Winchester, and Hemet) is signed as Winchester Road. In Hemet, SR 79 overlaps State Route 74 (Florida Avenue), following it eastward for a few miles before heading north again through San Jacinto. SR 79 goes over a range of hills (Lambs Canyon) and ends in Beaumont at Interstate 10. SR 79 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and from the northern I-15 junction to I-10 is part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. It is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System; however, it is not a scenic highway as defined by Caltrans. In 2012, SR 79 had an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of 1,550 between Paso Picacho Campground and Sunrise Highway, and 30,500 at Murrieta Hot Springs Road, the latter of which was the highest AADT for the highway. History A stage road went through Oak Grove, and stagecoaches ran from 1858 to 1861 on a route from San Francisco to St. Louis and Memphis. A ranch house, Warner's Ranch, near Warner Springs was a stop on both the San Antonio–San Diego Mail and the Butterfield Overland Mail. A railroad line to Cuyamaca was under construction by 1887, though in 1889 the project encountered problems from workers departing to work in the nearby gold mines. By 1906, the stage road ran from Temecula through Warner Springs into Santa Ysabel and Ramona, and regularly scheduled automobile service was to begin in 1908 between San Diego and Warner Hot Springs. That year, at a meeting between citizens of Oceanside and Escondido, each city proposed that a road from it to Warner Springs be constructed; the roads would meet somewhere in the San Luis Rey River valley. The president of the Escondido National Bank proposed a route from Escondido to Warner Springs shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, in 1911 The San Diego Union described the future road to Descanso, and described a "branch of the highway" that went through the Valley of the Pines "which for beauty cannot be surpassed in the United States" before continuing to Julian, the beginning of the San Luis Rey River, and Oceanside. However, the next year, the county highway commissioners determined that more funding would be needed to complete the road to Warner Springs. By November 1912, the road to Warner Springs from San Diego