 |
|
|
OBITUARIES
|
NO OBITUARY NOTICES
WERE PUBLISHED IN
THIS WEEK'S EDITION
OBITUARIES FROM THE
JULY 15TH ISSUE
|
|
|
|
|
02-04-2010 The Great Basin Highway
|
THE GREAT BASIN HIGHWAY
By Thomas E. Horlacher
Art Hartley was perhaps the closest thing eastern Lincoln County had to a prophet when it came to state and federal highway design and construction forty years ago. He correctly foresaw the economic consequences of the completion of the Sunnyside Cutoff between Lund and Hiko (currently State Road 318) if eastern Lincoln County did not receive equal treatment by obtaining its own primary highway shortcut to Las Vegas.
A public hearing relating to the Sunnyside Cutoff was held by the state highway department in Lund, Nevada, in about 1970. I believe I was the only one from eastern Lincoln County to attend that meeting, but western Lincoln County was well represented. Marion K. Stewart got up and testified that the people on his side of the county would be justified in wearing six guns if anyone tried to stop the construction of that highway. I responded that I did not in the least begrudge Ely and western Lincoln County the Sunnyside Cutoff as long as eastern Lincoln County received equal treatment from the state and federal government. (The truth is, the state had already been building the cutoff to primary standards for years.)
Art Hartley and Wes Holt and others formed a committee to try and secure this equal treatment for eastern Lincoln County at that time. They hired former governor Grant Sawyer to represent them. But the only thing that came of it may have been Nevada State Route 317 from Caliente to Elgin, and that was certainly not built to primary or even to secondary highway standards. And the road down Kane Springs Wash remained unpaved and woefully neglected.
My first experience on the newly paved 317 nearly cost me my life. As I recall, I ascended a grade and was surprised by a turn just over the top. I barely avoided going off a rather high embankment. I have often wondered since then just how many serious accidents have occurred on that road. One trip was enough to convince me that Nevada State Route 317 had been designed by an amateur and delivered as a "sucker punch" to eastern Lincoln County for daring to challenge the state highway department. The fact that the road has been washed out and closed for several years seems to bear that out.
Before the 317 road (I can't bring myself to call it a highway) was ever built to Elgin, my father and I drove down Rainbow Canyon and the Kane Springs Wash to where it intersects with Highway 93. We wanted to see and judge for ourselves if a primary highway could be feasibly constructed along that route, and we agreed that it could. Ever since that time I have believed that eastern Lincoln County needs and deserves a first class highway along that route. If properly designed, the highway from Las Vegas to Caliente would be about the same distance as the highway from Las Vegas to Hiko. This appears to be a fairly well-kept secret.
Anyone with a little knowledge of Lincoln County history and geography knows that Rainbow Canyon is the flood channel for both the Meadow Valley and the Clover Valley drainage areas. Back when Las Vegas was still a part of Lincoln County, the Union Pacific affiliated construction companies vastly underestimated how well they would have to build their railroad to Los Angeles through that canyon. Heavy December snows were melted by unusually warm January rains in 1909 to precipitate a full-blown catastrophe. The railroad remained closed for several months and had to be re-engineered and rebuilt. Thereafter, the consortium could have chosen to reroute the railroad out of the canyon, but they did not. Yet as the 2005 and other floods have demonstrated, Rainbow Canyon continues to have a mind of her own.
Highway construction allows for much more flexibility than railroad construction. Even so, building a primary highway between Caliente and Elgin is not for the faint of heart. The designers would need to be top notch engineers, great architects, and classical bridge builders in order to do justice to the silk and steel and stone required to subdue the temperament and beauty of that amazing canyon.
Those who attended the recent funeral of 98-year-old Martha Hollinger Bleak in Pioche may have been surprised to learn that one of her dearest pleasures in life was to spend time in Rainbow Canyon. She never tired of contemplating the great panorama she continued to discover there. A carefully constructed highway would serve to share such inspiration with the rest of the world.
So is there any real chance that a primary Rainbow Canyon - Kane Springs Wash highway will ever become a reality? The present construction of the massive Highway 93 bridge across Black Canyon below Hoover Dam was deliberated for years and years. And building Interstate 15 through the Virgin River Narrows in Utah and Arizona required similar courage and foresight. It may not seem that this smaller Lincoln County project should even be mentioned in the same breath as those behemoths. And it may be argued that since SR 318 already serves some of the main north-south issues of Highway 93, this road is superfluous. But serious reflection proves otherwise. Let us consider the cords and sinews of such a possibility.
