Agua Fria, California ghost town site

While looking for a way around the closure in California State Route 49 north of Bear Valley I stumbled about a couple historic markers for the Agua Fria ghost town on CA 140.

Agua Fria was located just north of modern CA 140 along Agua Fria Road in Mariposa County. Agua Fria is significant in that it was the first County Seat of Mariposa County between 1850 to 1851 before it was moved to Mariposa. Agua Fria apparently had two sections called "Upper" and "Lower" Agua Fria which were centered around two springs. Apparently the gold claims in Agua Fria quickly exhausted and frequent fires in the 1850s did the town in. Agua Fria apparently had Post Office Service until 1862.

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Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

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