was extended east through Lanham to the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) at Buena Vista near what is now MD 704 by 1923. The portion of Robert Crain Highway with which the Defense Highway crosses the Patuxent River was paved by 1923; a new reinforced concrete girder bridge was completed at the site in 1925. Other major structures along the route included a steel and concrete girder bridge across the Popes Creek Subdivision near Bowie in 1926 and reinforced concrete girder bridges across the North River and the South River completed in 1925. The fully concrete Defense Highway was finished in December 1926.
Before California massively renumbered its state highways in 1964, SR 238 was part of State Route 9. The segment of what is now Interstate 238 was built as a freeway in 1956, before it became part of the Interstate Highway System in 1983.
Starting with the construction of Klamath River Highway in California in 1919, Bechtel ventured into jobs outside of building railroads. The company built roads, bridges, and highways throughout the western United States. The company worked on its first hydroelectric projects in the 1920s for Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California.
According to Dekema, planning for I-805 began in 1956. The original routing for I-805 was approved as an Interstate Highway in July 1958. It was added to the state highway system and the Freeway and Expressway System in 1959 as Route 241. I-805 was expected to reduce traffic on what was then US 101 between Los Angeles and San Diego, when the former was opened. Route 241 was renumbered to Route 805 in the 1964 state highway renumbering, and I-5 was designated along the route from Los Angeles to San Diego. Further planning was underway in 1965, with the goal to have the route built by 1972, the federal highway funding deadline. This was to be the first freeway in the area with no prior road along its route that it would replace; the goal was to provide a bypass around San Diego for those traveling to Mexico, and improve access for local residents. By June, houses along the route in the North Park area were being sold, as the land was needed for the first stretch of the freeway to be constructed. The next year, Dekema confirmed that the first portion of what was known as the Inland Freeway to be built would be between Home and Adams avenues.
The route was built on top of several older highways, most notably the National Road and the Victory Highway. The National Road was created in 1806 by an act of Congress to serve as the first federally funded highway construction project. When completed it connected Cumberland, Maryland, with Vandalia, Illinois. The Victory Highway was designated as a memorial to World War I veterans and ran from Kansas City, Missouri to San Francisco, California. Other important roads that have become part of US 40 include Zane's Trace in Ohio, Braddock Road in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Black Horse Pike in New Jersey, part of the Oregon Trail in Kansas, and the Lincoln Highway throughout most of California.
The first highways were built during Yugoslav period, when Skopje was linked through the Brotherhood and Unity Highway to, what was then, Yugoslav capital Belgrade to North, and Greek border to South.
Throughout California, I-80 was built along the corridor of U.S. Route 40 (US 40), eventually replacing this designation entirely. The prior US 40 corridor itself was built along several historic corridors in California, notably the California Trail and Lincoln Highway. The route has changed from the original plans in San Francisco due to freeway revolts canceling segments of the originally planned alignment. Similarly in Sacramento, the freeway was re-routed around the city after plans to upgrade the original grandfathered route through the city to Interstate highway standards were cancelled.
Also in 1895, on March 27 the legislature created the three-person Bureau of Highways to coordinate efforts by the counties to build good roads. The bureau traveled to every county of the state in 1895 and 1896 and prepared a map of a recommended system of state roads, which they submitted to the governor on November 25, 1896. The legislature replaced the Bureau of Highways with the Department of Highways on April 1, 1897, three days after it passed a law creating a second state highway from Sacramento to Folsom – another part of what became US 50 – to be maintained by three "Folsom Highway Commissioners". This was the last highway maintained by a separate authority, as the next state road, the Mono Lake Basin State Road (now part of SR 120), was designated by the legislature in 1899 to be built and maintained by the Department of Highways. Construction of a large connected system began in 1912, after the state's voters approved an $18 million bond issue for over of highways. The Lincoln Highway when it was set up in 1913 used the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road (the 1852 Johnson's Cut-off of the California Trail), now US 50, to get over the Sierra Nevada.
In 1912, California began paving a section of the historic route in San Mateo County. Construction of a two-lane concrete highway began in front of the historic Uncle Tom's Cabin, an inn in San Bruno that was built in 1849 and demolished exactly 100 years later. There was little traffic initially and children used the pavement for roller skating until traffic increased. By the late 1920s, California began the first of numerous widening projects of what later became part of U.S. Route 101.
In 1892, Anna Pitcher of Pasadena, California initiated an effort to preserve the as-yet uncommemorated route of Alta California's Camino Real, an effort adopted by the California Federation of Women's Clubs in 1902. Modern El Camino Real was one of the first state highways in California. Given the lack of standardized road signs at the time, it was decided to place distinctive bells along the route, hung on supports in the form of an high shepherd's crook, also described as "a Franciscan walking stick." The first of 450 bells were unveiled on August 15, 1906, at the Plaza Church in the Pueblo near Olvera Street in Los Angeles.
A state highway (SH) is funded and maintained by the state. State highways have been assigned numbers between 1 and 365 with a few exceptions. There is also a State Highway 495 (renumbered from Farm to Market Road 495), as well as canceled routes SH 550 (a temporary designation for what is now part of I-169) and SH 824 (a temporary designation for what was later part of SH 24). NASA Road 1 and State Highway OSR are also in the State Highway network. The first 26 state highways were designated in 1917. Highways are not organized by directionality of the highway, instead they are generally numbered as they were when first built in the 1920s and 1930s. Most suffixed routes were eliminated by 1939, though SH 75A existed from 1946 to 1994 to match Oklahoma's SH 75A.
State highway loops and spurs are short links in the State Highway network. They are generally numbered chronologically, and the lower numbers are older routes. Thus spurs and loops are not related to similarly numbered main state highways. Typically, a loop connects two state or national highways, and a spur connects a state highway to a farm to market or other lower rated road. Many loops are either bypasses around significant portions of populated areas or older bypassed state or national highways. One loop—around Houston—is labeled Beltway 8. The first loops and spurs were defined in 1939; prior to that, the roadways had been suffixed segments of the main state highways of which they branched.
In 1964, Caltrans desired to reduce the number of designated routes in the California state highways system. The Interstate Highway system, designed and built starting in 1956, was adding on to the already increased number of U.S. Routes and state highways. In result, the 1964 renumbering truncated US 50 to West Sacramento. The entire route of US 40 was deleted in the western United States due to the completion of I-80. Also, the number "40" was duplicated along I-40, at that time, a newly built route in southeastern California. I-40 was to be numbered I-30, but the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) rejected the numbering.
Portions of SR 20 are built near the routing of what was first a wagon road and later a turnpike in the late nineteenth century. This road was extended through the state highway system all the way to Ukiah in the early twentieth century, and the missing link near Clear Lake was completed in 1932 before the official designation of this highway as SR 20 in 1934. There have been subsequent improvements to the road, such as the conversion of the Grass Valley portion of the route to freeway standards.