U.S. Route 90
U. S. Route 90 is an east–west United States highway. Despite the "0" in its route number, US 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route. On August 29, 2005, a number of the highway's bridges in Mississippi and Louisiana were destroyed or damaged due to Hurricane Katrina, including the Bay St. Louis Bridge, the Biloxi Bay Bridge, the Fort Pike Bridge. US 90 has seven exits on I-10 in the State of Florida, it includes part of the DeSoto Trail between Tallahassee and Lake City, Florida. The highway's eastern terminus is in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, at an intersection with Florida State Road A1A three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean, its western terminus is in Texas at an intersection with Bus. I-10, just north of I-10 and just west of State Highway 54; this was its former intersection with US 80, but the western segments of US 80 have been decommissioned in favor of I-10 and I-20. US 90 begins at SH 54 in downtown Van Horn, it heads south-southeast towards Marfa, where the route begins to head east.
The route is two lanes west of Uvalde. At this point, it becomes a four-lane surface road until it reaches western Bexar County where it becomes a freeway, joining I-10 in Downtown San Antonio; this concurrency with I-10 continues intermittently into western Houston, where US 90 follows the Katy Freeway. The section of US 90, multiplexed with I-10 through Houston is the only section of the route, unsigned. In eastern Houston, US 90 splits from I-10 and heads northeast towards Liberty traveling through downtown Beaumont where it rejoins I-10 for the rest of its routing through Texas; the speed limit on US 90 between Van Horn and Del Rio is 75 miles per hour. Beginning at Seguin, US 90 Alternate splits from US 90 and travels parallel to the south, rejoining the main route in northeast Houston. In 1991, the construction on a four- to six-lane freeway northeast of Houston in Harris County was completed along a new routing for US 90; this segment traveled from just inside Beltway 8 to east of the town of Crosby.
Construction began in 2006 to extend the freeway westward to the intersection of I-10 and the I-610. On January 24, 2011, the new extension opened. Due to lack of funds, overpasses were not built over Greens Bayou and over future Purple Sage Road, leaving traffic to exit to the frontage roads before rejoining the freeway. Entering Louisiana from the west, US 90 and I-10 travel side by side through Lake Charles to Lafayette. In Lafayette, US 90 and I-10 part ways: I-10 proceeds east to Baton Rouge, while US 90 takes a southern turn and passes through New Iberia, Morgan City, the Houma – Bayou Cane – Thibodaux metropolitan area before reaching New Orleans; the four-laning of US 90 was pushed in the 1990s by former State Senator Carl W. Bauer through his role as the chairman of the Governor’s Interstate 49 Task Force while a member of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce; the portion of US 90 from Lafayette to New Orleans is designated to become the corridor for I-49. In New Orleans, US 90 again meets up with I-10, the two highways follow a similar path into Mississippi.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi's portion of US 90 was four-laned except for a short segment at the state's west end leading to the old Pearl River Bridge into Louisiana. That segment of old highway is obviated for most purposes by an extension of the four-lane roadway from its split with US 90 to I-10 just east of the much newer Pearl Bridge. Before Hurricane Camille in 1969, the 26-mile stretch of US 90 traveling from the Bay St. Louis Bridge at the west end to the Biloxi Bay Bridge at the east was one of the most scenic roadways in the south, offering beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico on its south side and lovely mansions — some antebellum — on its north; the median featured many a good number of which survived the storm. Many segments and important bridges were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. With the opening of two lanes of the Biloxi Bay Bridge on November 1, 2007, the entire route is now restored. However, reconstruction projects continue on much of the highway and lane closures are not rare.
Substantial completion of all US 90 Katrina-related road work in this state was scheduled to have been completed by now.'US Highway 90 Project History' recounts in some detail this roadway's colorful past in Mississippi, dating back to the early 20th century when it was part of the Old Spanish Trail. The pdf document is available at the'Project Updates' page of the Mississippi Department of Transportation's website. US 90, internally designated by the Alabama Department of Transportation as State Route 16, is a major east–west state highway across the southern part of the U. S. state of Alabama. US 90/SR-16 crosses the extreme southern part of the state, covering 77 miles; the routes pass through the city of its suburbs before entering Baldwin County. With the completion of I-10, US 90/SR-16 serves as a local route connecting the towns along its path; as it enters the Sunshine State, US 90 shifts south towards Pensacola while US 90 Alternate stays to the north of the city. This stretch of highway is known as Nine Mile Road.
After Hurricane Ivan destroyed the I-10 Bridge in Northwest Florida, motoris
Grandfalls, Texas
Grandfalls is a town in Ward County, United States. It was named for its location near the "grand falls" of the Pecos River, located 3 miles to the west. Early settlers were attracted to the Grandfalls area in the late 1880s by the steady supply of water flowing in the Pecos River; the population was 360 at the 2010 census. Grandfalls is located at 31°20′27″N 102°51′17″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.5 square miles, all of it land. As of the census of 2000, 391 people, 146 households, 100 families resided in the town; the population density was 729.1 people per square mile. The 203 housing units averaged 378.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 71.10% White, 0.26% African American, 1.28% Native American, 25.32% from other races, 2.05% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 49.87% of the population. Of the 146 households, 43.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.4% were married couples living together, 13.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 31.5% were not families.
About 29.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.4% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.68 and the average family size was 3.34. In the town, the population was distributed as 33.2% under the age of 18, 7.2% from 18 to 24, 26.6% from 25 to 44, 18.9% from 45 to 64, 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 81.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 69.5 males. The median income for a household in the town was $19,583, for a family was $27,250. Males had a median income of $27,000 versus $12,188 for females; the per capita income for the town was $10,524. About 24.1% of families and 24.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.3% of those under age 18 and 28.1% of those age 65 or over. The Town of Grandfalls is served by the Grandfalls-Royalty Independent School District. In 2013, the Grandfalls-Royalty Cowboys won the U. I. L. Six-Man Division 2A District 6 state championship.
This area has a large amount of sunshine year round due to its stable descending air and high pressure. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Grandfalls has a desert climate, Bwh on climate maps. W. E. "Pete" Snelson, journalist turned businessman and member of both houses of the Texas State Legislature, was born in Grandfalls in 1923. Norman Lawrence Cox was an American football quarterback who played two seasons with the Chicago Rockets of the All-America Football Conference.
Mora County, New Mexico
Mora County is a county in the US state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 4,881, its county seat is the census-designated place Mora. The county has another CDP, Watrous, a village, Wagon Mound, New Mexico, 12 smaller unincorporated settlements. Mora became a formal county in the US, in what was the New Mexico Territory, on February 1, 1860. Ecclesiastically, the county is within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe. County population peaked at about 14,000 around 1920, declining to about 4,000 to 5,000 since the 1970s. Prior to Spanish conquest, the Mora area was Native American country. Although not an area of heavy settlement by stationary tribes such as the Puebloans, the Mora Valley was used by nomadic nations, including the Ute and Apache. Hispano settlers had occupied lands within the Mora Valley without legal title since Governor Juan Bautista de Anza of Nuevo México made peace with the Comanches in the late 18th century, opening up the east side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for settlement.
The Mora Valley became a travel-way for various Spanish explorers and others. It was not permanently inhabited by colonists until the early 19th century; the written history of the settlement of Mora dates to Christian missionary church-building in 1818, three years before Mexican independence from Spain. Mora valley was more formally and broadly settled in 1835; the settlers came from Las Trampas, but from Picuris and Embudo from Santa Cruz de La Cañada and the Ojo Caliente area, still from the southern part of New Mexico, moving on from the San Miguel del Vado Land Grant, coming in via Las Vegas, New Mexico. The families each received a strip of property by a September 28, 1835, land grant of Centralist Republic of Mexico Governor of New Mexico Albino Pérez; the grant gave land title for over 800,000 acres in Mora Valley to various families willing to relocate. When the Republic of Texas seceded from Mexico on March 2, 1836, it claimed but did not control western New Mexico, including what is now Mora County.
