The Old Plank Road is a plank road in Imperial County, California, that was built in 1915 as an east–west route over the Algodones Dunes. It effectively connected the extreme lower section of Southern California to Arizona and provided the last link in a commercial route between San Diego and Yuma.
Remains of Old Plank Road in 2001
Car driving along the road
Remnants from Old Plank Road displayed at Yuma Quartermaster Depot Historic Park
A plank road is a road composed of wooden planks or puncheon logs, as an efficient technology for traversing soft, marshy, or otherwise difficult ground. Plank roads were commonly found in the Canadian province of Ontario as well as the Northeast and Midwest of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. They were often built by turnpike companies.
Diagram of a plank road
A wood mat road in British Columbia, used for temporary access over soft ground
A plank road on one of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska