The history of a place that today only exists on maps and GPS route finders. The subject of my Halloween story this year, here.
The US 101, now known as Camino Capistrano, continues next to the 1960-built I-5, which means the 74 on the right crosses over it on giant pillars to head towards the coast. An In'n'Out Burger is just past this enormous structure. The remainder of the road continues to where the Galivan Overhead used to be. Then it simply stops. Dead ends in a sewage plant. The Galivan Overhead was removed in 1960. Why was this useful bridge removed? The web says that there was a certain amount of slope instability in the area, repairs weren't working, so off it went.
The next part of the 101 ended up under Cabot Road and the
AA pages will tell you the rest of its course.
Camino Capistrano (101). Cabot Road to the upper left. Oso Pkwy freeway crossing ahead.
Galivan, after which the bridge was named, is still on the
map. The pushpin on the map does not point to the place where the bridge was,
but a little further south. There is nothing there but a few bushes and
sycamores in the creek.
In my Halloween story I situated the ranch house on the
other side of the tracks, north of the Galivan Overhead. There's no sign of
where the "village" or whatever used to be. The fictional house could have been
there and called the whole Galivan area its orchard.
Above, two views of “Galivan”, the spot indicated by Google, October 2021.
Galivan was marked on old maps as just north of a windmill. There's a windmill in the same place today.
Here’s a portion of a 1949 Map from
via oldmapsonline.org
It looks something like this today. The windmill is to the right of the white tent.
Above, the windmill, October 2021
Above: looking from the Galivan GPS marker across Camino Capistrano (101) and across the train tracks, towards Cabot Road.
AA Roads website user DTComposer says, "US-101 did run
along Cabot, then transitioned to Camino Capistrano via a crossing over the
railroad that is no longer there. It was just south of current Los Oso Parkway;
Historical
Aerials can show you this."
Since it took me half an hour to get Historical Aerials to show me that, below is a small screen capture of the 1946 view. It has the advantage of an overlay showing the modern road names.
As for the steam train whistle stop in my Halloween story, it was mentioned in the Mission Viejo Reporter, October 2019.
(That doesn't look like the bridge near the Mugs Away Saloon to me.)
And finally, modern Galivan pushpin on an ordinary computer
GPS directions map, below. (Retrieved 10/24/21)
8 comments:
Terrific research. Any idea of the purpose of the white tent near the windmill (or did I miss that detail when reading?)?
Lovely photo of the sycamore, too.
Thanks!
Not sure about the "tent". It's semi-permanent, surrounded by a stout fence lined with rose bushes and near a pile of compost, so I'm guessing it's a plant nursery of some sort.
Roses and compost, what a combo. A nursery definitely makes sense, then.
Though I’m not certain, the bridge that was removed in 1960 might be the bridge that needed temporary reinforcing in 1947 when the 200 inch diameter glass disk for the Palomar Observatory Hale telescope was transported over it.
That's very interesting, anon! I didn't know the 200 inch mirror was that heavy, but I suppose it must be. I'm going to look up how they got it up the mountain. Thanks!
Roughly, it was transported in November, 1947 from the Caltech optics shop in Pasadena to Palomar Mountain via a series of roads that included highway 101. The crated glass disk was over 40 tons and spent the night in Escondido under guard. The next day it was transported by its special tractor- trailer rig through Valley Center and up the south grade road to the the observatory dome at the top of the mountain. Additional dollies with 16 wheels each were attached to the trailer in order to spread the load before crossing Galivan Bridge. I can’t recall what (if any) reinforcing was done to the bridge but sensors were attached to it to measure the calculated sag of the structure. All of this is well chronicled in Ronald Florence’s outstanding book “The Perfect Machine”, which tells the truly epic story of the building of the observatory. Well worth a read. During the glass disk transport, Galivan Bridge was seen as one of the riskiest parts of the journey to the mountain.
I just checked “The Perfect Machine” and read that five bridges were of concern on the specially mapped route. These were reinforced except for Galivan Bridge, which was too high to easily add extra structure to, hence the 16 wheel dollies were added to the trailer to spread the load.
Thanks again. I'll get a copy of the book!
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