Seldom Seen Rock-cut On Former Highway 41 Within Bon Echo

Cloyne & District Historical Society
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Seldom Seen Rock-cut On Former Highway 41 Within Bon Echo
Seldom Seen Rock-cut On Former Highway 41 Within Bon Echo

This is a photo of a large rock-cut that is seldom seen by visitors to Bon Echo. It is part of the old Highway 41 that crossed the Park at the ‘Four Corners’. To see this part of former road, walk north from the High Pines parking lot to the High Pines trailhead. Rather than walking the High Pines Trail continue north on a trail which is the former roadway until you reach the rock-cut. The old highway continues until it meets private property then continues as the Mazinaw Heights North Road.

Visitors can tell this construction was done a long time ago as there are no signs of diamond drilling or straight cutting of the rock.

There is a hard-to-find steel survey marker set in concrete on the western top side of the rock cut.

Based on Province of Ontario road maps in 1925 and 1926 and the changes that occurred, the road through Bon Echo was probably created in 1926 as an improved gravel road. Presumably the rock cut shown was made during this time.

On May 1, 1935, the Department of Highways (DHO) designated the Napanee–Kaladar Road through Lennox and Addington County, a distance of 49.5 kilometres (30.8 mi), and numbered it as Highway 41. Just over two years later, the route was extended to Highway 60 at Golden Lake which included the Bon Echo area.

Most of Highway 41 was an unimproved road prior to 1935.
Construction of an unpaved diversion at Bon Echo, bypassing the original route along what is now Mazinaw Heights Road, was completed in 1943.

Highway 41 was paved and realigned from north of Eganville to Golden Lake (along what is now Highway 60) in 1944, and from Kaladar to Northbrook in 1945. A 25 km (16 mi) section from Erinsville to Kaladar was improved in 1947, as was approximately 11 km (7 mi) between Northbrook and Cloyne, and 20 km (12 mi) from Dacre to Egansville.

Paving and improvements between Cloyne and Dacre were carried out over the next three years: from Denbigh to Dacre in 1948; from Bon Echo to Mackavoy Lake in 1949, and the remaining gaps from Cloyne to Bon Echo and from Mackavoy Lake to Denbigh in 1950. The final gravel section, between Roblin and Erinsville, was paved in 1953. Source: Wikipedia and Department of Highway Annual Reports and Ontario Road Maps.

Part of the Ken and Cathy Hook Album
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Taken on: August 1, 2022
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Sets appears in:   • Bon Echo Provincial Park    • Ken and Cathy Hook   
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