What was the first highway built in California?
History of California's state highway system
The first state road was authorized on March 26, 1895, when a law created the post of "Lake Tahoe Wagon Road Commissioner" to maintain the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road (the 1852 Johnson's Cut-off of the California Trail), now US 50 from Smith Flat - 3 miles (5 km) east of Placerville - to the Nevada state line. The 58 mile (93 km) road had been operated as a toll road until 1886, when El Dorado County bought it; the county deeded the road to the state on February 28, 1896. Funding was only enough for minimal improvements, including a stone bridge over the South Fork American River in 1901.
Also in 1895, on March 27, the legislature created the three-person Bureau of Highways to coordinate efforts by the counties to build good roads. The bureau traveled to every county of the state in 1895 and 1896 and prepared a map of a recommended system of state roads, which they submitted to the governor on November 25, 1896. The legislature replaced the Bureau of Highways with the Department of Highways on April 1, 1897, three days after it passed a law creating a second state highway from Sacramento to Folsom - another part of what became US 50 - to be maintained by three "Folsom Highway Commissioners". This was the last highway maintained by a separate authority, as the next state road, the Mono Lake Basin State Road (now part of SR 120), was designated by the legislature in 1899 to be built and maintained by the Department of Highways.
California State Route 163
The southernmost portion of the highway, running through Balboa Park, began construction in 1942 and opened in 1948 as part of US 395; it was the first freeway in San Diego County and one of the first in California. The Cabrillo Freeway was also part of US 80 from the late 1940s until 1964. This stretch of road has been called one of America's most beautiful parkways, and was designated a California Historic Parkway in 2002.
U.S. Route 101
Large parts of the old Business US 101 and SR 82 surface roads between San Francisco and San Diego are designated El Camino Real (The Royal Road), a designation originally given any thoroughfare under the direct authority of the King of Spain and his viceroys. These portions constitute the first major road in California.
U.S. Route 50 in California
At the dawn of the automobile era, the state legislature authorized California's first state road on March 26, 1895, by creating the post of "Lake Tahoe Wagon Road Commissioner" to maintain the road from Newtown Road near Smith Flat (just east of Placerville) to Nevada. The county deeded the 58-mile (93 km) road to the state on February 28, 1896. Funding was only enough for minimal improvements, including a new stone bridge over the South Fork American River at Riverton in 1901. The Department of Engineering took over its maintenance in 1907, immediately completed a survey and posted granite milestones that marked the distance from Placerville, and in 1910 started sprinkling the dirt road with water in summer to keep down dust (as had been done in the 1860s). A 1915 law added the short distance from Smith Flat west to the east limits of Placerville to the state road.
U.S. Route 101 in California
In the San Francisco Bay Area, US 101 was originally divided. US 101W followed the same general right-of-way of today's US 101 through the region, primarily along what was originally signed as Bayshore Boulevard. US 101E then generally followed the right-of-way taken by today's I-880 from San Jose to Oakland, then across the Carquinez Bridge to follow what is now SR 37, joining US 101W. The US 101E designation was removed by the 1940s and became SR 17 (later designated as I-880 and the westernmost section I-580), running from San Jose to Oakland and then across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge. Meanwhile, Bayshore Boulevard was later redesignated as the US 101A bypass and then eventually upgraded to what is now the Bayshore Freeway. The first stretch that was completed between Redwood City and South San Francisco was the Bay Area's first freeway when it opened in 1947. After the entire Bayshore Freeway was completed in the early 1960s, the old alignment along the peninsula was renumbered and renamed as SR 82/El Camino Real.
California State Route 198
All of SR 198 was added to the state highway system in the three bond issues floated to pay for the construction of the system. The first bond issue, approved by the state's voters in 1910, included the road from Visalia west to Hanford, connecting the two county seats with the central north–south highway (Route 4, now SR 99). As part of the 1916 bond issue, the route was extended west from Hanford through Coalinga to the coast trunk highway (Route 2, now US 101) near San Lucas, and assigned it the Route 10 designation. The third bond issue, passed in 1919, included a further extension east from Visalia to Sequoia National Park. The entire length of Route 10 was marked as Sign Route 198 in 1934, and this number was adopted legislatively in the 1964 renumbering. The portion east of Interstate 5 near Coalinga was added to the California Freeway and Expressway System in 1959, and parts of it have been built as such. The construction of the freeway east of Visalia to Road 192 was approved in January 1961, with the remainder of the freeway unplanned at that time as contingent on the routing of SR 65. The projected cost in 1958 of the entire freeway east of Visalia was $13 million (equivalent to $ in ) and was scheduled to be completed by 1964. The freeway through Visalia was completed by 1965, with an expressway connecting it to US 99. Also completed was the expressway heading west out of Hanford, with part of it access-controlled west of Lemoore.
California Department of Transportation
Due to the state's weak fiscal condition and corrupt politics, little progress was made until 1907, when the legislature replaced the Department of Highways with the Department of Engineering, within which there was a Division of Highways. California voters approved an US$18 million bond issue for the construction of a state highway system in 1910, and the first California Highway Commission was convened in 1911. On August 7, 1912, the department broke ground on its first construction project, the section of El Camino Real between South San Francisco and Burlingame, which later became part of California State Route 82. The year 1912 also saw the founding of the Transportation Laboratory and the creation of seven administrative divisions, which are the predecessors of the 12 district offices in use . The original seven division headquarters were located in:
U.S. Route 80 in California
A stagecoach road existed into the 19th century that passed through the mountains east of San Diego. Construction was discussed as early as 1911, with "The San Diego Union and Daily Bee" saying that it "will be one of the best in the system." Well before the freeway was constructed, the automobile road through the mountains east of San Diego was narrow and wound through the mountains; it was officially dedicated in 1912. This trip was known to take up to four hours, and frequently resulted in the radiator boiling over, flat tires, or broken fan belts; recent inclement weather would result in cars becoming mired in the mud. But meanwhile, Colonel Ed Fletcher declared the road a "success", and indicated his belief that a concrete road from San Diego to Yuma would soon follow, responding to criticism that a road from Los Angeles to Brawley should have been built.
History of California 1900–present
Because the first bond issue did not provide enough funding, the "State Highways Act of 1915" was approved by the legislature on May 20, 1915, and the voters in November 1916, taking effect on December 31. This gave the Department of Engineering an additional $12 million to complete the original system and $3 million for a further approximately specified by the law. At this time, each route was assigned a number from 1 to 34; this system of labeling routes, although never marked with signs, remained until the 1964 renumbering. In 1917, the legislature gave the California Highway Commission statutory recognition, and turned over the approximately of roads adopted by legislative act, until then maintained by the State Engineer, to the commission. Where not serving as extensions of existing routes, these – and routes subsequently added legislatively in 1917 and 1919 – were given numbers from 35 to 45. A third bond issue was approved by the voters at a special election on July 1, 1919, and provided $20 million more for the existing routes and the same amount for new extensions totaling about , adding Routes 46 to 64 to the system. The three bond issues together totaled , of which just over 40% (60% if the 1919 bond issue is left out) was completed or under construction in mid-1920.
State highways in California
In 1934, after the major expansion of the state highway system in 1933 by the California Legislature, California sign route numbers were assigned by the California Division of Highways (predecessor to Caltrans). The California sign route numbers were assigned in a geographical system, completely independent of the legislative routes. Odd-numbered routes ran north–south and even-numbered routes ran east–west. The routes were split among southern California (ACSC) and central and northern California (CSAA) as follows:
For instance, State Route 1 and State Route 4 were in central and northern California, and State Route 2 and State Route 3 (since moved) were in southern California. A rough grid was used inside the two regions, with the largest numbers — all less than 200 (except for State Route 740, which was related to State Route 74) - in eastern California (north–south) and near the border between the two regions (east–west).
The Interstate Highway System numbers were assigned by AASHO in late 1959. In 1963 and 1964, a total renumbering of the legislative routes was made, aligning them with the sign routes. Some changes were also made to the sign routes, mostly related to decommissionings of U.S. Routes in favor of Interstates.
Beverly Hills Speedway
The Beverly Hills Speedway (also called the Los Angeles Speedway) was a wooden board track for automobile racing in Beverly Hills, California. It was built in 1919 on of land that includes the site of today's Beverly Wilshire Hotel, just outside the "Golden Triangle". The former site is bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Beverly Drive, Olympic Boulevard and Lasky Drive. The project was financed by a group of racers and businessmen that called itself the Beverly Hills Speedway Association. The track was the first in the United States to be designed with banked turns incorporating an engineering solution known as a spiral easement.