The town of Mora was raided unsuccessfully in 1843 by a group of freebooters from the more narrowly defined Republic of Texas, on the pretext of stopping cattle rustling but with a clear intent of horse theft and taking the local women and children as slaves). The annexation of Texas by the United States in February 19, 1846, US General Stephen W. Kearny's taking of Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of that year, made these lands subject to American control under the Kearny Code and the US provisional government of New Mexico, but the area remained in the minds of many long-term residents part of the Republic of Mexico under President Santa Ana. During the Mexican–American War, beginning on April 25, 1846, much of New Mexico including Mora County was subject to the military occupation of United States under martial law. During the Taos Revolt of the war, Mexican-nationalist Hispano and Puebloan militia fought the United States Army, repelling a small force in the First Battle of Mora on January 24, 1847, only to endure the village and surrounding ranches and crops being burned to the ground in the Second Battle of Mora on February 1 ending active rebellion in the area.
The provisional government's first legislature met in December 6, 1847, beginning American civil government in the region. The Mexican–American War ended February 3, 1848, with Mora Valley and rest of the region under formal US control, as the Mexican Cession of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo relinquished all claims by Mexico to lands north of the Rio Grande. Still claimed by state of Texas until the Compromise of 1850, the New Mexico Territory, with smaller boundaries, was formalized on September 9 of that year. A US Army installation, Fort Union, was built in 1851 in Mora Valley, it encroached on 8 square miles of private lands of the Mora Grant for its entire span of operation, without permission of or compensation to the local land owners. This led to a protracted legal controversy, reaching all the way to the General Land Office, the Secretary of War, the US Congress; the US county of Mora was established in the territory on February 1, 1860. A church was built in the Mora Valley village of Chacon in 1864, reflecting additional settlement into the area.
The Mora Grant / Fort Union land dispute was exacerbated in 1868 by an order of President Andrew Johnson that established a government timber reservation that encompassed 53 more square miles the private grant land. After being rebuilt twice, the fort closed in 1891, still without restitution to land-owners, despite the Kearny Code, Hidalgo Treaty, other agreements guaranteeing continuity of Spanish and Mexican land-grant rights. New Mexico became the 47th US state on January 6, 1912, despite concerns in Congress that the population was insufficiently assimilated into American culture after an influx of Mexican refugees from 1910 onward, fleeing the Mexican Revolution; these newcomers settled far south of Mora County, though it remained Spanish-speaking, as it was still populated by the same, now-expanded, families who had settled area three-quarters of a century earlier). On February
Del Rio, Texas
Del Rio is a city in and the county seat of Val Verde County, Texas. It is 152 miles west of San Antonio; as of 2015, the city had a population of 40,549. Del Rio is connected to Ciudad Acuña by the Lake Amistad Dam International Crossing and Del Río – Ciudad Acuña International Bridge, it is home to Laughlin Air Force Base, the busiest United States Air Force pilot-training complex in the world. The Spanish established a small settlement south of the Rio Grande in present-day Mexico, some Spaniards settled on what became the United States side of the Rio Grande as early as the 18th century. Paula Losoya Taylor built the first hacienda in the area in 1862. U. S. development on the north shore of the Rio Grande did not begin until after the American Civil War. The San Felipe Springs, about 8 mi east of the Rio Grande on the U. S. side of the border, produces 90×10^6 US gal of water a day. Developers acquired several thousand acres of land adjacent to the springs, to San Felipe Creek formed by the springs, from the state of Texas in exchange for building a canal system to irrigate the area.
The developers sold tracts of land surrounding the canals to recover their investment and show a profit. The initial investors formed the San Felipe Agricultural and Irrigation Company in 1868; the organization completed construction of a network of irrigation canals in 1871. Residents referred to the developing town as San Felipe Del Rio because local lore said the name came from early Spanish explorers who offered a mass at the site on St. Philip's Day, 1635. In 1883, local residents requested a post office be established; the United States Postal Department shortened "San Felipe del Rio" to "Del Rio" to avoid confusion with San Felipe de Austin. In 1885, Val Verde County was organized and Del Rio became the county seat; the City of Del Rio was incorporated on November 15, 1911. The San Felipe community was started by the Arteaga family. Arteaga Street and Arteaga Park are named after them. Many historical artifacts from Del Rio from the 19th century, are preserved at the Whitehead Memorial Museum downtown.
