The valley has its fair share of roads with unusual names. But what about Kern County’s 7th Standard Road? Yes, part of it has been renamed to honor Merle Haggard, but its original name is actually tied to a hidden history that goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson. That story, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Shortly after the Revolutionary War, Congress had a problem – surveying land in the west. Instead of dividing land by natural features like rivers and streams, Jefferson proposed what he considered a rational system – dividing land into a grid of squares, one mile by one mile.
It’s a great idea but there’s a problem – the earth is a sphere. And every 24 miles, there has to be something called a “grid correction” where the property lines are offset by a few hundred feet. From Kansas to California you can still see these spots where the lines don’t meet up on maps and satellite photos.
In this part of California, Mount Diablo serves as the measuring point for land surveys. Every 24 miles south of Mount Diablo, there’s a standard parallel line, which marks this grid correction. In many cases, prominent roads follow these lines. 7th Standard Road happens to be on the 7th Standard Parallel. County Line Road in Delano is the 6th Standard Parallel. Elkhorn Avenue is on the 4th Standard Parallel, and 24 miles north, Herndon Avenue in north Fresno is the 3rd Standard Parallel. And that grid correction is why most of the streets that cross Herndon have a curve immediately north or south of that major thoroughfare.