U.S. Route 395 in California
The Camino Sierra was a trail from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe loosely paralleling modern State Route 14, US 395, and State Route 89. The trail was first believed to be used by Jedediah Smith in 1826. The trail was in common use by prospectors passing through the area because of the California gold rush and Comstock Lode. Though this area was not directly affected by the gold and silver rushes, the Owens Valley was more fertile than the areas around the strikes in Nevada. Farmers and ranchers raised cattle and other goods to trade with the mining boom towns nearby. The town of Bishop was established to trade goods with the mining town of Aurora. By 1860, the Camino Sierra was an established trail appearing in maps and guides. After these mining rushes died down, the Camino Sierra saw a revival because of the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct beginning in 1908. The route was promoted for its scenic value by the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a side trip from its rail lines, as far back as 1912. By 1918, the Camino Sierra had been included in the Automobile Blue Book, an early road atlas of the United States.
California Trail
In 1844, Caleb Greenwood and the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party became the first settlers to take wagons over the Sierra Nevada and into California over what became the Truckee Trail. They abandoned their wagons in the early snow in the winter of 1844/1845 and finished retrieving their wagons from the mountains in the spring of 1845. In 1845, John C. Frémont and Lansford Hastings guided parties totaling several hundred settlers along the Humboldt River portion of the California Trail to California. They were the first to make the entire trip by wagon in one traveling season. In 1846 it is believed that about 1,500 settlers made their way to California over the Truckee branch of the California Trail—just in time to join the war for independence there. Many of the 1845 and 1846 emigrants were recruited into the California Battalion to assist the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron with its sailors and marines in the fight for California's independence from Mexico.
California State Route 1
SR 1 signs first went up after California decided to number its highways, in 1934. The section for Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties was posted as SR 1, that section of the road known Route 56 (Las Cruces to Fernbridge). For Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties, Route 60 (San Juan Capistrano to the Oxnard area) became SR 3, and a few SR 3 signs were actually posted. The SR 3 signs were replaced by US 101 Alt. shields by 1936, as the road was built out; this change also allowed the extension of US 66 to end at another U.S. Route, in Santa Monica.
Maritime history of California
As steamships became available, regular paddle steamer service opened a major mail, passenger and high value cargo link between the two coasts of the United States. The first transcontinental railroad, the Panama Railroad, was finished in 1855 at a cost of about 5,000 lives and $8,000,000 and provided a major faster link with the East Coast and West Coast. Regardless of how the miners had originally got to California nearly all returned East via Panama—the easiest and fastest route. The returning miners and the returning gold were welcomed in the East and the mail and newspapers exchanged soon established strong east-west bonds. After it was completed in 1855 the ease of use of the Panama Railroad meant that the Panama Route carried most of the high value, time sensitive freight to and from California. Most female traffic went from east to west over the Panama Route which was the easiest and fasted route after about 1852. Women in the California Gold Rush were scarce but played a major role in settling California. Wives' and sweethearts' passage via Panama to California was normally paid for by miners or businessmen who had decided to stay in California. These women arriving in nearly every ship from Panama soon changed the character of women scarce California as they rapidly outnumbered the prostitutes who had initially flocked there.
Bayshore Freeway
Before the Dumbarton and San Mateo-Hayward Bridges were built across the San Francisco Bay in the 1920s, San Francisco was bottled up at the north end of a long peninsula, with driving south on El Camino Real towards San Jose as the only reasonable alternative to the ferries for crossing the bay. The first of several highways built as an alternate to El Camino Real was the Skyline Boulevard, which was added to the state highway system in 1919. A second route, the Bay Shore Highway (Route 68), became a state highway in 1923, but only from the San Francisco city limits into San Mateo County, where the Dumbarton Bridge would begin. Just prior to the start of construction on the Dumbarton Bridge, San Francisco Supervisor Richard J. Welch noted that the Bay Shore Highway would need to be built all the way to San Jose as an escape valve for the additional traffic that the bridge would attract. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in South San Francisco for the Bayshore Highway on September 11, 1924. The route used a right-of-way that was wide with a four-lane undivided highway wide.
The state legislature extended the highway in 1925, defining it to run from near the intersection of Army Street (Cesar Chavez Street) and San Bruno Avenue in San Francisco to a point in San Jose. The governor approved the bill with the stipulation that only the portion between the city limits of San Francisco and San Jose would be a state highway. Construction between South San Francisco and Burlingame had begun by 1924, funded by a $500,000 contribution from San Francisco, and was completed in 1928. A disconnected segment north of San Mateo was built by the state at the same time. It was not until February 1929 that the road was fully paved between San Francisco and Burlingame, and on October 20, 1929 the new highway was officially dedicated to San Mateo, several months after the connecting San Mateo-Hayward Bridge opened (at what is now Third Avenue). Even then, motorists had to wait until May 7, 1931 to reach Jefferson Avenue in Redwood City (near the west end of the four-year-old Dumbarton Bridge). The roadway was extended to Oregon Avenue in Palo Alto in mid-1932, Lawrence Station Road in mid-1933, and to Lafayette Street near Santa Clara, across the Guadalupe River from San Jose, by 1934. The final piece to Oakland Road (13th Street) in San Jose, which was then the main road - Legislative Route 5 and Sign Route 17 - between San Jose and Oakland, was dedicated on June 12, 1937, over ten years after the Dumbarton Bridge opened in January 1927.
California State Route 1
SR 1 has become famous worldwide, but the highway was signed as several other routes prior to 1964. When the road was first envisioned in the World War I era, California highways were referred to by either a highway name or a route number. The route numbers were used by state highway planners and the Legislature from 1915 until 1964, but were never posted on highways, referred to by the auto clubs or public, nor used on maps. The SR 1 designation was first assigned in 1939. Various portions of SR 1 have been posted and referred to by various names and numbers over the years. State construction of what became SR 1 started after the state's third highway bond issue passed before 1910.
California Trail
The road reverted to a free county road in 1911 and was accepted into the California State Highway system in 1926 as California State Route 4. It was not until the early 1950s that the road over Monitor Pass to U.S. Route 395 was completed, connecting the eastern terminus of State Route 4 to U.S. Route 395 via California State Route 89 near the community of Topaz, California. Today's Ebbetts Pass National Scenic Byway is a very scenic drive but one of the least traveled highways across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is anchored at either end by two state parks—Calaveras Big Trees State Park and Grover Hot Springs State Park. It passes through the Stanislaus and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests. Today's Ebbetts Pass road, SR 4, has an extensive section of highway that is less than two lanes wide with no dividing line. It also has some very steep sections, particularly on the eastern Sierra slopes, with several sharp hairpin corners. It is not recommended for vehicles towing long trailers or commercial truck traffic. Watch out for bicyclists and motorcyclists.
Both the "Carson River" and "Truckee River" trails eventually ended up at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, California. In 1848 most emigrants developed and used this route. In 1849 about one-third of all emigrants used the Carson Trail with later years many more using it. Starting in 1848, many left the main trail to stay in a mining district(s) or town(s) that developed along or off the trail(s).
Horace Dobbins
Horace Dobbins was known for building the California Cycleway from Pasadena to Los Angeles. 
Horace Dobbins had the exclusive idea of incorporating an elevated tollway for bicycles and other horseless vehicles from the Green Hotel in Pasadena to Los Angeles. This idea was brought to mind on 23 August 1897. Dobbins personally secured the right of way for six miles and the completed route was almost nine miles long. Unfortunately, the project came to a halt with the invention of the automobile. Although the Cycleway stopped being used, its route was transformed into what is now the Arroyo Seco/Pasadena Freeway which now is better known as 110.
Cove Fort
The first highway to traverse Cove Fort was the Arrowhead Trail, which connected Salt Lake City with Los Angeles. When the U.S. Highway system was formed, this route became U.S. Route 91, and is today Interstate 15. When the interstate highway system was in the planning stages, planners noted no direct connection existed between the central United States and southern California. The result to fill this gap was a new freeway that would be built west from Green River, Utah, towards Cove Fort, along a path that used to be inaccessible by paved roads. Since that time, Cove Fort has also served as the western terminus of Interstate 70.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California
In January 1847, the Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, having constructed the first wagon road across the southwest into Southern California. Battalion Members helped construct a number of building and public works in San Diego. They then traveled to Los Angeles where they built a fort and raised the American flag. Six discharged battalion members were at Sutter's Mill in northern California when gold was discovered there on January 24, 1848. Heading for their families in Utah, they carved the first wagon road over the Sierra Nevadas that would be used by thousands of westward bound travelers including the gold rush "Forty-Niners." Sometimes called the "49er's Highway," it is officially called the Mormon Emigrant - Kit Carson Highway.