Del Rio is known as the American address of legendary Mexican radio stations XERA and XERF just over the U. S.-Mexico border in Ciudad Acuña. Legendary deejay Wolfman Jack operated XERF in the 1960s, using a Del Rio address to sell various products advertised on the station. In 1942, the Army Air Corps opened Laughlin Field 9 mi east of Del Rio, as a training base for the Martin B-26, but the base was deactivated in 1945; as the Cold War pressures built, along with new border-control issues, Laughlin Field was rebuilt and renamed Laughlin Air Force Base and was again used as a home for flight training. In the mid-1950s, the Strategic Air Command noted that Laughlin's remoteness allowed for secret operations, opened its strategic reconnaissance program there with the RB-57, a bomber modified for high-altitude reconnaissance. SAC soon transitioned to the high-altitude U-2 Dragonlady and based all of them in Laughlin AFB. In 1962, Laughlin-based U-2s took the first photographs of land-based medium-range ballistic missile sites being constructed in Cuba.
The presence of these missiles precipitated what became known as "the Cuban Missile Crisis". In July 1963, the U-2s were relocated to Davis–Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson and Laughlin's mission transitioned to the Undergraduate Pilot Training mission in the T-37 and T-38 aircraft. Laughlin AFB provides training in the T-1A Jayhawk, the T-6A Texan II, the T-38 aircraft. Laughlin plays a large part in the Del Rio community as the area's largest employer; the United States Border Patrol is the city's second-largest employer. At one time, Del Rio was in the running to become the home of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center for agents of the U. S. Border Patrol and Federal Air Marshal Service, but lost to the current site in New Mexico; the proposed site was located on property belonging to Laughlin AFB. Since the base has unused land, the Air Force is able to lease it to other federal law enforcement agencies for such projects; this benefits the city of Del Rio both financially and economically.
For example, Del Rio was one of five cities in the United States selected for an FBI regional headquarters' office, that building is adjacent to the six-story Roswell Hotel in downtown Del Rio. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 52.3 km2, of which 52.2 km2 are land and 0.1 km2, or 0.24%, is covered by water. Del Rio lies on the northwestern edges of the Tamaulipan mezquital called the South Texas brush country, it is near the southwestern corner of the Edwards Plateau, the western fringe of the famous, oak savanna-covered Texas Hill Country. The creek supplied fresh water for drinking and irrigation to early settlers of Del Rio, the springs are still the town's water supply; the Del Rio region, west to about the Pecos River, has a mix of desert shrub and steppe vegetation, depending on soil type, with the gray-leafed cenizo, several different acacias and grama grasses dominant members of local flora. The terrain is level, but some areas are dissected with substantial canyons and drainages, though none of the upland areas is high or large enough to be considered a mountain
Avalon Dam
Avalon Dam is a small dam on the Pecos River about 5 miles north of Carlsbad, New Mexico, United States. The dam is a storage and regulating reservoir, diverts water into the main canal of the Carlsbad Project, an irrigation scheme; the Pecos River, a major tributary of the Rio Grande, originates in the mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico flows through the flat southeastern New Mexico plains. Temperatures in the summer may be as high as 111 °F. On average there is only 12.5 inches of precipitation annually, but storms may bring torrential rainfall, creating flash floods. In the late 1880s, settlers were looking for new land to farm in the west, but irrigation was essential in the Pecos Valley; the dam was built as an earthfill structure in 1888 by private interests. That dam was washed out in 1893, it was rebuilt, but was washed out again in 1904 by the Pecos River flood of that year. In 1907 the United States Bureau of Reclamation rebuilt the dam; the height of the dam was raised in 1912, again in 1936.
