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Planning Trip To The Redwood Empire


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Rick,

 

Ah…..! So the bridge you were talking about that was built in 1934 is the one just south of the county line.

 

Based on the strip map, there was an old bridge at the site in 1923, which is just south of Thompson Ranch and the County line. Right? If the oldest bridge standing is the 1934 bridge you identified, could the pier be for the 1923 bridge?

 

Gotta go. I’m hoping to catch some images of the Washington coast and Olympia National Park in sunshine. The weather pattern has had the morning clouds clearing just to the coast for the past week, but today it is supposed to clear offshore as well. We will see.

 

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Dave

 

 

 

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Rick,

 

Ah…..! So the bridge you were talking about that was built in 1934 is the one just south of the county line.

 

Based on the strip map, there was an old bridge at the site in 1923, which is just south of Thompson Ranch and the County line. Right? If the oldest bridge standing is the 1934 bridge you identified, could the pier be for the 1923 bridge?

 

Gotta go. I’m hoping to catch some images of the Washington coast and Olympia National Park in sunshine. The weather pattern has had the morning clouds clearing just to the coast for the past week, but today it is supposed to clear offshore as well. We will see.

 

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Dave

 

Dave

 

I think it is the support for a 1923 bridge but I don't think it is the one just south of the County Line. Based on the alignment of the river I think it was the next bridge south of the Fish Crk bridge. I now wish I had followed the road on the west side of the river a bit to see if there were any more signs.

 

 

Hope your picture hunting was a success. I took a lot of pictures under foggy conditions over the last few days.

 

Roadhound

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Nice "bridge work". Any luck with Black Bart Rock?

 

There are a couple of candidates on the west side of the river, opposite the the side that the road is currently on, but nothing I could find labeling the rock by name or matching the distance out of Calpella. If Black Bart rock was on the east bank of the river it is very likely that it was removed at some point during highway construction. There is a significant cut in the hillside at almost the five mile mark.

 

 

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The bridges I was referring to in my previous post were further south.

 

smithpoint.jpg

 

#1 is the current 101 roadway north and south.

#2 is the 1934 Smith Point Bridge

#3 is the approximate location of the bridge pier. The picture below is taken from the east bank of the river and the pier is on the west bank of the river.

 

MG_2249.jpg

 

 

Roadhound

 

Ah ha, so that explains something that was bugging me when I was looking over the strip maps a few weeks ago. I had assumed US 101 used to follow what the map on msn.com calls Benbow Rd. (and it did, at least after 1934). What bothered me was that the msn map calls a road on the west side of the river Old Hwy 101, but then it just goes up into the hills (still labeled as Old Hwy 101). I figured the whole thing was mis-labeled (since the strip maps showed the road following the river), but I'm guessing that road is correctly "Old Hwy 101" to where you found the bridge piers, and msn mis-labeled it beyond that.

 

Thanks for the find.

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