In February 1856, George Q. Cannon began publication in San Francisco of the "Western Standard", a weekly periodical supportive of the Church.
Rincon Parkway
The Rincon Parkway is a portion of California State Route 1 along the north coast of Ventura County, California. This narrow coastal area north of the city of Ventura and south of the Santa Barbara County line is commonly referred to as The Rincon. The automobile route along this portion of coastline opened up in 1913 as the Rincon Causeway or the Rincon Sea Level Road as the first driveable coastal route for motorists traveling between San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Stagecoaches were delayed by high tides, storms, mud or rock slides before an alternate route was established in 1878 over the inland Casitas Pass that was accessed by traveling through the narrow Ventura River Valley towards Ojai. The access road alongside the railroad bed, that cut through the area in 1886, provided the basis for building the Rincon Sea Level Road.
California State Route 56
Planning for SR 56 started in 1956, according to San Diego Councilwoman Barbara Warden. The route was first added to the California State Highway System in 1959 as Legislative Route Number 278 (LRN 278). The routing ran from LRN 2, which later became US 101, all the way east to LRN 198, which is now SR 67. In the 1964 state highway renumbering, LRN 278 was renumbered SR 56 and was designated to run from I-5 to SR 67. On December 30, 1980, the City of Poway included SR 56 in their city plan extending all the way east through the city to a northern extension of SR 125. In 1983, both the cities of San Diego and Poway supported the extension of SR 56 all the way to SR 67, although Poway wanted the route moved and had reservations about the freeway ending in their city. Nevertheless, there are no plans to construct the portion of SR 56 east of I-15; several arterial roads connect the eastern end of the SR 56 freeway with SR 67, including Ted Williams Parkway, Twin Peaks Road, Espola Road (CR S5), and Poway Road (CR S4).
Citizens began to lobby for the construction of SR 56 in 1986, in a similar action to efforts for SR 52. As far back as 1987, the Sierra Club opposed the use of sales tax revenue to build the freeway because of environmental concerns. A public forum was held on April 10, 1990, in Rancho Peñasquitos. Since funds were not available for constructing the middle of the route, many opposed the construction of the eastern part of SR 56 as a "road to nowhere". Opposition to the western end of the freeway related to concerns about destruction of "farmland, marshland, and willow scrubland", the habitat of the endangered least Bell's vireo. The San Diego City Council voted against such widening of Carmel Valley Road on April 12, citing the environmental concerns. Caltrans rejected other routes, and insisted on ending the freeway at I-5 and Carmel Valley Road. The council reversed its decision on May 8; after the public gave several opinions on the matter, Caltrans agreed to set aside for environmental mitigation, and $2 million (about $ in dollars) was to be set aside for the purchase of land for a park near the San Dieguito River.
U.S. Route 80 in California
The highway replaced a 1912 plank road across much of Imperial County. The winding two-lane road through the Cuyamaca Mountains was one of the factors that led to a four-hour journey from San Diego to El Centro. During the 1930s, the road was realigned through the mountains, but several curves remained. In the 1950s, work began on constructing what would become Interstate 8 (I-8) to replace the old highway in San Diego to bypass the cities of San Diego, La Mesa, and El Cajon. This started with the construction of the Alvarado Canyon road as well as Mission Valley Road through the San Diego area, as well as construction a replacement for the old highway across the Viejas Grade. The construction continued across the rest of the route through the next two decades. US 80 was gradually decommissioned after 1964 as I-8, through San Diego and Imperial counties, was completed. In 2006, the highway was designated by the California State Legislature as Historic U.S. Route 80.
U.S. Route 199
U.S. Route 199 (US 199) is a U.S. highway in the U.S. states of California and Oregon. The highway was established in 1926 as a spur of U.S. Route 99, which has since been replaced by Interstate 5. US 199 stretches from U.S. Route 101 near Crescent City, California northeast to Interstate 5 in Grants Pass, Oregon. The highway is the northern portion of the Redwood Highway. In Oregon, US 199 is officially known as Redwood Highway No. 25. The majority of the road in California is the Smith River Scenic Byway, a National Forest Scenic Byway. The first roadway, a plank road, from Crescent City was established in May 1858, and before the US 199 designation was applied to the highway, the roadway was designated Highway 25 and Route 1.
History of California
After the Portolá expedition of 1769–70, Spanish missionaries began setting up 21 California Missions on or near the coast of Alta (Upper) California, beginning with the Mission San Diego de Alcala near the location of the modern day city of San Diego, California. During the same period, Spanish military forces built several forts ("presidios") and three small towns ("pueblos"). Two of the pueblos would eventually grow into the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose. After Mexican Independence was won in 1821, California fell under the jurisdiction of the First Mexican Empire. Fearing the influence of the Roman Catholic church over their newly independent nation, the Mexican government closed all of the missions and nationalized the church's property. They left behind a small "Californio" (white Hispanic) population of several thousand families, with a few small military garrisons. After the Mexican–American War of 1846-48, Mexico was forced to relinquish any claim to California to the United States. The unexpected discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 produced a spectacular gold rush in Northern California, attracting hundreds of thousand of ambitious young men from around the world. Only a few struck it rich, and many returned home disappointed. Most appreciated the other economic opportunities in California, especially in agriculture, and brought their families to join them. California became the 31st US state in 1850 and played a small role in the American Civil War. Chinese immigrants increasingly came under attack from nativists; they were forced out of industry and agriculture and into Chinatowns in the larger cities. As gold petered out, California increasingly became a highly productive agricultural society. The coming of the railroads in 1869 linked its rich economy with the rest of the nation, and attracted a steady stream of migrants. In the late 19th century, Southern California, especially Los Angeles, started to grow rapidly.
California Trail
Nearly all of the heavy wagon freighting and stage use over the Sierras ceased after the completion of the Central Pacific and Virginia Truckee railroads in 1869. The ongoing massive needs for millions of board feet of Sierra timber and thousands of cords of firewood in the Comstock Lode mines and towns would be the single major exception, although they even built narrow gauge railroads to haul much of this. Stages and wagons were still needed and used for the many cities not serviced by the railroads and the stage and freight lines continued in business. The first "highway" established by the counties was the Placerville toll route that was bought by the counties and made a "free" (taxpayer financed) road in 1886. The first "highway" established by the state government was this same Placerville wagon road over the Sierras after it was bought by the state in 1896. This road eventually became U.S. Route 50.
U.S. Route 199
US 199 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and 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. US 199 is eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System, but it is not officially designated as a scenic highway by the California Department of Transportation.
By 1854, when it was incorporated, Crescent City had a population of 800 but no road leading inland. The Crescent City and Yreka Plank and Turnpike Company was incorporated at a meeting on June 10, and a survey was completed in October, but work stopped with the Panic of 1855. The corporation was revived in December 1856 as the Crescent City Plank Road and Turnpike Company, began construction of a plank road in 1857, and opened the road in May 1858. This road, shown on USGS topographic maps as Wimer Road, led northeast from Crescent City to the Smith River, where there was a toll booth, and then took a generally northerly route to near the state line, where it turned east, crossing back and forth between the states, to Oregon Mountain. There it turned northeast, following the Illinois River and branches past O'Brien and Waldo to north of Kerby. The final stretch ran easterly to Jacksonville via Wilderville, along the present US 199, Fish Hatchery Road, and OR 238.
A second road in California was built by Horace Gasquet, who acquired a stand of trees at the present site of Gasquet, California — where the North and Middle Forks of the Smith River converge — in 1857. In 1881, he began to build a corduroy road from what had become Gasquet Flats to the plank road at the state line near Oregon Mountain, shown as Old Gasquet Toll Road on USGS maps. Tolls were charged starting in 1882, and in 1887 the road was completed. Gasquet also built a free road from Gasquet Flats along the Smith River to the mouth of the South Fork, including a suspension bridge across that waterway, and Del Norte County extended it along the Smith River and Mill Creek and over Howland Summit to the Crescent City Plank Road just east of Crescent City.
