Skip to main content

Del Puerto Canyon Road

By


Del Puerto Canyon Road is a twenty-four-mile highway which connects Patterson in Stanislaus County west to San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County.  From Patterson sixteen miles west to Frank Raines Park the grade of Del Puerto Canyon Road was built atop the grade of the Patterson & Western Railroad.  Said line had been completed in 1916 during World War I to the magnesite mine of Jones and was abandoned by 1920.  Stanislaus County and Santa Clara County later facilitated repurposing the railroad grade into a public highway to San Antonio Valley.  The completed Del Puerto Canyon Road would open to traffic during 1942.  




Part 1; the history of Del Puerto Canyon Road

What is now Del Puerto Canyon Road from Patterson west to Frank Raines Park was originally constructed as the grade of the Patterson & Western Railroad.  Said line was constructed as narrow gauge in 1916 from the Southern Pacific Railroad West Side Line in downtown Patterson to the magnesite mine known as Jones.  

The Patterson & Western Railroad began operations on September 20, 1916.  The western terminus of the line connecting to a 3,000-foot-long tramway to the site of the Jones mine.  Magnesite was considered an essential metal during World War I which spurred the development of the Jones mine.  Quicksilver and manganese chrome was also mined at Jones.  

The Patterson & Western Railroad can be seen on the 1919 United States Geological Survey map of Orestimba.  


The Patterson & Western Railroad shuttered operations on August 14, 1920.  The right-of-way occupied by the line was subsequently abandoned to Stanislaus County.  Stanislaus County along with Santa Clara County commissioned a Depression relief program which would repurpose the railroad grade as part of a highway to San Antonio Valley.  The first vehicles to travel from Patterson to San Jose via the completed Del Puerto Canyon Road crossed the Diablo Range in 1942.  

Below an E. Clampus Vitus historic plaque regarding the history of the Patterson & Western Railroad can be seen (courtesy hmdb.org and Andrew Ruppenstein).


Del Puerto Canyon Road can be seen on the 1947 United States Geological Survey map of San Jose. 


Currently California State Route 130 has an eastern terminus at Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County.  The highway has an unconstructed and unadopted legislative extension which terminates in Patterson.  For unclear reasons Santa Clara County signs California State Route 130 east from the official terminus at Mount Hamilton to the Stanislaus County line via San Antonio Valley Road and Del Puerto Canyon Road.  




Part 2; a drive on Del Puerto Canyon Road

The westbound beginning of Del Puerto Canyon Road can be found a short distance west of Interstate 5 in Patterson via Diablo Grande Parkway.  Traffic is advised that Frank Raines Parkway is sixteen miles away as westbound Del Puerto Canyon Road begins. 






Del Puerto Canyon Road west to Frank Raines Park is mostly aligned atop the grade of the Patterson & Western Railroad.  The roadway is extremely curvy but offers numerous scenic views the slopes of Del Puerto Canyon.  The ruins of a railroad bridge over Del Puerto Creek can be found in the overgrowth a short distance east of Frank Raines Park.  



























































Del Puerto Canyon Road west from Frank Raines Park ascends further into the Diablo Range and enters Santa Clara County.  























Westbound Del Puerto Canyon Roads terminates at fork which serves as the beginning of San Antonio Valley Road and Mines Road.  Traffic wishing to follow California State Route 130 is directed to follow San Antonio Valley Road.  








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

By
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
3 comments
Read more

Mines Road

By
Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre
Post a Comment
Read more

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

By
In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1
Post a Comment
Read more