A group of local ranchers that included Charles B. Eddy and Pat Garrett saw a commercial opportunity in irrigating the valley and selling or leasing their land to settlers, they created an irrigation company and obtained funding from outside financiers including James John Hagerman, who had made a fortune from the Mollie Gibson silver mine in Colorado. The new company started to construct the Avalon Dam and major irrigation works. Hagerman and his associates became the dominant owners, reorganized the company, started a railroad and promoted a new town at first called Eddy changed to Carlsbad; the dam was built to the north of the town, completed in 1889. It was one of the first irrigation dams in the United States to be constructed of loose rock with an upstream face of earth, it had an innovative sluice gate. There was a wooden flume so wide that four mule teams could walk across it, side by side. Four years after the dam was completed, in 1893 a flood breached its crest, damaging the new canals and the massive flume.
The company did not waste time, but hired 500 men and 165 horse teams to rebuild the dam with an identical cross-section to the original dam. The flume and canals were repaired in time for the 1894 growing season, although the farmers had difficulty finding crops suited to the soil and climate. In 1902-1903, the Pecos Irrigation Company spent another $50,000 reinforcing the flume with concrete and four pairs of arches. Mark Hufstetler and Lon Johnson write that the massive, yet graceful, flume, "was a source of pride for the company and the Carlsbad community." Measuring 497 feet long by 47 feet high, it was said to be the largest irrigation flume in the United States. Soon after the flume had been completed, in October 1904 there was another flash flood in the Pecos, causing great damage to the dam, the canals, the highway and railroad bridges; the settlers required irrigation water to farm, the Pecos Irrigation Company was bankrupt. They formed the Pecos Water Users Association and began advocating aggressively for the Federal Government’s new Reclamation Service to take over the project.
In December 1904, Reclamation engineers arrived to study the situation. As Reclamation evaluated, the Pecos Water Users Association raised $20,000 and, with design help from Reclamation engineers, performed temporary repairs on Avalon Dam – only to have the dam wash out again when a severe leak led to failure within hours of filling the reservoir. In November 1905, the Pecos Irrigation Company agreed to sell the remains of its systems to the Secretary of the Interior for $150,000. Taking over the project, Reclamation set April 12, 1906, as the day it would open bids for rehabilitating what it called the Carlsbad Project, which included not only Avalon Dam but McMillan Dam and Reservoir built by private interests. McMillan was a storage dam, while Avalon served both to store water and divert it into the project’s Main Canal; the day came to open bids but, when no offers were placed on the table, Reclamation took over the project by force account, meaning Reclamation would do the work itself, from design to the hiring of subcontractors and laborers.
By June 1, 1906, construction was under way. Once again, Avalon Dam rose on the Pecos, its latest design reflecting many of the advances made in dam engineering since the original Avalon Dam was constructed in 1889. Avalon remained an earthen dam erected atop a rock-filled foundation, but this time Federal engineers added a thin and steel corewall and enlarged the spillways to withstand future flooding; the new Avalon Dam, completed in 1907, was 1,025 feet long and up to 50 feet high. It still stands across the Pecos River, its height increased in 1912 and again in 1936. Work done in the 1930s was performed by young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal work relief program. During the winter of 1911-12, Reclamation incorporated two innovative cylinder spillway gates at Avalon, a design incorporated into the intake towers at Hoover Dam. If a flood was anticipated, the gates could be raised. By 1912, the Carlsbad Project had attained a semblance of stability. In the early years of the 20th century and alfalfa were leading crops.
Today, the project irrigates 25,000 acres along a 20-mile stretch of the Pecos River. Cotton and alfalfa remain the principal crops, although wheat, barley and vegetables are produced in abundance. Although title to the Carlsbad Project remains in the hands of the Federal Government, today the Carlsbad Irrigation District, created in 1932 by water use
Carlsbad, New Mexico
Carlsbad is a city in and the county seat of Eddy County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 26,138. Carlsbad is centered at the intersection of U. S. Routes 62/180 and 285, is the principal city of the Carlsbad-Artesia Micropolitan Statistical Area, which has a total population of 55,435. Located in the southeastern part of New Mexico, Carlsbad straddles the Pecos River and sits at the eastern edge of the Guadalupe Mountains. Carlsbad is a hub for potash mining, petroleum production, tourism. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located 20 miles southwest of the city, Guadalupe Mountains National Park lies 54 miles southwest across the Texas border; the Lincoln National Forest is to the northwest of town. Development of southeastern New Mexico in the late 19th century was fueled by the arrival of colonies of immigrants from England, Switzerland and Italy. Located along the banks of the Pecos River, Carlsbad was christened the town of Eddy on September 15, 1888, organized as a municipal corporation in 1893.