Arroyo Seco Parkway
When the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened, it was the first freeway in the Western United States. It became a new alignment of U.S. Route 66, and the old routing via Figueroa Street and Colorado Boulevard became U.S. Route 66 Alternate. The southern extension over the Los Angeles River to downtown Los Angeles also carried State Route 11 (which remained on the old route when US 66 was moved) and U.S. Routes 6 and 99 (which followed Avenue 26 and San Fernando Road to the northwest). The 1964 renumbering saw US 66 truncated to Pasadena, and SR 11 was moved from Figueroa Street (which became SR 159) to the Pasadena Freeway. Finally, the number was changed to SR 110 in 1981, when SR 11 between San Pedro and the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) became I-110.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway remains the most direct route between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena despite its flaws; the only reasonable freeway alternate (which trucks must use) is the Glendale Freeway (SR 2) to the west, which is itself not easily reached by trucks from downtown Los Angeles. The Gold Line light rail, opened in 2003 over the former Santa Fe Railway line, provides an alternate mode for commuters. The state legislature designated the original section, north of the Figueroa Street Viaduct, as a "California Historic Parkway" (part of the State Scenic Highway System reserved for freeways built before 1945) in 1993; the only other highway so designated is the Cabrillo Freeway (SR 163) in San Diego. The American Society of Civil Engineers named it a National Civil Engineering Landmark in 1999, and it became a National Scenic Byway in 2002 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Occidental College hosted the "ArroyoFest Freeway Walk and Bike Ride" on Sunday, June 15, 2003, closing the freeway to motor vehicles to "highlight several ongoing or proposed projects within the Arroyo that can improve the quality of life for everyone in the area".
History of California before 1900
In order to facilitate overland travel, the mission settlements were situated approximately apart, so that they were separated by one day's long ride on horseback along the el Camino Real, Spanish for "the Royal Road", though often referred to today as the "King's Highway", and also known as the "California Mission Trail". Tradition has it that the "padres" sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail in order to mark it with bright yellow flowers. Later El Camino Viejo, another more direct route from Los Angeles to Mission San José and San Francisco Bay, developed along the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley. Heavy freight movement over long distances was practical only via water, but soldiers, settlers and other travelers and merchandise on horses, mules, or "carretas" (ox carts), and herds of animals used these routes.
Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County)
The automobile had long become a mainstay of Southern California life. In 1940 the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first freeway, was built as a parkway alongside the newly constructed flood channel in the Los Angeles portion of the Arroyo. Today, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, it continues on through downtown becoming the Harbor Freeway, and terminates near the harbor in San Pedro.
Environment of California
San Francisco Bay remained the focus of a railway network extending north and south until Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway completed a transcontinental rail link to Los Angeles and San Diego in 1885. Eastbound rail shipment of citrus began in 1890. Petroleum was discovered in 1892, and the first offshore drilling occurred at Summerland Oil Field in 1896. Hollywood's film industry and shift of the United States Navy Battle Fleet home port to San Pedro in 1919 accelerated growth of southern coastal cities to 36% of the state population by 1920.
As California petroleum production peaked, the United States Highway System of 1925 included routes paralleling older transportation corridors. U.S. Route 101 followed El Camino Real and extended through the redwoods to Humboldt Bay. U.S. Route 99 extended northward from Los Angeles following railways through the Central Valley; and the Lincoln Highway and U.S. Route 66 followed the transcontinental rail routes from San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles, respectively. Popularity of automobile travel encouraged construction of California Route 1 connecting California State Beaches, U.S. Route 395 through the Sierra Nevada, and the Arroyo Seco Parkway as the first freeway. Smog was recognized as an air pollution problem in 1954 as Los Angeles Railway, Pacific Electric Railway and Key System public transport facilities were dismantled during the great American streetcar scandal. Southern California cities were home to 51% of Californians when the Interstate Highway System arrived in 1959, while 26% lived around San Francisco Bay. Lincoln Highway became Interstate 80, Route 66 became Interstate 40, and Interstate 5 extended from San Diego through Los Angeles and north up the rain shadowed western side of the Central Valley and the eastern end of San Francisco Bay.
Big Sur
In 1897, he walked the entire stretch of rocky coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo in five days and mapped out the course of the future road. He photographed the land and became the first surveyor of the route. He became convinced of the need for a road along the coast to San Simeon, which he believed could be built for $50,000 (). In 1915, he presented the results of his survey and photographic work to a joint session of the California legislature. Roberts initially promoted the coastal highway to allow access to a region of spectacular beauty, but failed to obtain funding.
California Trail
A few hundred mountain men and their families had been filtering into California for several decades prior to 1841 over various paths from Oregon and Santa Fe. The first known emigrants to use parts of the California Trail was the 1841 Bartleson-Bidwell Party. They followed the Humboldt River across Nevada and eventually made it into northern California. Other parts of this party split off and were one of the first sets of emigrants to use the Oregon Trail to get to Oregon. The California-bound travelers, striking out from the Snake River and passing into Nevada, missed the head of the Humboldt River there. They abandoned their wagons in eastern Nevada and finished the trip by pack train. After an arduous transit of the Sierras (its believed over Ebbetts Pass), members of this group later founded Chico, California in the Sacramento Valley. In 1842 (a year without any known California Trail emigration), Joseph Chiles, a member of the Bartleson-Bidwell Party of 1841, returned with several others back east. In 1843, Chiles led a party (of seven he eventually would lead) back to California. At Fort Hall he met Joseph Reddeford Walker who he convinced to lead half the settlers with him traveling in wagons back to California down the Humboldt. Chiles led the rest in a pack train party down the Malheur River to California. Walker's party in 1843 also abandoned their wagons and finished getting to California by pack train.
Interstate 8
A stagecoach road existed into the 19th century that passed through the mountains east of San Diego. Before the freeway was constructed, the automobile road through the mountains east of San Diego was narrow and wound through the mountains; it was officially dedicated in 1912. This trip was known to take up to four hours, and frequently resulted in the radiator boiling over, flat tires, or broken fan belts; inclement weather would result in cars becoming mired in the mud. The road was paved in 1926, and was open by 1927; remnants of this road were still present in the late 20th century. Another road was built in the early 1930s, to remove curves and widen the lanes. This was a two-lane road that still had many switchbacks, with one popularly known as "Dead Man's Curve". Construction of I-8 took place atop much of the roadbed of the highway from the early 1930s. The delay in extending a road to San Diego caused increased development in Los Angeles and resulted in that city becoming the trade and population center of Southern California, according to the "San Diego Union".
Interstate 5 in California
The Golden State Freeway was proposed by the California Highway Commission in 1953. The proposal drew strong criticism from East Los Angeles residents as it would dissect and eliminate large residential and commercial areas of Boyle Heights and Hollenbeck Heights. The proposal also seemed to indicate a disregard for the ethnic Mexican American population of metropolitan Los Angeles. The "Boyle–Hollenbeck Anti–Golden State Freeway Committee" was formed for the purpose in blocking or rerouting the freeway. Then–Los Angeles City Council member Edward R. Roybal chaired that committee. Despite this opposition, the construction of the freeway went ahead.
U.S. Route 66
In 1940, the first freeway in Los Angeles was incorporated into US 66; this was the Arroyo Seco Parkway, later known as the Pasadena Freeway; now again known as Arroyo Seco Parkway.
In 1953, the Oatman Highway through the Black Mountains was completely bypassed by a new route between Kingman, Arizona, and Needles, California; by the 1960s, Oatman, Arizona, was virtually abandoned as a ghost town.
Little Sur River
After 18 years of construction, the paved two-lane Carmel-San Simeon Highway was completed in 1937. Prior to the construction of Highway 1, the California coast south of Carmel and north of San Simeon was one of the most remote regions in the state, rivaling nearly any other region in the United States for its difficult access.
U.S. Route 80 in California
World War II stalled most freeway projects in the San Diego area. Plans were developed by 1946 for a freeway through Alvarado Canyon that would connect with the Cabrillo Freeway. Funding was obtained by 1949 for the portion between 70th Street and Lake Murray Boulevard, and Fairmout Avenue. The first portion of the Alvarado Canyon Highway, the first freeway thorough La Mesa, was opened in early 1950. Reports indicated that this decreased the time to travel from La Mesa to San Diego by a factor of two, with 7,000 trips on the route each day. That same year, the San Diego city manager expressed concerns at the Highway Commission meeting about shifting US 80 away from El Cajon Boulevard to the Alvarado Canyon and Mission Valley Road route, due to the potential loss of commerce for businesses located near the current route.
U.S. Route 80 in California
Finally, in May 1957, bids opened for the part of US 80 between Grossmont Boulevard in La Mesa and Chase Avenue in El Cajon, that would connect to the new SR 67 freeway. Groundbreaking took place on June 10, and the project was to cost $3.6 million. The rebuilding of the Cabrillo Freeway interchange became a priority due to the availability of federal funding, and due to the traffic problems encountered with having ramps entering from both the left and the right. In July, the Highway Development Association decided to formally raise the issue of the incomplete highway survey through Imperial County at the next California Highway Commission meeting. In 1958, federal funds were allocated to construct US 80 from Taylor Street to Fairmount Avenue as an eight-lane freeway, and from there to 70th Street as a divided highway. In August, the state announced that there were four proposed routes for US 80 through the mountains, including one with a tunnel. A contract was later awarded to construct the freeway from Taylor Street to the Cabrillo Freeway at a cost of $1.2 million. In November, Caltrans announced that the Walker Canyon route had been chosen for US 80, which would allow for the route to be constructed in stages, as well as being the least expensive alternative.
