Sports
Tribune
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SECTION B MEDFORD. OREGON. SUNDAY, JULY 28. 1963 PAGES 1 to 8
Tunnel Dedicated
To Randolph Collier
8
Features
Medford
ills
1
By PEG HUTCHINSON
Mail Tribuna Staff Writ.r
Lake county, Oregon, has its "Chief Winnemucca."
Del Norte and Siskiyou county, California, have their
. "Father of the California Freeways."
Two bronze plaques 311 miles apart and in two
states have been erected to these men. The one on
Doherty Slide 60 miles east of Lakeview at 6,200 feet
elevation, was dedicated Sept. 22, 1962, to former Lake
County Judge C. H. Langslet.
Saturday, July 20, a plaque on the south portal of
a tunnel through Oregon mountain in northwest Cali
fornia at 2,082 feet elevation, was dedicated to California
State Sen. Randolph Collier, for whom the tunnel is
named.
The two plaques are on the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea
highway which stretches from Winnemucca, Nev.,
through Oregon and into California to the "sea" at Cres
cent City, about 490 miles away.
Battles Are Different
Judge Langslet's "fight" for the highway through
Lake county east to Harney county and Nevada was
entirely different from Senator Collier's "battle" for the
tunnel through 2,515-foot high Oregon mountain, about
3 miles south of the Oregon stateline.
There was no road across Oregon's sage brush coun
try and the "road to nowhere" had elevations of 6,121
and 6,200 to cross.
Highway construction is generally based on travel
statistics. Without a highway there were no figures to
use in the request for construction funds.
Senator Collier had the statistics he needed and the
"dreams" of men for more than 35 years when he started
the fight for the tunnel through Oregon mountain.
Curves Are Eliminated
With the opening of the $7 million tunnel July 20,
motorists do not have to drive over Hazelview summit
with its 148 curves including numerous switchbacks.
Eliminated are 124 curves, five hairpin switchbacks and
a steep grade that climbs 950 feet in slightly more than
four miles. It cuts the distance between Crescent City
and Grants Pass by 2.8 miles.
The Winnemucca-to-the Sea name is only a slogan
and the "highway" is a collection of existing numbered
state and federal roads. Due to this there is no common
number along its entire length.
The three state project has been financed with every
conceivable class of road funds legally available, 10
in all. Six counties, three states, and the federal govern
ment have contributed money and effort.
Police Judge Elected
In 1939 only a few years after the Redwood high
way (Highway 199) was completed in. its present loca
tion, residents of Del Norte and Siskiyou counties elected
The southern portal of the Randolph Collier tunnel on Highway 199 under Oregon Mountain is shown in this
picture. The tunnel goes under .Hazelview summit rid ge, and was dedicated in ceremonies last week.
Traffic often was in this condition on the highway over Hazelview summit until the tunnel project was com
pleted and opened recently. The combined highway and tunnel project cost more than $7 'it million.
the Yreka police judge to represent them In the Cali
fornia Senate.
With a two-county district larger than many states,
the new Senator spent many hours traveling to see his
constituents. From his home in Yreka to Crescent City
was a day-long journey, first north from Yreka into
Oregon, then southwest toward the coast and over Hazel
view. Streets and highways became Collier's major interest
as a legislator. Since that time he has authored numer
ous highway acts which have established California's
highway and freeway systems.
An official study of the proposed tunnel was order
ed in 1955 by the director of the California public works
department, but it was not until July 8, 1960, that Collier
turned the first shoveful of earth at groundbreaking cere
monies at the tunnel site.
Ask Name of Tunnel
Meanwhile the Illinois Valley, Ore., News, in an
editorial, asked that the tunnel be named in honor of
Collier and in 1959 the California Senate and Assembly
by concurrent resolution voted to name it the Randolph
Collier tunnel.
The average motorist today will not slop to recall
that it was only 135 years ago that Jedediah Smith led
the first white men over the rocky precipices into Del
Norte county in search of beaver pelts.
Gold seekers followed Smith by a quarter of a cen
tury and established the first white man's settlements in
the county. By 1854 the first efforts for a road began
when the Crescent City and Yreka Plank and Turnpike
Road company was formed with 850 shares of stock at
$100 per share. The mountains were too great for the '
men, however, and the company failed.