Eastern Lincoln County has five state parks. Would not bringing them within a beautiful two-hour drive of the largest population center in the state be a laudable goal? And must the populace of eastern Lincoln County continue to be forever penalized an extra 30 miles every time they travel to Las Vegas?
Nevada has only one national park, and that is Great Basin. As its name implies, it rests within the largest area of North America without a drainage system to any ocean. Rising above an arid expanse just south and west of the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake Desert, it astonishes the unsuspecting visitor with its bright and clear, fast-flowing mountain streams. Ice-cold Stella Lake and the ancient bristlecone pines are discovered higher up. Hikers are constantly captivated by the flora and fauna of this mountain paradise in the middle of a desert. And the view of 13,061 foot high Wheeler Peak from Highway 93 to the west is one of the most magnificent in the entire United States. Lehman Caves is an added bonus. It is an unforgettable underground wonderland.
Great Basin National Park becomes almost an hour closer to Las Vegas with the Kane Springs Wash - Rainbow Canyon Highway. That highway would have every right to assume the official Great Basin Highway designation. And for the more adventurous travelers from the south, turning off Highway 93 at Pony Springs and taking the Garrison cutoff through Atlanta (that Rex Bentley promoted as a Lincoln County commissioner) saves several more miles to the Baker entrance of the park. (This unpaved link also represents the shortest distance between eastern Lincoln County and Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front in Utah.)
From the north, Great Basin National Park is accessed on Highway 93 from Wells to Ely and then over 7733 foot Connors Pass and 7136 foot Sacramento Pass to Baker. But in between the two passes, just east of the split between southbound Highway 93 and eastbound Highways 6 and 50, lies the intersection with northbound Nevada State Route 893, which is paved some 51 miles up Big Spring Valley. The graveled road beyond the end of the pavement continues northward to a junction with a road heading northeast over Tippetts Pass to the Utah/Nevada Goshute Indian Reservation and the Ibapah Valley in Utah (where my mother was raised). Deep Creek, which flows through the Ibapah Valley, originates in the Deep Creek Range on the east side of this valley. (Two of the mountains in this secluded range are both taller than Timpanogos Peak along the Wasatch Front.)
But continuing straight north from the end of the SR 893 pavement for another 40 miles brings one to Alternate Highway 93 about five miles northeast of Lages Station. (This unimproved road could easily be engineered to intersect right at Lages.) The separation between Highway 93 and Alternate 93 occurs at Lages. Taking the left fork north leads to Wells and the right fork to West Wendover.
If State Route 893 were paved the extra 40 miles to Lages Station, it would become the shortest route to Great Basin National Park from the north by far. That same road would also mark the shortest route to Pioche from Wells, and without having to cross Connors Pass. By connecting SR 893 from Lages Station to Highway 93 just east of Majors Place and then continuing south to Pioche and Caliente and then down Rainbow Canyon and Kane Springs Wash to intersect with Highway 93 just north of the Glendale junction, one could travel from Wells to Las Vegas without crossing a single mountain pass! This route would also be equal to the distance of the Sunnyside Cutoff highway between Wells and Las Vegas---and without having to cross 7317 foot Murry Summit southwest of Ely. Highway 93 traffic between Canada and Mexico would then be free to choose between these two equidistant highways.
It has astounded me that the construction of this highway has lain dormant for the last forty years. Chet Oxborrow, who was born in Lund, and who contributed perhaps as much as anyone to the realization of the Sunnyside Cutoff, was very much aware of these great eastern White Pine and Lincoln County cutoff possibilities, but he certainly didn't advertise them. Now we need another bulldog like Chet Oxborrow to finally see them built---this true Great Basin Highway between Lages Station and the Glendale junction of Highway 93.
Lincoln County has lived for years without a functional SR 317. Perhaps it should immediately tell the state and federal governments to redirect the money they have set aside for its repair into engineering a first-class, primary highway down Rainbow Canyon and Kane Springs Wash. It is the only fair and sensible thing to do.
|
|
|
|
|
SUBSCRIBE
|
The Lincoln County Record is the area's source for local news, sports, and information.
The Record is a great way to keep in touch with the news and events that affect your community.
Delivered right to your mailbox each week, a subscription to The Record keeps you "in the know!"
|
|
Copyright Notice
|
The content on this site may not be copied in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher.
All Original Content © 2007-10
The Lincoln County Record
All Rights Reserved
Web services provided by
Perfect Vision Web Services
|
|
|