U.S. Route 101 in California
U.S. Route 101 (US 101) in the state of California is one of the last remaining and longest U.S. Routes still active in the state, and the longest highway of any kind in California. US 101 was also one of the original national routes established in 1926. Significant portions of US 101 between the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area follow El Camino Real, the historic road connecting the former Alta California's 21 missions.
California State Route 14
The first road to use the general alignment of modern SR 14 was called the El Camino Sierra, or Sierra Highway, which extended from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe. A dirt road was completed in the 1910s from what had been a pack trail. The "Los Angeles Times" declared El Camino Sierra complete in 1931, when the portion from Mojave to the Owens Valley, along modern US 395, was paved.
California Trail
The Lander Road, located further north than the main trail to Fort Hall, also bypassed Fort Bridger and was about shorter to Fort Hall. It was built under the supervision of Frederick W. Lander by federal contractors in 1858—one of the first federally sponsored roads in the west. Lander's Road officially was called the "Fort Kearney, South Pass and Honey Lake Road" and was a federally funded attempt to improve the Oregon and California trails. The little used Honey Lake part of the proposed route near the present states of Nevada and California border was improved in 1859 under Lander's direction but did not go much beyond improving some watering holes—work ceased in 1860. The "Lander Road" was the first section of the federally funded road through The future states of Wyoming and Idaho. Expeditions under the command of Frederick W. Lander surveyed a new route starting at Burnt Ranch following the last crossing of the Sweetwater River before it turned west over South Pass. The Lander Road followed the Sweetwater River further north, skirting the Wind River Range before turning west and crossing the continental divide north of South Pass. The road crossed the Green River near the present town of Big Piney, Wyoming and then passing over Thompson Pass in the Wyoming Range near the head of the Grey's River and then crosses another high pass across the Salt River Range before descending into Star Valley (Wyoming). The trail entered Star Valley about south of the present town of Smoot, Wyoming. From Smoot, the road then continued north about down Star Valley west of the Salt River before turning almost due west at Stump Creek near the present town of Auburn, Wyoming and passing into the present state of Idaho and following the Stump Creek valley about ten miles (16 km) northwest over the Caribou Mountains (Idaho) (this section of the trail is now accessible only by US Forest Service path as the main road (Wyoming Highway 34) now goes through Tincup canyon to get across the Caribous.) After crossing the Caribou Range the road split, turning almost ninety degrees and progressing southwest to Soda Springs, Idaho or alternately heading almost due west and passing south of Grays Lake (now part of the Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge) to Fort Hall Idaho. The Lander Road had good grass, fishing, water and wood but was high, rough and steep in many places. Later, after 1869, it was mostly used by ranchers moving their stock to and from summer grazing or markets. For maps of the Lander road in Wyoming and Idaho see NPS National Trail Map For more information visit Afton, Wyoming to see its Lander and Pioneer Museum.
California Highway Commission
Their first noticeable efforts centered on the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road (eventually to become U.S. Route 50) over the Sierra Nevada mountains. A series of municipal bond issues beginning in 1910 allowed the Highway Commission to grade and pave as much of the new California state highway system as quickly as possible.
Camino Real de Tierra Adentro
By the late 16th century, Spanish exploration and colonization had advanced from Mexico City northward by the great central plateau to its ultimate goal in Santa Fe. Until Mexican independence in 1821, all communications between New Mexico and the rest of the world was restricted to this trail. Over it came ox carts and mule trains, missionaries and governors, soldiers and colonists. When the Santa Fe Trail sprang up between Santa Fe and Missouri, traders from the United States extended their operations southward down the Chihuahua Trail and beyond to Durango and Zacatecas. Ultimately superseded by railroads in the 19th century, the ancient Mexico City-Santa Fe road was revived in the mid-20th century as one of the great automobile highways of Mexico. The part that runs from Santa Fe, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, US State Highway 85, pioneered by Franciscan missionaries in 1581, may be the oldest highway in the United States.
California Highway Commission
The California Highway Commission was established in 1895 and continued until 1978 as the primary state highway bureaucracy in California.
California Trail
In 1857, Congress appropriated $300,000 for building a wagon road to California and to establish the Fort Kearny, South Pass and Honey Lake Wagon Road. Exactly why the road was to terminate at Honey Lake near Susanville is a legislative mystery, since very few went that way in 1857 or later. The road was built in response to pressure from California Congressmen who wanted a good road to California, preferably one that bypassed Forty Mile Desert. The first part of the route was surveyed by Frederick W. Lander working under William Magraw. In 1858, Lander guided several hundred workers who built the Landers Cutoff passing the Green River well north of the established ferries, over Thompson Pass into Star Valley Wyoming, and from there up Stump Creek and on to Fort Hall in Idaho. In 1860, Landers was instructed to find a new route north of the Humboldt. To help the emigrants leaving the main trail at Lassen's meadow and going to Honey Lake, Lander had two large reservoir tanks built at Rabbit Hole and Antelope Springs. These reservoirs helped Nobles Road keep its status as an emigrant trail, but only the few emigrants interested in going to Northern California used it.
Nemacolin's Path
Nemacolin's Trail was later improved as the Cumberland Road, the National Road, the National Pike, and eventually U.S. Route 40, or the National Highway. U.S. Route 40 became one of the first officially recognized highways in the United States. The earlier road, known as the Cumberland Road/National Road, ran on the first cast iron bridge constructed in the United States, at Dunlap's Creek. Nemacolin's Trail became the gateway by which settlers in Conestoga wagons or stage coaches reached the lands west of the Appalachian mountains.
History of Santa Clara County, California
San Jose was California's first town. On November 29, 1777, on orders from the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, nine soldiers, five "pobladores" (settlers) with their families, and one cowboy were detailed to found the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, named in honor of St. Joseph. The already existing Spanish Catholic missions were not pleased with this, but could do nothing to stop it. By 1825, Mission Santa Clara offered rest for the travelers from Monterey and San Francisco. Although Mexico broke with the Spanish crown in 1821, it was not until May 10, 1825, that San Jose acknowledged Mexican rule. The Mexican government soon began selling off church lands in a process known as "secularization." Although originally intended to return church lands to the native population, this practice soon entailed a selling of church lands to the highest bidders. By 1839 only 300 Indians remained at the Mission Santa Clara. The time of the Californios, the rural land owning gentlemen, was short lived in California, however. American immigrants began arriving in California, followed by the Mexican–American War.
List of deleted state highways in California
The Embarcadero Freeway, which had only been constructed from Broadway along the Embarcadero to the Bay Bridge, was universally panned with many locals comparing it to the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. Demands to demolish the freeway were proposed as early as 1963 with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors supporting the proposal. The freeway was eventually demolished after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and Doyle Drive is now part of U.S. Route 101. SR 480 was Interstate 480, an auxiliary route of the Interstate Highway System, from 1955 to 1965. The entire route was deleted in 1991, approximately two years after the earthquake.
California State Route 1
After 18 years of construction, aided by New Deal funds during the Great Depression, the paved two-lane road was completed and opened on June 17, 1937. The road was initially called the Carmel-San Simeon Highway (Route 56), but was better known as the Roosevelt Highway, honoring the current President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A 1921 law extended Route 56 south over the county road to Cambria.
Sierra Highway
The first recorded journey along what would become El Camino Sierra was by Jedediah Smith in 1826. The trail was in common use by prospectors passing through the area because of the California Gold Rush and Comstock Lode. While still mostly a dirt road, several people began promoting El Camino Sierra as a scenic route. In 1910, the "Los Angeles Times" announced that Governor Gillet had announced funding to construct a new road to connect El Camino Real with Yosemite National Park. When finished, a new "wonderful circuit" route would be complete and El Camino Sierra would become "one of the most beautiful scenic routes in the world." In 1912, the Southern Pacific Railroad published an article called "Two Mules and a Motorist" in which the author's trip down El Camino Sierra was detailed, promoting the trail as a scenic side trip, via pack mules, from its rail lines. In 1915, the California Teachers Association distributed a promotional book to the annual convention of the National Education Association. This book contained an article that sung the praises of this "soon-to-be-world-famous highway" called El Camino Sierra. While noting that it was still mostly an unimproved trail, the article assured the readers that county and state officials were working frantically to upgrade the route and, with the aid of convict labor, this would soon be a "boulevard the entire distance from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe." The article concluded by stating El Camino Sierra was "a highway with a hundred by-ways, each by-way with a hundred wonders". The article also implored the state legislature to extend El Camino Sierra to Truckee, Quincy and Susanville using a route similar to modern State Route 89, SR 70 returning to US 395.
