The effort to
breach the granite wall goes back nearly 100 years. Three trans-Sierra highways were proposed in
Inyo County: out of Bishop, Independence, and Lone Pine. These roads were not just a local aspiration,
but rather part of a much bigger picture.
At the time, Henry
Ford began mass production of an affordable automobile. Americans were soon on the move and the pace
of road development surged. Roads were being improved and assembled into highways. Those highways were getting ready to link East
and West coasts via the developing transcontinental Lincoln Highway. Competition was fierce in California for the anticipated
flood of travelers, and it looked like that flood was going to sweep through Reno
to San Francisco passing up businesses in the San Joaquin Valley to the south,
and those businesses couldn’t let that happen.
Great effort
was being expended to lure travelers to the Eastern Sierra with the promise of superior
driving conditions in the winter. After making it to the Owens Valley, trans-Sierra
highways would do the rest. Their
development was key to San Joaquin Valley’s economic growth. And the people of Owens Valley were more than
happy to leverage that desire to help breach the granite wall.
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| 1915 Bishop Creek Canyon. |
BISHOP TO
FRESNO
In the summer
of 1920, Bishop began looking for a trans-Sierra route and found “Piute” Pass,
as it was spelled in those days. To determine the feasibility of constructing
this road, a reconnaissance trip was financed and assembled by the Bishop
Chamber of Commerce. A local pack outfit
carried a highway engineer, a few prominent business people, a local service
station owner L.A. Hazard, and W.G. Scott a tireless promoter of road
development who was in the midst of promoting “El Camino Sierra,” later to
become Highway 395.
After the
trip, Hazard told a local reporter, “It is really hard to understand why a road
has not been built...before now.” Mr.
Scott elaborated saying no engineering difficulties would be found on the route
and a road could “easily” be built. Citizens of Bishop reportedly considered its
cost a small price to pay compared to the value of the investment. Newspaper
accounts also suggested Fresno County would be more than happy to incur the
cost since the result would lay the new transcontinental highway right at their
doorstep.
Hazard,
Scott, and the others envisioned a vehicle traveling through Bishop Creek
Canyon, up to North Lake and up and over Piute Pass. Over the crest , it would then connect to a
proposed road to be built by Southern California Edison Power Company from
Fresno to Florence Lake Reservoir, just a couple of dozen miles west of Piute
Pass.
The proposed
road had a name - High Sierra Piute
Highway- and can actually be seen up on a 1927 map titled Map of the National Park-To-Park Highway. Historical details are sketchy, but it seems
a realistic cost evaluation never took place and a funding source was never
identified. The dream slowly faded away.
INDEPENDENCE
TO THE GIANT SEQUOIAS
To provide
direct access to the developing Sequoia National Park, another trans-Sierra
road was proposed in the early 1930’s. The
route, reportedly called the Cedar Grove
to Independence Road, would travel from Independence up to Onion Valley and
over Kearsarge Pass. From there it would drop down and head to Copper Creek,
just 13 miles as the crow flies from the pass. The road would then connect to State Highway
180 and the developing road system.
Historical information
about the road is hazy, but its fate was clear: Its future was tied to the trans-Sierra route
to the south, the highway most likely to become reality.
LONE PINE /
PORTERVILLE HIGHWAY
On the skirts
of the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lone Pine, a set of switchbacks stand as a
monument to the unrelenting pursuit of a dream: a 115 mile long 12-foot wide dirt road that would
take travelers over the 11,300-foot crest of the Sierra, higher than Tioga
pass, then deliver them to cities in the San Joaquin Valley. It was called the Lone
Pine / Porterville Highway.
The idea
surfaced around 1915 when the Automobile Club of Southern California proposed
legislation that would create nearly 7,000 miles of new roads, including the
Lone Pine / Porterville Highway. Legislation
was approved and the highway became a part of the state highway system on paper. It just needed to be built.
That effort got
underway in the summer of 1923 as the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce coordinated
a four-day inspection tour of the region.
Mules and horses carried representatives of the Automobile Club and
prominent civic leaders from the San Joaquin Valley and Owens Valley into the
backcountry. A preliminary route was
established and Tulare County officials soon passed a resolution calling for
the coordination of county, state and federal resources.
The size of
the project exploded. By 1926, Kern
County joined forces with Inyo and Tulare counties to send representatives on a
larger 10 day wide-ranging reconnaissance. As a result, the single highway would
now branch out to Bakersfield, Fresno, and Visalia. The grand plan included a lateral road to the base of Mount
Whitney.
That same
year, the Los Angeles Times’ “Automobile
Section” reported that the “million dollar road” running over the roof of the
United States (the Sierra) should be ready for service “shortly” according to
“definite” plans which have been drafted by State, County, and City officials. And true to the article, road construction
shortly began.
1929 marked
the completion of the first link. Vehicles could now travel from Porterville to
Camp Nelson, 30 miles into the High Sierra.
An official dedication took place on July 3, 1931 with great fanfare and
included State and county chambers of Commerce, the Forest Service, California
Auto Club, and civic leaders from all over the region. Representatives from the
National Park Service were there as well, which was not without irony.
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| Early 1930's construction of the Lone Pine / Porterville Highway |
A few years
later, Owens Valley citizens started building their part of the highway. A gas/electric shovel began cutting
switchbacks into the Sierra southwest of Lone Pine. Even though funding for the entire project
had yet to be realized, residents of the Valley felt it was a prudent
investment of time and money since it would open up a new recreation area
around Horseshoe Meadows.
After the
links were built, there was still a 47-mile gap to close and Auto Club
engineers estimated the price tag to be around $800,000. It was hoped this figure would make it into
the upcoming 1935-37 highway budget. But
the State Highway Commission required an official engineering survey, and money
for that wasn’t even close to being budgeted.
Money for construction seemed a long way off, and the promoters were
running out of time.
Sequoia
National Park had been growing steadily for four decades along with its network
of roads. Park Superintendent Colonel John White came to
believe preserving roadless areas was a moral responsibility. The Park’s priorities changed and the grand
plans for roads began to crumble. The
Parks elaborate high elevation road called Sierra
Way was killed; the Cedar Grove to
Independence Road was permanently halted; and the dream of a million dollar
Lone Pine / Porterville Highway vanished... or so they thought.
In 1966, a
version of the Lone Pine / Porterville Road came back to life. The new vision was an unbroken highway from Death
Valley to Olancha, and over the Sierra to Porterville. State Route 190 would be a continuous route
spanning the wonders of California through pristine deserts, over cool high
alpine meadows of the Sierra, and down to the pastoral flatlands of the San
Joaquin Valley.
The California
Highway Commission adopted a plan to bridge the 47 mile mountain gap between
Horseshoe Meadows and the west side of the Sierra. According to the 1966 March/April edition of
the California Highways and Public Works Journal, the highway would pass
between two wilderness areas, a corridor created specifically for this road. It was promised the road would not impact
the wilderness experience “…even after the far-off day when the highway is
finished.” That far off day has yet to
be realized.
EPILOGUE
The dreams of
the day were grand. There was talk of
enhancing the trans-Sierra experience by diverting creeks to create manmade
waterfalls; a ski resort was proposed for Onion Valley out of Independence; an
aerial tramway was envisioned to the top of Mount Whitney. What would the Owens Valley look like had
these roads been built...what if?
Copyright © 2014 Ted Williams. All Rights Reserved