Eddy, co-owner of the Eddy-Bissell Livestock Company. With the commercial development of local mineral springs near the flume for medicinal qualities, the town voted to change its name to Carlsbad after the famous European spa Carlsbad, Bohemia. On March 25, 1918, the growing town surpassed a population of 2,000, allowing then-governor of New Mexico Washington Ellsworth Lindsey to proclaim Carlsbad a city. Most of Carlsbad's development was due to irrigation water. Local cattleman recognized the value of diverting water from the Pecos River to the grazing lands on Eddy's Halagueno Ranch. Many construction projects were undertaken to establish an irrigation system within the town; the Avalon Dam was constructed upstream of town, canals diverted the water into town. Conflict arose. Key to the growth of the area were special excursion trains that brought visitors from the East at reduced fares. Before the railroad was completed from Pecos in 1891, travel parties met at the railroad station in Toyah and were driven by buggy 90 miles over a rough, dusty road to this small but growing settlement on the banks of the Pecos River.
Most of the early construction in Carlsbad was completed with locally manufactured bricks. The bricks were quite soft and of poor quality; the former First National Bank building at the corner of Canal and Fox streets is one of the few remaining buildings constructed with the local brick. The re-discovery of Carlsbad Caverns by local cowboys in 1901 and the subsequent establishment of Carlsbad Caverns National Park on May 14, 1930, gained the town of Carlsbad substantial recognition. In 1925, potash was discovered near Carlsbad, for many years Carlsbad dominated the American potash market. Following the decline of the potash market in the 1960s, the residents and leaders of Carlsbad lobbied for the establishment of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a site where low-level nuclear waste would be stored thousands of feet underground in salt beds. Congress authorized the WIPP project in 1979, construction began in 1980; the DOE Carlsbad Area Office opened in 1993, the first waste shipment arrived in 1999.
Carlsbad has experienced a "boom". The city is leading in the production of oil and natural gases across the entire area, causing an increase in the employment rate. Due to this increase families and individuals have begun to migrate to Carlsbad. Carlsbad is located near the center of Eddy County at 34°24′43″N 104°14′11″W at an elevation of 3,295 feet. Carlsbad is situated in the northern reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion, in the lower Pecos River Valley. Via US 285 it is 86 miles south to Pecos, Texas. US Routes 62 and 180 lead northeast 69 miles to Hobbs and southwest 169 miles to El Paso. According to the United States Census Bureau, Carlsbad has a total area of 29.2 square miles. Most of the water within city limits consists of the Pecos Lake Carlsbad recreation area; the river flows into the northern part of Carlsbad, downstream from Lake Avalon and Brantley Lake, passes east of downtown, exits in the southeast. Dark Canyon Draw runs through the southern part of town, but only drains during heavy rainfall.
Carlsbad is part of the Interior West climate zone. It is classified as semi-arid, meaning average annual precipitation is less than potential evapotranspiration, but more than half. A moderate amount of rain falls each year, with the maximum occurring during September. 53 tornadoes have been reported in Eddy County since 1950. As of the census of 2010, there are 26,138 people, 10,257 households, 6,898 families residing in the city; the population density is 920.4/mi². There are 11,421 housing units at an average density of 402.6 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was: 77.4% White 1.9% Black or African American 1.3% Native American 1.0% Asian <0.1% Pacific Islander 15.28% from other races 3.1% Multiracial 42.5% of the population were Hispanics or Latinos There are 10,257 households out of which 29.2% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.0% are married couples living together, 14.0% have a female householder with no husband present, 32.7% are non-fami