History of California 1900–present
Also in 1895, on March 27 the legislature created the three-person Bureau of Highways to coordinate efforts by the counties to build good roads. The bureau traveled to every county of the state in 1895 and 1896 and prepared a map of a recommended system of state roads, which they submitted to the governor on November 25, 1896. The legislature replaced the Bureau of Highways with the Department of Highways on April 1, 1897, three days after it passed a law creating a second state highway from Sacramento to Folsom – another part of what became US 50 – to be maintained by three "Folsom Highway Commissioners". This was the last highway maintained by a separate authority, as the next state road, the Mono Lake Basin State Road (now part of SR 120), was designated by the legislature in 1899 to be built and maintained by the Department of Highways. Construction of a large connected system began in 1912, after the state's voters approved an $18 million bond issue for over of highways. The Lincoln Highway when it was set up in 1913 used the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road (the 1852 Johnson's Cut-off of the California Trail), now US 50, to get over the Sierra Nevada.
History of the west coast of North America
Americans in California rebelled against Mexico, and in 1846 established the short-lived California Republic. However, the Mexican–American War had already been declared, and the American military quickly took control of California. At the end of the war, Mexico ceded control of California to the United States. Things began to change dramatically in 1848 with the California Gold Rush which brought an influx of migrants across the nation and immigrants from around the world. While few found much gold, many stayed, founding communities and turning to farming and other practices. Despite these increases in population, the west coast was still on the periphery. The American Civil War had little effect, but began to change as the first transcontinental railroads (completed in 1869) stretched across the United States. For the first time, it was relatively cheap and easy for migrants and immigrants to move to the west coast.
U.S. Route 80 in California
US 80 was removed from the state highway system in the 1964 state highway renumbering when I-80 was designated; I-8 assumed the routing from San Diego to El Centro and Yuma. However, US 80 signs were posted for several years afterward on the remaining portions of the original asphalt road that had not been bypassed by the freeway. The AASHO formally recognized California's requested elimination of US 80 by 1969. Gradually, the route was removed from Arizona, New Mexico and part of Texas between 1977 and 1991. After the freeway was built, the population of Jacumba went from 400 to 200, and many businesses closed or relocated. However, the population began to increase after a few years, and residents began commuting to jobs in El Centro and San Diego. Following a campaign from the local Old Highway 80 Committee and endorsement from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, the California State Legislature passed a resolution allowing for the route to be designated and signed as a state historic route, Historic U.S. Route 80, in 2006. In 2018, the Arizona Department of Transportation Parkways, Historic and Scenic Roads Advisory Committee adopted surviving sections of former US 80 in Arizona as a state Historic Road. This supports the California sections by extending the Historic U.S. Route 80 designation through Arizona to the New Mexico state line.
California Incline
The California Incline was originally a walkway, which was cut through the bluffs to provide beach access to pedestrians in 1896. A roadway structure in length was built in 1932. It is a vital street in Santa Monica, linking the PCH with Ocean Avenue and California Avenue, bisecting Palisades Park. It begins at an intersection with Ocean Avenue and California Avenue, at the top of the Palisades, extending to PCH at the base of the bluffs.
California State Route 65
The first segment to be constructed as a freeway was in 1964. A short freeway segment (about ) was built at SR 99 in Kern County in conjunction with a portion of the freeway upgrade to the Golden State Freeway (SR 99). However, development of the rest of the corridor was difficult. The California Highway Commission put a greater emphasis on the construction of the Westside Freeway, which would be included in the Interstate Highway System. In addition, efforts were underway for the upgrade of the Golden State Freeway through the center of the valley. As a result, the Eastside Freeway was given a much lower priority.
Interstate 80 in California
Throughout California, I-80 was built along the corridor of U.S. Route 40 (US 40), eventually replacing this designation entirely. The prior US 40 corridor itself was built along several historic corridors in California, notably the California Trail and Lincoln Highway. The route has changed from the original plans in San Francisco due to freeway revolts canceling segments of the originally planned alignment. Similarly in Sacramento, the freeway was re-routed around the city after plans to upgrade the original grandfathered route through the city to Interstate highway standards were cancelled.
Arroyo Seco Parkway
To connect the proposed parkway with downtown Los Angeles, that city improved and extended North Figueroa Street as a four-lane road to the Los Angeles River, allowing drivers to bypass the congested North Broadway Bridge on the existing but underutilized Riverside Drive Bridge. A large part of the project lay within Elysian Park, and four Art Deco tunnels were built through the hills. The first three, between Solano Avenue and the river, opened in late 1931, and the fourth opened in mid-1936, completing the extension of Figueroa Street to Riverside Drive. As with the contemporary Ramona Boulevard east from downtown, grade separations were mostly built only where terrain dictated. For Figueroa Street, this meant that all crossings except College Street (built several years after the extension was completed), where a hill was cut through, were at grade. The Figueroa Street Viaduct, connecting the Riverside Drive intersection with North Figueroa Street (then Dayton Avenue) across the Los Angeles River, opened in mid-1937. Closer to downtown, an interchange was built at Temple Street in 1939.
Although many South Pasadena residents opposed the division of the city that the parkway would bring, the city's voters elected supporters in the 1936 elections. The state, which had the power to put the road where it wished even had South Pasadena continued to oppose it, approved the route on April 4, 1936. The route used the Arroyo Seco's west bank to near Hough Street, where it crossed to the east and cut through South Pasadena to the south end of Broadway (now Arroyo Parkway) in Pasadena. Another project, the Arroyo Seco Flood Control Channel, was built by the Works Progress Administration before and during construction of the parkway to avoid damages from future floods. A number of state engineers toured East Coast roads in early 1938, including Chicago's Lake Shore Drive, full and modified cloverleaf interchanges in Massachusetts and New Jersey, and Robert Moses's parkway system in New York City. The parkway was the first road built in California under a 1939 freeway law that allowed access to be completely limited to a number of specified points. Although, in some areas, it was possible to use a standard diamond interchange, other locations required folded diamonds, or, as the engineers called them, "compressed cloverleafs", where local streets often took the place of dedicated ramps, ending at the parkway with a sharp right turn required to enter or exit. The highway was designed with two 11–12 foot (3.4-3.7 m) lanes and one ten-foot (3.0 m) shoulder in each direction, with the wider inside (passing) lanes paved in black asphalt concrete and the outside lanes paved in white Portland cement concrete. The differently-colored lanes would encourage drivers to stay in their lanes. (By mid-1939, the state had decided to replace the shoulders with additional travel lanes for increased capacity; except on a short piece in South Pasadena, these were also paved with Portland cement. So that disabled vehicles could be safely removed from the roadway, about 50 "safety bays" were constructed in 1949 and 1950.) The engineers used a design speed of , superelevating curves where necessary to accomplish this. (The road is now posted at .) Despite the freeway design, many parkway characteristics were incorporated, such as plantings of mostly native flora alongside the road.
Upland, California
Upland was one of the cities located on the National Old Trails Road, established in 1912 as the first national coast-to-coast highway. In Upland, the national highway ran along Foothill Boulevard, which had been built on the route established by the early Spanish explorers. In 1926, a hundred years after Jedediah Smith's expedition, the western part of the National Old Trails Road became part of the famed Route 66.
Santa Ana Freeway
The entire Santa Ana Freeway began construction in 1947 and completed in 1956. Originally it was signed as US 101 before the segment of 101 between the East Los Angeles Interchange and the United States–Mexico border in San Ysidro, California was decommissioned in favor of Interstate 5. It was approved as a chargeable interstate in 1961. The Santa Ana Freeway and also portions of San Diego Freeway (before the freeway was built) south of El Toro Y went up changing the U.S. 101 signs to Interstate 5 in 1964, including full length of Golden State Freeway which was originally signed as US 99.
Sierra Highway
Sierra Highway or El Camino Sierra is a road in Southern California, United States. El Camino Sierra refers to the full length of a trail formed in the 19th century, rebuilt as highways in the early 20th century, that ran from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe following parts of modern State Route 14, U.S. Route 395 and State Route 89. Two portions of this road are currently signed as Sierra Highway. The first is an old alignment of SR 14/U.S. Route 6 from Los Angeles to Mojave. This road is also signed with the unusual designation of State Route 14U through the city of Santa Clarita. The second part signed as Sierra Highway is a portion of US 395 in Bishop.
