Metcalf Gap

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Metcalf Gap
Metcalf Gap (Texas)

Metcalf Gap is a pass through the Palo Pinto Mountains located in the Western Cross Timbers region of northern Texas. Located roughly midway between the towns of Breckenridge and Mineral Wells, the pass lies at an elevation of about 1,200 feet (370 m) and forms a distinct gap in the escarpment formed by the Palo Pinto Mountains, a fifteen-mile long range of cuesta-type hills that runs southwest to northeast across southern Palo Pinto, County. The pass, as well as a small, similarly named community at the eastern end of the pass, were named in honor of local rancher and surveyor J.J. Metcalf, who surveyed, among other things, the townsite of county seat Palo Pinto, then known as Golconda. [1]

Contents

Transcontinental Route

In 1917, the newly created Texas Highway Department approved a plan for the construction and designation of State Highway 1, the Texarkana-to-El Paso road. While most of the proposed course mirrored the route of the Texas & Pacific Railroad across the state, two short alternative routes were approved by highway planners. One of these, later known as SH 1 A, would see the main route split near Weatherford, travel west through Mineral Wells, traverse the Metcalf Gap, then continue west through Breckenridge and Albany before turning southwest to Abilene, at which point it would rejoin the main route. [2] When the highway was chosen to be part of the new U.S. Highway system in 1926, the alternative route through Metcalf Gap was included in the re-designation, becoming U.S. Route 80 (Alternative), also known as U.S. Route 80 A. [3]

The designation of the Metcalf Gap route as part of the newly designated U.S. Route 80, a 2,671-mile transcontinental highway from Savannah, Georgia to San Diego, California, and the inclusion of the alternative route in the public notices and private advertisements that touted the new “all-weather, coast-to-coast” highway to travelers nationwide, quickly turned a small detour through the Western Cross Timbers region of northern Texas into part of a growing national network of large, improved transcontinental and interstate routes. [4] This sudden increase in visibility would only last until 1943, when, increasingly bypassed in favor of the main route through Strawn and Cisco, the alternative route through Metcalf Gap would canceled, and that section of the road between Weatherford and Albany re-designated as part of U.S. Route 180, a new highway that would continue west from Albany to the Texas-New Mexico state line near Seminole before continuing west to El Paso in concurrence with U.S. Route 62. [5]

Access

Located 9.5 miles west of the small community of Palo Pinto, Metcalf Gap can be accessed from the east and west via the section of U.S. Route 180 between Mineral Wells and Breckenridge. From the north and south the pass can be accessed via Texas State Highway 16, an intrastate highway that runs concurrently through the pass with U.S. 180 before turning south towards Strawn.

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Palo Pinto County, Texas U.S. county in Texas

Palo Pinto County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 28,111. The county seat is Palo Pinto. The county was created in 1856 and organized the following year.

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U.S. Route 180 Numbered Highway in the United States

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Texas State Highway 54 State highway in Texas

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Texas State Highway 337 highway in Texas

State Highway 337 is a 21.1-mile (33.957 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Texas. The highway begins at a junction with US 180 in Mineral Wells, then heads northwest, ending at a junction with SH 16 near Possum Kingdom Lake.

Texas State Highway 254 highway in Texas

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Texas State Highway 193 highway in Texas

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Palo Pinto Mountains mountain in United States of America

The term Palo Pinto Mountains properly refers to a specific cuesta-like range of hills in western Palo Pinto County, Texas. The name Palo Pinto roughly translates to "painted stick" in reference to the juniper trees of the area. Isolated, rugged, and scenic, the ridge extends some 15 miles, from near the intersection of Texas State Highway 16 and Farm to Market Road 207 in the southwest, to Crawford Mountain just south of the Fortune Bend on the Brazos River in the northeast.

Interstate business routes are roads connecting a central or commercial district of a city or town with an Interstate bypass. These roads typically follow along local streets often along a former U.S. route or state highway that had been replaced by an Interstate. Interstate business route reassurance markers are signed as either loops or spurs using a green shield shaped and numbered like the shield of the parent Interstate highway.

A total of nine special routes of U.S. Route 80 exist or did exist in the past.

References

  1. Texas State Historical Association. “Handbook of Texas Online - Metcalf Gap” Retrieved 03-04-2019.
  2. Texas Historical Commission. "The Development of Highways in Texas:A Historic Context of the Bankhead Highway and Other Historic Named Highways" Retrieved 03-04-2019.
  3. Transportation Planning and Programming Division. "Highway Designation File – Business U.S. Highway No. 80 (Breckenridge)". Texas Department of Transportation. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  4. Federal Highway Administration. "U.S. Route 80 From Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego, California" Retrieved 03-05-2019.
  5. Transportation Planning and Programming Division. "Highway Designation File – U.S. Highway No. 180". Texas Department of Transportation. Retrieved March 4, 2019.

Coordinates: 32°43′00″N98°27′00″W / 32.71667°N 98.45000°W / 32.71667; -98.45000