Page:Big Oak Flat Road (HAER No. CA-147) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/18

 With the grading and clearing work now complete, the Bureau of Public Roads awarded a contract for the paving of the 10.5-miles of the road (including the spur to the Coulterville Road at Foresta) in July 1938. The contract went to the Union Paving Company of San Francisco. Crushed rock was laid on the road in October, along with a short section of the Tioga Road between Crane Flat and Gin Flat, the junction with the Old Big Oak Flat Road. The final surfacing work was completed on 2 November. Except for the construction of the three bridges, the new Big Oak Flat Road was nearly complete. Landscaping work along the road was done in part by crews from the Civilian Conservation Corps.

While the work was underway, the National Park Service negotiated to acquire additional forest lands beyond the western boundary of the park in an effort to protect significant timber resources, especially the Merced and Tuolumne groves of giant sequoias. In November, survey crews began locating an extension of the Big Oak Flat Road through the new section, which was known as the "Carl Inn" tract. However, construction over this section would not take place until the 1950s.

The new 10.2-mile section of the Big Oak Flat Road opened in May 1940, after $1,342,600 had been spent on construction. The work, particularly the section between the Valley floor and Meyer Pass, was considered the most difficult work yet undertaken in the park. A formal dedication ceremony took place on 23 June at Crane Flat. William E. Colby, president of the Sierra Club, delivered the keynote address. The new road was formally opened in an unusual variant of the traditional ribbon-cutting." Teams of Civilian Conservation Corps workers from the two road construction camps competed in sawing apart a large log that had been placed across the highway. The Crane Flat "home" team beat the challenging team from the Cascades. The five automobile checking stations on the old road were closed. A new checking station was established at Carl Inn about 1941, but was relocated to Crane Flat a few years later.

The old route between Crane Flat and the Valley floor was maintained as a one-way downhill scenic road until a large rockfall in May 1945 took out the "Zigzag." The Park Service secured estimates for the rebuilding of the section, but the work was never done; the road remains abandoned and is now a part of the designated wilderness area. The old roadway is a hiking trail.

While work on the lower section was underway, the National Park Service in 1939 asked the Bureau of Public Roads to begin surveying a new road alignment between Crane Flat and the South Fork of the Tuolumne River. The accompanying study by E. E. Erhart, which was extended west as far as Buck Meadows, favored a route along the South Fork instead of over Pilot Peak, which had been surveyed in 1926 and had initially been the Park Service's choice as well as that of the Tuolumne County interests. A forest screen along this route was purchased for $30,000. However, the U.S. Forest Service [which administered the Stanislaus National Forest, through which the projected route passed] and the Bureau of Public Roads supported the lower, South Fork route, as it would