The Caldor Fire is also responsible for last week’s rockslides.
[Tahoe Daily Tribune] SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Echo Summit has been in the news a lot lately due to a massive rockslide that forced the closure of U.S. Highway 50.
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The highway has a long history of snow and rockslides since the highway was completed in 1939, but its history goes back even further.
“The history of Echo Summit is quite extensive dating back to the Gold Rush and wagon trails,” said Steve Nelson, public information officer for Caltrans District 3.
Families, like the Celio’s, used the route established through Echo Summit for cattle drives. Each summer they brought cattle into the basin from the California valley.
The U.S. Highway System was created in 1926 and construction on an established highway up and over Echo started shortly after.
“Johnson Pass was the original route over Echo Summit, but after the Echo Summit Sidehill Viaduct was completed between 1938 and 1939, Johnson Pass was bypassed and the route realigned into what is still used today,” Nelson said. “Obviously engineering and construction techniques have evolved a great deal since 1939, but for the original bridge to last more than 80 years is quite remarkable.”
The cost of building the bridge in 1939 was $25,000.
In the Caltrans Library, Nelson found this statement describing the viaduct after completion, “The property is an outstanding example of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads’ careful design and engineering in an effort to meld a roadway into the natural beauty of the terrain. The effort resulted in the construction of numerous retaining walls, rock wall parapets, and a viaduct made of local granite, allowing full function of the facility while minimizing construction impacts to a recreational and scenic route. This was a challenging engineering feat with impressive results.”
Construction began in 2019 to replace the aging bridge. The project was completed ahead of schedule in 2020.
U.S. Highway 50 Echo Summit Sidehill Viaduct Replacement Project removed the existing bridge cost $14.1 million, $5.2 million of which came from Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.
The project required two weeks of complete closure of the highway and entailed “hauling and installing seven 96-foot precast girders from Utah to serve as the bridge deck and using ultra high-performance concrete for the first time in a high-elevation area to bind the bridge girders together with a faster curing time than traditional concrete,” the project description stated
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