Culver Drive is a major

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights o ...

Irvine Irvine may refer to: Places On Earth Antarctica *Irvine Glacier * Mount Irvine (Antarctica) Australia * Irvine Island * Mount Irvine, New South Wales Canada * Irvine, Alberta * Irvine Inlet, Nunavut Scotland *Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotlan ...

Orange County, California Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population ...

, running approximately from southwest to northeast. Its southwest end is at its junction with Anteater Drive and Shady Canyon Drive, at the meeting point of the Turtle Rock, Turtle Ridge, and

University Hills University Hills may refer to: * University Hills, Irvine, California * University Hills, Los Angeles, California *University Hills, one of the neighborhoods of Denver, Colorado *University Hills, one of the neighborhoods of Baton Rouge, Louisiana ...

neighborhoods of Irvine. However, the road continues to the southwest under different names, Bonita Canyon Drive and then Ford Road, through a junction with

California State Route 73 State Route 73 (SR 73) is an approximately state highway in Orange County, California. The southernmost of the highway is a toll road operated by the Transportation Corridor Agencies, San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency name ...

and into

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city of about 85,000 in southern Orange County, California, United States. Located about southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Newport Beach is known for its sandy beaches. The city's harbor once supported maritime indu ...

. At its northwest end, Culver Drive ends at its junction with Furrow in the Orchard Hills neighborhood of Irvine. Its length is split roughly into thirds by its junctions with Interstate 405 towards its southwest end and with

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...

towards its northeast end. For much of its length, it parallels California State Route 261, which runs to its northwest. Culver Drive is named after Fred "Humpy" Culver, a local farmer who leased a large amount of land from the

Irvine Ranch The Irvine Company LLC is an American private company focused on real estate development. It is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with a large portion of its operations centered in and around Irvine, California, a planned city of more ...

and built a large house with a

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

in 1910 at what came to be known as "Culver's Corner". At the time this corner was the junction of Culver Drive, Trabuco Road, and

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

; now it is where Culver Drive has its junction with

. When the University Park neighborhood of Irvine was first developed in the mid-1960s (five years before Irvine's incorporation in 1971), Interstate 405 had yet to be built near the neighborhood. Culver, then a two-lane road, formed the main route into and out of the neighborhood. As the later neighborhoods or "

villages A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village ...

" of Irvine formed, Culver Drive became a natural boundary for many of them.See, e.g., ;

References

{{reflist Streets in Orange County, California Geography of Irvine, California