Peromyscus: History of Galivan, Orange County CA (Part 1)

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

History of Galivan, Orange County CA (Part 1)

I've often wondered about a rumored local place, Galivan. It appears on the GPS maps as you drive past it, but just floats there – the marker isn't over a building or a town. It's such an odd thing that it even has its own Wikipedia entry. (I wrote a short story about the map marker, here.)

The pushpin is marking a spot that may (or may not) have once been a village, whose only hold on history is a railroad bridge that was built there in 1928.

The bridge, called the Galivan Overhead, was built by M E Whitney who designed the Del Mar crossing in San Diego the year before. Galivan was apparently similar to the earlier bridge. I can't find a good pictures of either of them but here's a couple of extant photos.

The picture above is the Galivan Overhead, from a website article by Carl Nelson, P.E.

It may be similar to the Del Mar crossing but I can’t find a normal picture of that either. An unusual picture of the Del Mar crossing appears below:

Below, from a US Highways page, a picture of the approach to the Galivan overhead. The older approach is just to the right of the bridge and a more modernized one swings to the right of the photograph. Sadly, it's an undated photo. Was it changed at the same time Santa Fe paid to realign the railroad in 1941 or was it done at a different time? The new approach looks a lot safer.

Below is what the Galivan Overhead looked like from, er, overhead, just before and just after it was removed. The huge road being constructed to the right of it is the I-5 in Southern Orange County, CA.

The website US 101 Photo Gallery South Orange County says of the picture, "Construction of the San Diego Fwy over Oso Creek near the Galivan Separation. The old alignment at left was three lanes wide and crossed a bridge built in 1928. The freeway is now part of the 10-lane wide I-5 while the separation and much of old 101 has been buried under new development."

Above is the same road, just after the bridge removal in 1960. The cut-off section, top-middle-left, is now under Cabot Road.

There is a webpage about the US 101, the AA Roads web page. It says that just south of here, the 101 "turned inland via present Camino Capistrano through eastern Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano, intersecting SLR-64/present California 74 at Ortega Highway in downtown SJC. Continued north on Camino Capistrano, which runs between present Interstate 5 to the east and the Metrolink (former Santa Fe) rail line to the west. Original concrete-railed bridges dating from the mid-1930's can be found on Camino Capistrano between Crown Valley and Oso Parkways immediately west of the Interstate 5 alignment. Immediately north of Oso Parkway the route crossed over the Santa Fe tracks, subsequently following Cabot Road north to La Paz Road. At that point the alignment veered to the northwest away from the rail line; this section was completely subsumed by the present Interstate 5, which continued to overlay the original 1924 alignment, called Trabuco Road north of La Paz Road, to the location of the present Interstate 5/CA-133 interchange."

At least one concrete bridge remains along Camino Capistrano at this end. The one next to the Mugs Away Saloon has the date 1938 stamped in the concrete.

The US 101 just north of San Juan Capistrano was moved in 1941 for a railroad realignment. The "new" concrete of 1941 is several feet above and to the East of the old road.

Above: US 101 shortly after the realignment in 1941. The old 101 is down at the bottom, by the creek and the railroad. Some of this area, closest to town, was very recently (last two years) built over. New railroad line has taken care of most of the rest.

This is a similar view on October 29, 2021. The above-grade road on the right is the 73 just peeling off the I-5 (not seen). The concrete barrier between the 5 and 73 and the 101 (here called Camino Capistrano) is to stabilize the slope.