Oregon Route 58

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Oregon Route 58
Length:	86.75 mi[1] (139.61 km)
Formed:	1932
West end:	I-5 / OR 99 at Goshen
East end:	US 97 near Chemult
Oregon highways (lists: Routes - Highways) < OR 53 OR 62 >
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Oregon Route 58 (OR 58), also known as the Willamette Highway No. 18 (see Oregon highways and routes), is a state highway in the U.S. state of Oregon. The route, signed east-west, runs in a southeast-northwest direction, connecting U.S. Route 97 north of Chemult with Interstate 5 south of Eugene. It links the Willamette Valley and Central Oregon, crossing the Cascade Range at Willamette Pass. OR 58 is generally a modern two-lane highway with a speed limit of 55 mph (88 km/h),^[2] built through the Willamette National Forest in the 1930s.

OR 58 is a designated freight route,^[3] forming one of several connections between I-5 and US 97, which leads back to I-5 at Weed, California. This is a popular alternate route for trucks on the I-5 corridor, avoiding the steep grades and winter closures of I-5 over Siskiyou Summit.^[4] The highway is also on the National Highway System, and is classified as an expressway southeast of Odell Lake. (US 97 is also classified as such south to the state line, and in California it is part of the Freeway and Expressway System.)^[5] This matches the general routes of the 1887 Oregon and California Railroad over Siskiyou Summit and the 1926 Natron Cutoff along OR 58 and US 97; the latter is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad's I-5 Corridor rail line, while the former is the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad shortline.

Contents 1 Route description 2 History 3 Major intersections 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Route description

Oregon Route 58 begins (at its western terminus) at an interchange with Interstate 5 and Oregon Route 99 near Goshen, located between the cities of Eugene and Creswell. It heads due southeast from there, following the course of the Willamette River into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The highway passes several lakes, including Dexter Lake and Lookout Point Lake, and provides access to the town of Lowell. Further into the mountains, it passes through the cities of Oakridge and Westfir. It continues into the mountains, to the summit of Willamette Pass, after which it descends into central Oregon. Oregon Route 58 terminates at an interchange with U.S. Route 97.

Two scenic byways--the West Cascades Scenic Byway and the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway--intersect with OR 58.

[edit] History

By the 1850s, Emigrant Pass, slightly south of OR 58's crossing at Willamette Pass, was being used by emigrants to the Oregon Territory as a way over the Cascades. In October 1853, a party of 1500 was almost stranded at the pass, but was saved from a Donner Party-style tragedy by nearby settlers who had begun to improve the route up the Middle Fork Willamette River earlier that year as a shortcut between the Oregon Trail near Boise, Idaho and the Willamette Valley.^[6] To aid in the construction of this route from Eugene to the Idaho border as a military wagon road, Congress granted certain alternate sections of the then-public land on each side of the line to the state of Oregon in July 1864. In October, the state transferred the grant to the newly-formed Oregon Central Military Road Company, which would build the 420-mile (675 km) road and acquire the land, about 806,400 acres (3260 km²).^[7] Governor George L. Woods certified the road's completion to the Secretary of the Interior on January 12, 1870.^[8]

However, it was subsequently found that the road had not been built or maintained to adequate standards. The company had conveyed all of its land to the California and Oregon Land Company,^[7] and it eventually passed into the hands of the Oregon Valley Land Company, which subdivided it into lots for sale. A large amount of this land was sold in late 1909, often sold unseen and agriculturally worthless; a separate lot in the town of Lakeview was included with each purchase.^[9] The title to much of the land later reverted to the counties.^[10] The road was also known as Drew's Road,^[11] after Major C.S. Drew, who had surveyed the route east of Fort Klamath in 1864; the name remains in several nearby features including Drews Reservoir and Drews Gap. In 1868 a new wagon road was completed between Ashland and Klamath Falls, following the present Oregon Route 66, and diverted most of the travel from the Cascade crossing, the most expensive portion of the Oregon Central Military Road.^[12] The military road became a county road in accordance with a state law passed in 1892.^[13]

The Oregon Central Military Road began at the state line east of Jordan Valley; a branch off the Oregon Trail at Boise, Idaho crossed the Snake River at Walters Ferry to reach its beginning.^[14] In Oregon, the road headed west along the north side of Jordan Creek and southwest along the south side of Crooked Creek to near its head, serving the same general route as U.S. Route 95. It continued southwest to near Whitehorse Ranch, and then northwest and west, south of the Alvord Desert and north of Alvord Lake, to Andrews. The road crossed Steens Mountain and continued west across the Catlow Valley and Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge to the east shore of Crump Lake. After crossing the lake, the road headed northwest to Plush and then southwest along Plush Cutoff Road, turning west along the general Oregon Route 140 corridor past Lakeview, through Drews Gap, and along the north side of the South Fork Sprague River and Sprague River to near Beatty. At Beatty, where OR 140 turns southwest, the military road continued west and northwest alongside the river, turning north to cross the Klamath Marsh and then north-northwest past Chemult to the OR 58 corridor. The rest of the route followed the same general corridor as OR 58, crossing the Cascades at Emigrant Pass and then following the Middle Fork Willamette River to Eugene.^[15]

The Oregon State Highway Commission added the Willamette Highway No. 18, from Goshen via Oakridge to Crescent, to the state highway system on November 24, 1922. The road was entirely unimproved when it was taken over, and improvement progressed slowly from the Goshen end.^[16][17] The roadway received the signed Oregon Route 58 designation in 1932, when the Oregon Route system was first laid out.^[18][19] A major realignment, crossing the Cascades at Willamette Pass rather than Emigrant Pass, was designed in 1933, and incorporated a number of "half viaducts" built into the hillside and one tunnel (the Salt Creek Tunnel) to "not to scar the hillsides more than is absolutely necessary" through the Willamette National Forest. An opening ceremony for the highway, thought at the time to be the last major highway that the state would build, was held on July 30, 1940.^[20] The road remained partially oiled gravel until the mid-1960s.^[21]

[edit] Major intersections

County	Location	Mile[1]	Road(s)	Notes
Lane	Goshen	-0.30-0.20	I-5 / OR 99 – Eugene, Roseburg
		2.42-2.50	Truss bridge over the Coast Fork Willamette River
		2.64	To OR 222 south (Cloverdale Road) – Creswell
		5.73	OR 222 north (Parkway Road) – Jasper, Jasper Park, Springfield
		13.19	Jasper-Lowell Road (Lowell Bridge) – Lowell, Fall Creek Dam
		31.39	Westfir Road - Westfir	Leads to the West Cascades Scenic Byway
	Oakridge	35.48	Crestview Street
		56.01-56.18	Salt Creek Tunnel
		62.16	Willamette Pass: 5128 ft (1563 m) elevation	County line at mile 62.07
Klamath
	Crescent Lake Junction	69.41	OR 429 (Crescent Lake Highway) – Crescent Lake
		72.90	Crescent Cutoff Road – Davis Lake, US 97	Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway
		86.45	US 97 – Chemult, Klamath Falls, Crescent, Bend

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Oregon Department of Transportation, 2005 Oregon Highway 58 Conditions Report
• Oregon Department of Transportation, Salt Creek Half Viaducts
• Oregon @ WestCoastRoads.com - Oregon 58