interesting history:

http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/US80/US80_plank_road.html

My mother tells of coming to California on that plank road. Old days indeed..

(When she was still with us)

My great grandmother knew Jessie James and the boys when she was a girl...

(Not the biker dude, but near the caves on the Missouri river)

When I was in Japan I used to watch "californias gold" a lot. Great show for california history. He did an episode on the plank road. Very interesting!! I'm glad they have that part fenced off. It kinda shows something about off roaders that the eco nazis don't see. It would be easy for somebody to trash that thing but nobody does. I've never even seen anybody walk through it.

On a different note, is anybody on the board old enough to remember taking the old highway to G from san diego?? You can see it while you're going down the grade. I can't imagine cruising that in a motorhome. My grandpa would tell me stories. Crazy, windy, skinny road with traffic coming both ways. He said he'd have to pull off the road to let oncoming traffic go by in tight spots. It also took a lot longer to get there.

If you've ever been on the old road please share stories. I always check it out on my drive and still can't believe it was the main road back in the day.

A few years ago at the south dunes cleanup someone turned up with a chunk of the plank road that they found out in the dunes! Several of us recognized it for what it was almost instantly and figured we should bring it to the BLM's attention in case they wanted to preserve it or look for more remains. But the BLM guys said "it's trash toss it" Wasn't very impressed with them that day

Some of my local friends who've been going out to Buttercup for years and years still swear that there are fairly large chunks of the old road still out there to be found from time to time when the sands shift. When they were younger they said they'd run across them all the time. But years of blowing sand and disinterest from the BLM have left them all but lost to history other than the one protected section and it's neighboring reconstructions:





Free rep points to anyone who can name the group that built the recreation of the 1916-1926 road

As I recall, it was Bureau of Land Management, the Imperial Valley Pioneer Historical Society, the California Off-Road Vehicle Association, and Air Force personnel. In the 1970s

Good guesses...and some of them were involved in the display. But according to the signs none of those are the groups who actually built the replica.

I will add that they're I group I had never heard of until someone asked about them on this BBS...but other than building the road replicas they have nothing to do with the dunes.

Good stuff Frog, thanks for bringin it into the Neighborhood. Very interestin readin.

VERY COOL STUFF MR. FROG!!!! I MIGHT SEE IF I CAN DO THE PLANK ROAD AS THE MAIN TOPIC FOR A REPORT IN SCHOOL....