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California Highways

Sources and Credits

This information is derived from the following references:

Bauman, Richard. California's First State Highway. Article in The Reporter, A publication exclusively for Fedco Members. Issue W4, Volume 44, March 1998.
Brodsly, David. L.A. Freeway. University of California Press. Berkeley, CA. 1981.
CalTrans. California Department of Transportion State Highway Map. 1963.
CalTrans. California Department of Transportion State Highway Map. 1986.
CalTrans. California Department of Transportion State Highway Map. 1994.
CalTrans. Caltrans Journal. September-October 2002.
CalTrans. History of California's Interstate Routes. November 1984. Rev. 1/13/86.
CalTrans. HOV Annual Report 1996. District 4. December 1996.
CalTrans. Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California, 1996. April 1996.
CalTrans. Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California, 2001. August 2001.
CalTrans. Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California, 2004. August 2004.
CalTrans. State Highway Routes: Selected Information. Revisions 1995. August 1995.
Caltrans and Caltrans District Office web pages: <http://www.dot.ca.gov/>
California Highway and Public Works Magazine. "United States Numbered Highways". January, 1928.
California Highway and Public Works Magazine. "State Routes will be Numbered and Marked with Distinctive Bear Signs". August, 1934.
California Highway and Public Works Magazine. "Route Renumbering: New Green Markers Will Replace Old Shields". March-April 1964.
California State Automobile Association. Greater San Jose Northern Area. 1987.
California State Automobile Association. Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Albany-Piedmont, Emeryville-Kensington. 1992.
County Supervisors Association of California. California's County Route Marker Program and the National Uniform County Route Marker Program: Information and Instructions.
Gillespie's Guide. 1939.
Forsyth, R and Hagwood, J. One Hundred Years of Progress. California Transportation Foundation. 1996.
H. M. Gousha/Conoco. California/Nevada. 1933.
H. M. Gousha/Shell. California/Nevada. 1934.
H. M. Gousha. California Map. 1935
H. M. Gousha/Standard. Standard Stations Interstate Route Map: Southern Routes: US 60, US 66, US 70, US 80 1939.
H. M. Gousha/Texaco. California. 1961.
Historical Society of Long Beach. Shades of the Past "The G.A.R. Highway". 1995.
Map Corporation of America. Maps of the Freeway System: Los Angeles and Vicinty. Boston, MA. Appears to be between 1958 and 1963.
Rand McNally and Company. Rand McNally Road Atlas and Radio Guide of the United States. Rand McNally and Company. 1959.
Thomas Brothers Maps. California Road Atlas. Thomas Brothers Maps. 1991.
Numerous Southern California AAA and California State AAA Maps.
Shaping San Franciso <http://www.shapingsf.org/>

...and a number of other books that, alas, I neglected to capture the name of.

A special nod of thanks is given to the following individuals:

Mike Ballard, who provided me with much historical information on US 6 and US 99 in the Santa Clarita Valley. Mike also provided me with excellent maps from 1935 and 1939.
Andy Field, who provided me with information on highway routes in San Diego (including county routes), as well as information on highway routing in Lake County, CA.
Don Hagstrom, who has provided me with all sorts of facts that have filtered into almost every page of route information on the site. Crediting Don individually would slow download times :-), so hopefully this blanket "thank you" will suffice.
Joseph Rouse. Joseph provided me with information on pre-1964 legislative routing (including an extremely useful 1963 route map), information on HOV lanes, information on US highways, and information on route changes from the 1930s on.
Nathan Edgars II, who provided invaluable updates through the Wikipedia Project regarding the chronology of route additions. In particular, the following pages were primary sources for updates to the existing chronology made in 2007: When each route was added to the state highway system, History/F&E System, List of route numbers, 1917-1931, History/Legislative act roads, History/List of laws by route (pre-1964), History/List of laws by route (post-1964)

Other information is from personal research and from the Urban Archives at Cal State Northridge (formerly Valley State), the Caltrans Library, the California State Highway Code, and contributions and corrections from various net folk, including Gary Araki, John Bejarano, Chris Carlsson, Dennis Carr, Casey Cooper, Eric Ching, Karl Davisson, David Edgren, Hank Fung, John David Galt, Mark Furqueron, Ralph Herman, Nick Karels, J.P. Kirby, James Lin, Richard Moeur, M. Ray Mullins, Scott Oglesby (especially for information on the history of the three-digit interstates in California and San Francisco freeway history), Numan Parada, Steve Riner, Matthew Salek, Calvin Sampang, Roberto Arturo Schafer, Duncan Shaw, Bill Sharp, Brian Smith, Sam Smith, David Stanek, Kevin Standlee, James Sterbenz, Dan Stober, Don Williams, David Whiteman, various participants on misc.transport.road and ca.general, and others whom I cannot remember. Information on El Camino Real is from the Los Angeles Almanac. Some (alas not all) of these folks are credited on individual pages, when the contribution was significant.

I have also received information from the Public Information officers of the following Caltrans districts:

District 1: Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Lake Counties
District 3: Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba Counties
District 4: Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Marin, Solano, Napa, and Sonoma Counties.
District 5: Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties
District 6: Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern Counties
District 10: Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Mariposa, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tuolumne Counties
District 11: San Diego and Imperial Counties

I also thank Mel Aros, Program Coordinator for the California County Route Marker Program in Sacramento, who had to go to files archived off a mainframe computer in 1984 to get me a listing of all the routes in the program.

Lastly, I thank the many other Caltrans staffers (you know who you are) who have provided me information on various topics over the years.

Graphics on these pages were derived from a variety of sources, such as the reference texts cited above, R C Moeur's "Traffic Stuff" pages, and James Lin state route signage pages. The highway sign graphics on the index page were derived from Kurumi's Signmaker program, and reworked to say what I want them to say, and be 256 color GIFs. All graphics have been modified from their original forms and reworked to some extent to ensure they load fast (usually by reducing them in size and to 16-colors). The graphics for the National Trails are adapted from those on Dave Schul's North American Auto Trails site. The graphics for California Counties are adapted from the excellent county data pages at the California State Association of Counties. Graphics for Caltrans districts are adapted from a map at the Caltrans website. Many of the graphics used to accompany status updates are extracted from the background items supporting the CTC meeting minutes.

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