Hydraulicking the Highway - California - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

History sign at the La Grange viewpoint on Hwy. 299 west of Weaverville, California. Text of Sign:
HYDRAULICKING THE HIGHWAY: Division of Highways, 1932 -1939, Then and Now
The re-routing of Highway 299 over Oregon Mountain Summit was initiated after years of controversy. Prior to this time, the original road led out of Weaverville on Oregon Street and around the mine’s southern edge. In 1915, the State Highway Act mandated construction of a lateral route that would connect Weaverville, the Trinity County seat, with the coast and valley highways “by the most direct and practicable route.” After several years of debate, the Oregon Mountain Summit route was finally selected and construction began in 1934. Some 10,748,000 cubic yards of earth were removed using the La Grange Mine hydraulic monitors with water delivered by the La Grange water system.
The use of hydraulic excavation in highway construction on such an enormous scale was unprecedented and not without controversy. However, since typical costs for excavations in the 1930s by power equipment ran about 30 cents per cubic yard, the use of monitors at a cost of 2-1/2 cents per cubic yard, resulted in thousands of dollars of saving in construction costs.
Working from January to July each year for six consecutive years, the monitors washed materials left behind by the mine operations down into the open pit of the La Grange Mine. The monitors, or “giants,” like the one to your left, shot 55,524,000 cubic yards of water at the ridge above the La Grange Mine pit. An average of 21 men were required to operate these giants and most of them were past employees of the La Grange Mine. After they had washed away as much material as practical, convict labor and more-conventional power shovels and trucks were used to clean up the remaining materials left behind.
The highway over Oregon Mountain Summit was opened to the traveling public in 1940, but has been plagued with unstable slopes since that time. Materials from the north and south slopes of the La Grange Mine pit periodically slide clay-bearing soil onto the highway.

Group that erected the marker: CalTrans URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: Hwy. 299 Weaverville, California United States 96093

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Date Logged Log   09/24/2012 Volcanoguy visited it