The following year Ben Kelsey, backed by subscrip
tions and labor from Crescent City, hacked a trail from
the coast toward Yreka along the banks of the Klamath
and Scott rivers. Portions of the trail, which never did
reach its inland destination, can still be found in the
coastal mountains.
Other Efforts Followed
Other efforts followed, and in 1886, Horace Gasquet,
a French rancher from Smith River, hired Chinese con
tract laborers and punched a 23-mile toll road through to
inland Oregon along the high ridges of the mountains,
where heavy winter snows forced travelers to resort to
skis to get through.
As the mining industry subsided, logging and an oc
casional trailblazing tourist, increased the demand for
highways into the area. More than 35 years ago a road
was finally blasted through the rocky Smith river canyon
and replaced the high-level Gasquet road with a new
. low-level route.
While a tremendous Improvement, the Hazelview
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General view of the area of the new tunnel under Oregon Mountain is shown here, looking south on Hazelview summit ridge. The north portal
of the new Randolph Collier tunnel is shown near the center of the picture. The southern approach roadway to the tunnel is shown at the top
center. The old winding highway appears at the left of the north portal, and at right on the southern side of the rijjge.
summit where a mountain ridge crossed the route
forced road builders to resort to a series of severe switch
backs up one side and down the other. Each winter,
men who regularly battled the drifting snow, slippery
curves, and steep grade, talked of a tunnel through the
ridge.
With the opening of the tunnel, under construction
for three years, the 7.1 miles of Highway 199 were re
placed by the new 4.3 mile route including a realigned
highway and the 1,835 foot tunnel, 340 feet below the
present highway.
Unlika Old Highway
Unlike the old, narrow highway section, on which
the slo-v speed imposed by sharp curves and steep grades
were further reduced by a high percentage of trucks,
the two-lane realigned highway has an additional lane
for slow vehicles on upgrades.. The maximum grade Is
6 per cent. Rights of way have been acquired for an
ultimate four-lane highway and an additional tunnel
when traffic volumes warrant.
Several contracts were included in the overall project.
Grafe-Callahan company, Los Angeles, constructed the
tunnel; Gibbons and Reed, Salt Lake City, the grading
of the northern approach, and Morrison-Knudsen, Se
attle, grading of the southern approach and paving
throughout the project. Myers Industrial Electric com
pany, Oroville, Calif., installed the lighting and ventil
ation. Since the tunnel has a 3 per cent northerly down
grade, boring under the summit was begun from the
northern side to take advantage of gravity' In water
seepage. Crows boring into the mountain from the
south "joining hands" with those coming from the north
in the spring of 1962. The slight, downgrade also will
ease drainage problems.
The rock formations of Oregon mountain presented
many challenges to engineers. The mountain consists of
highly folded and partly metamorphosed rock. The bore
had to cut through thinly bedded shale, siltstone and
interbedded fine sandstone that generally was crushed
and shattered.
Two 13-Foot Lanes
The tunnel provides two 13-foot wide traffic lanes
with 2-foot 4-inch sidewalks on each side. The vertical
clearance is 15 feet, the concrete liner is 32 feet high.
The interior is coated with a white gloss paint.
The ventilation building, located at the northern
portal, will operate the automatic system. Fresh air will
be admitted through the portals and the air to be ex
hausted will be drawn through ceiling ports into a
longitudinal duct above the roadway. The exhaust fans
are capable of expelling 180,000 cubic feet of air per
minute.
The story of Judge Langslet's determination to build
a road is history now-Scnator Collier's project has been
added to it.
On the plaque at the Collier tunnel it refers to the
Senator's "untiring Interests and devotion to the develop
ment of transportation." In southeast Oregon the high
way is dedicated to Langslet "whose singleness of pur
pose and determination forced It Into being."
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A coat of white epoxy paint Is applied to the walls and ceilings of the new Randolph Collier tunnel on Highway 199
near the Oregon stBte line. The flossy surface reflects light Bnd nids in washing.
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The ventilation building over the north portal of the new Oregon Mountain tunnel
is shown here. The tunnel was dedicated last Snturdiiy.
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