U.S. Route 80 in California
Meanwhile, construction continued on the western part of the US 80 freeway. On August 27, 1951, the final link in the new freeway between Point Loma and La Mesa was dedicated. The next year, planning continued for the possibility of a freeway bypass of El Cajon that would connect to the existing US 80 freeway. However, many El Cajon Boulevard motel owners raised objections over the reassigning of the US 80 designation to the new freeway, as it would potentially harm business. In response, the Highway Development Association proposed designating El Cajon Boulevard as a business route. But in order to obtain funding for the construction, the new route would have to be added to the state highway system by the California State Legislature, or be designated as US 80. Later, a Freeway 80 Association was formed to encourage public support for the construction of the bypass of El Cajon, and the conversion of the Alvarado Canyon and Mission Valley roads into a freeway. Following the city of San Diego council and county approval, the California State Assembly transportation committee heard complaints from citizens claiming that they had not been adequately notified about the plans for US 80 or SR 94, or given enough time to provide input.
History of California's state highway system
Several more state highways were legislated in the next decade, and the legislature passed a law creating the Department of Engineering on March 11, 1907. This new department, in addition to non-highway duties, was to maintain all state highways, including the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road. On March 22, 1909 the "State Highways Act" was passed, taking effect on December 31, 1910 after a successful vote by the people of the state in November. This law authorized the Department of Engineering to issue $18 million in bonds for a "continuous and connected state highway system" that would connect all county seats. To this end, the department created the three-member California Highway Commission on August 8, 1911 to take full charge of the construction and maintenance of this system. As with the 1896 plan by the Bureau of Highways, the Highway Commission traveled the state to determine the best routes, which ended up stretching about 3100 miles (5000 km). Construction began in mid-1912, with groundbreaking on Contract One - now part of SR 82 in San Mateo County - on August 7. Noteworthy portions of the system built by the commission included the Ridge Route in southern California and the Yolo Causeway west from Sacramento.
Because the first bond issue did not provide enough funding, the "State Highways Act of 1915" was approved by the legislature on May 20, 1915 and the voters in November 1916, taking effect on December 31. This gave the Department of Engineering an additional $12 million to complete the original system and $3 million for a further approximately 680 miles (1100 km) specified by the law. At this time, each route was assigned a number from 1 to 34; this system of labeling routes, although never marked with signs, remained until the 1964 renumbering. In 1917, the legislature gave the California Highway Commission statutory recognition, and turned over the approximately 750 miles (1200 km) of roads adopted by legislative act, until then maintained by the State Engineer, to the commission. Where not serving as extensions of existing routes, these - and routes subsequently added legislatively in 1917 and 1919 - were given numbers from 35 to 45. A third bond issue was approved by the voters at a special election on July 1, 1919, and provided $20 million more for the existing routes and the same amount for new extensions totaling about 1800 miles (2900 km), adding Routes 46 to 64 to the system. The three bond issues together totaled 5560 miles (8948 km), of which just over 40% (60% if the 1919 bond issue is left out) was completed or under construction in mid-1920.
Inland Empire
The entire landmass of Southern California was subdivided according to the San Bernardino Meridian, which was first plotted as part of the Public Land Survey System in November 1852, by Col. Henry Washington. Base Line road, a major thoroughfare, today runs from Highland to San Dimas, intermittently along the absolute baseline coordinates plotted by Col. Washington. San Bernardino County was first formed out of parts of Los Angeles County on April 26, 1853. While the partition once included what is today most of Riverside County, the region is not as monolithic as it may sound. Rivalries between Colton, Redlands, Riverside and San Bernardino over the location of the county seat in the 1890s caused each of them to form their own civic communities, each with their own newspapers. On August 14, 1893, the state Senate allowed Riverside County to form out of land previously in San Bernardino and San Diego counties, after rejecting a bill for Pomona to split from L.A. County and become the seat of what would have been called San Antonio County.
The arrival of rail and the importation of navel and Valencia orange trees in the 1870s touched off explosive growth, with the area quickly becoming a major center for citrus production. This agricultural boom continued with the arrival of water from the Colorado River and the rapid growth of Los Angeles in the early twentieth century, with dairy farming becoming another staple industry. In 1926, Route 66 (now known as Foothill Boulevard and Interstate 215) came through the northern parts of the area, bringing a stream of tourists and migrants to the region. Still, the region endured as the key part of the Southern California "citrus belt" until the end of World War II, when a new generation of real-estate developers bulldozed acres of agricultural land to build suburbs. The precursor to the San Bernardino Freeway, the Ramona Expressway, was built in 1944, and further development of the freeway system in the area facilitated the expansion of suburbs and human migration throughout the Inland Empire and Southern California.
California State Route 160
The part of SR 160 through and north of downtown Sacramento began as part of Legislative Route 3, which was added to the state highway system under the first bond issue, passed in 1910, and left the city on the 16th Street Bridge over the American River, following Del Paso Boulevard, El Camino Avenue, and Auburn Boulevard to Roseville. (The short piece from the end of Route 3 near the State Capitol south to Broadway and Freeport Boulevard was Route 4, which followed SR 99 towards Los Angeles.) Route 3 between Sacramento and Roseville was also part of the Victory Highway, and was marked as part of US 40 in 1928 and US 99E in 1929. The North Sacramento Freeway opened on October 6, 1947, bypassing this route from the bridge to Auburn Boulevard near Ben Ali. In 1955, the Elvas Freeway opened from the midpoint of the North Sacramento Freeway to the east side of downtown, and US 99E was moved off the south half of the older North Sacramento Freeway and onto the Elvas Freeway. The North Sacramento Freeway was included in the California Freeway and Expressway System when it was created in 1959, and the part of Route 3 southwest of the Elvas Freeway, which carried I-80, became part of SR 160 in the 1964 renumbering.
San Bernardino Mountains
During the early 20th century, the roads that serviced the San Bernardino Mountains were steep and narrow, and conflicts occurred between those who believed that the automobile could provide fast and cheap transportation up the steep grades of the mountains, and those who worried that cars were dangerous and would cause accidents with the stagecoaches then in use. In 1908, W.C. Vaughan drove up the Waterman Canyon road to Lake Arrowhead in protest of county restrictions, with police in hot pursuit. In spite of a total ban on automobiles imposed by the county the following year, Jack Heyser took a car down the narrow stage roads around modern-day Crestline in 1910, proving that the mountains could be safely serviced by automobiles.
By 1911, cars had largely replaced horse-drawn carts as the primary mode of transport in the mountains, and new toll roads were constructed through the range to service them. Among the first were roads through Cajon Pass, City Creek Canyon (SR 330), and Mill Creek and Santa Ana Canyons (SR 38). The largest and most famous road through the San Bernardinos – California State Route 18, more popularly known as the Rim of the World Highway for as it winds through the mountains – was dedicated on July 18, 1915. Traveling from Crestline through Big Bear City and north into the Mojave Desert, the Rim of the World Highway is one of the most spectacular roads in Southern California, affording motorists wide views of the San Bernardino Valley, Santa Ana Canyon, and Big Bear Lake.
Transportation in California
The state's freeway network has expanded ever since the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first freeway in the Western United States, connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, opened in 1940. However, the state is not immune to freeway revolts, such as those that have prevented a freeway in San Francisco between the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and an expansion of I-710 through South Pasadena.
Elmer S. Rigdon
Dr. John L. D. Roberts, who founded Seaside, California, had a strong interest in building a road along the California central coast. In 1897, he walked the entire stretch of rocky coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo in five days and mapped out the course of the future road. He photographed the land and became the first surveyor of the route. In 1915, he presented the results of his survey and photographic work to a joint session of the California legislature. Roberts initially promoted the coastal highway to allow access to a region of spectacular beauty, but failed to obtain funding. Rigdon embraced the necessity of building the road. As a member of the California Senate Committee on Roads and Highways during World War I, he promoted the military necessity of defending California's coast and persuaded the legislature to support the project. The $1.5 million bond issue was approved by voters, but construction was delayed by World War I. Federal funds were appropriated and in 1921 voters approved additional state funds.
San Gabriel Valley
The first Europeans to see inland areas of California were the members of the 1769 Portolà expedition, which traveled north by land after establishing the first Spanish settlement in today's state of California at San Diego. On July 30, the expedition crossed the San Gabriel River and continued north toward what is now the city of Los Angeles. To cross the river, the expedition built a rough bridge, which gave the name "La Puente" to today's San Gabriel Valley city, and hills to the south are called the Puente Hills. A few years later, a mission was established near the river crossing.
Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was founded by Franciscan Father Junipero Serra, first head of the Spanish missions in California, on September 8, 1771. Its original location was near where San Gabriel Boulevard now crosses the Rio Hondo, which is also near the present day Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe. Angel Somera and Pedro Cambon were the first missionary priests at the new mission, which marked the beginning of the Los Angeles region's settlement by Spaniards. The San Gabriel mission was the third of twenty-one missions that would ultimately be established along California's El Camino Real.
California State Route 52
Formal bids began in February 1969 for the first section of SR 52 between I-5 and I-805. The state ordered the construction of this section on April 28, 1969. On Thursday, May 28, 1970, the Soledad Freeway opened, connecting Regents Road and Genesee Avenue with I-5; however, it did not connect to the unopened I-805. The road was built by Kasler, Ball and Yeager for $3.9 million (about $ in dollars). The construction firm deposited dirt into "an unnamed finger canyon" against the conditions of the city permit, and the city ordered the firm to remove it. The section of I-805 from SR 52 to El Cajon Boulevard was scheduled to be dedicated on March 20, 1972.
State highways in California
One cultural difference between Northern and Southern Californians is that the latter tend to put "the" before highway numbers (e.g. "taking "the" 5 to L.A."), while the former use the number alone (e.g. "taking 80 to San Francisco") or less frequently, with "I-" in the case of interstate freeways. When the Southern California freeway system was built in the 1940s and early 1950s, local common usage was primarily the freeway name preceded by the definite article, such as "the Hollywood Freeway". It took several decades for Southern California locals to start to commonly refer to the freeways with the numerical designations, but usage of the definite article persisted. For example, it evolved to "the 605 Freeway" and then shortened to "the 605". This did not occur in Northern California, where usage of the route numbers was more common.
Transportation in Los Angeles
There are a dozen major freeways that crisscross the region. California's first freeway was the California State Route 110, also known as the Pasadena Freeway or the Arroyo Seco Parkway. It opened on January 1, 1940 and links downtown Los Angeles to downtown Pasadena. From Chavez Ravine north to Pasadena can be quite dangerous because there is no shoulder, the lanes are narrow, the turns are sharp (and not always properly banked), and the ramps are quite short and offer little room for acceleration to freeway speed; all of this is because the freeway was designed for much slower cars of a different era and much less traffic volume than exists today. Commercial vehicles over are prohibited from using this freeway. More recent freeways are straighter, wider, and allow for higher speeds.
Cooke's Wagon Road
Cooke's Wagon Road or Cooke's Road was the first wagon road between the Rio Grande and the Colorado River to San Diego, through the Mexican provinces of Nuevo México, Chihuahua, Sonora and Alta California, established by Philip St. George Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, from October 19, 1846 to January 29, 1847 during the Mexican–American War. It became the first of the wagon routes between New Mexico and California that with subsequent modifications before and during the California Gold Rush eventually became known as the Southern Trail or Southern Emigrant Trail.
Red Pass
From 1847, the Old Spanish Trail became a wagon road, later called the Mormon Road pioneered by a party of Mormons led by Jefferson Hunt in 1847. From 1849 it became known by the Forty-Niners as the "Southern Route", of the California Trail, the winter route of the Forty-niners and later American immigrants to California. From 1855 after the route was modified and improvements made by the State of California and the Federal government, the winter trade route and freight wagon road between Utah and California, it was known as the Los Angeles - Salt Lake Road.
Great Sierra Wagon Road
The Great Sierra Wagon Road was a route through the Sierra Nevada in California, built to bring supplies to the Great Sierra Mine on Tioga Hill in the high country of what was to become Yosemite National Park. The road was built in 1882 by the Great Sierra Silver Mining Company, extending over , in 130 days. The mine promptly shut down, leaving the road without a purpose. In 1915 the road was purchased by Stephen T. Mather, the independently wealthy first director of the National Park Service, who donated it to the Park Service. The Park Service opened the road to the public, calling it the Tioga Road. Designated California State Route 120, the road traverses the park from its west to east entrances.
James Budd
During his governorship, Budd pushed legislation through the California State Legislature in 1895 to create the Bureau of Highways, an agency to construct and manage maintenance to the state's growing road network. The Bureau of Highways would later evolve into the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The following year, Budd authorized the purchase of the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road, making it the first state highway.
Agoura Hills, California
The area was first settled by the Chumash Native Americans around 10,000 years ago. As the Alta California (Upper California) coast was settled by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the late 18th century, the El Camino Real (the Royal Road or King's Highway), a road from Loreto, Baja California, Mexico to Sonoma, California, and connecting the Spanish missions in California, was established through the heart of what would later be known as Agoura Hills.
California State Route 67
The route has existed as a railroad corridor since the turn of the 20th century. A highway known as the Julian road was built by 1913, and was designated as Legislative Route 198 in the state highway system by 1935. Route 198 was renumbered SR 67 in the 1964 state highway renumbering. A freeway south of Lakeside was built in the late 1960s, and opened to traffic in 1970. Since then, the portion of the highway north of Lakeside has become known for a high number of traffic accidents and related fatalities. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has made several attempts to remedy the problem and make the road safer.
Southern California freeways
The Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) was fully opened on January 5, 1966 and is heavily used by many Southern Californian residents as it is a major east-west highway that extends through much of Los Angeles and California. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, the construction of the Santa Monica Freeway was an immense modern project for urban renewal as it would be the start to connect the nation with superhighways, funded as a statewide and national effort. This plan, like most freeway proposals, would displace countless residents and disrupt local communities. One major route that was originally named the Olympic Freeway would extend between the East Los Angeles Interchange and the Pacific Coast Highway. The mapping of the Santa Monica Freeway was planned to be constructed across densely populated communities as the state would purchase any amount of property to construct this freeway. Community members, homeowner groups, and countless churches that would be displaced with construction began to organize and protest. They focused mainly to denounce the 6.6-mile area of the freeway that would extend west of La Cienega Boulevard. Public hearings were made to speak of the proposed freeway route and the concerns of many. A general agreement of the freeway was that it was needed in Los Angeles to connect the downtown area to the coast. The plan to construct the freeway proceeded, but it was revised to save 47 homes. This change did little to benefit new neighborhoods, who also opposed the plan but were ultimately ignored by freeway planners. Many people were displaced but after many years of slow construction progress, the local protests ended.
U.S. Route 50 in California
With the passage of the first state highway bond issue in 1910, the Department of Engineering was directed to lay out and construct a system connecting all county seats. Placerville, seat of El Dorado County, was connected to Sacramento by the Route 11, which followed Folsom Boulevard from Sacramento to Folsom, Bidwell Street and Placerville Road to White Rock, the old Carson Route to El Dorado, and Forni Road and Placerville Drive to Placerville. Between El Dorado and Placerville, the state had two routes to choose from, including one via Diamond Springs (present SR 49), where it decided improving a cut would be too expensive. Instead, it chose the "O'Keefe grade" (Forni Road), following the old road for about 4 miles (6 km) and then building a cutoff (now part of Placerville Drive) to the Green Valley road. In 1917 the mileage that had been added by special laws, rather than as part of bond issues, was consolidated with the rest of the system, and Route 11 was extended east to the state line. (The route was extended farther, from Sacramento southwest to Antioch via present SR 160, in 1933.) The third bond issue, passed in 1919, included funds for the improvement of 10 miles (16 km) from Placerville east to Sportsman's Hall, by which time paving was complete west of Placerville.
The Lincoln Highway, one of the earliest marked highways across the country, split in two over the Sierra Nevada. The main route followed the present I-80 alignment over Donner Pass, but an alternate "Pioneer Branch", designated as part of the initial routing in 1913, turned south at Reno, Nevada to Carson City and then crossed the Sierras via Johnson Pass and the Placerville route. Contrary to the Lincoln Highway Association's policy of marking the most direct route, this deviation was explained simply as "for those tourists desiring to see Lake Tahoe". However, it actually became shorter in 1921, when the Fallon Cut-off opened from Carson City directly east to the main route near Fallon, bypassing Reno. The U.S. Highway system was created in 1926, and this route (along with the main Lincoln Highway east of the cutoff) became part of U.S. Route 50. (The Donner Pass route was U.S. Route 40, crossing Nevada on the Victory Highway.) US 50 initially ended in Sacramento, where motorists could follow US 40 (Victory Highway) southwest to the San Francisco Bay Area or turn south over US 99 to Stockton and take US 48 (Lincoln Highway) west over Altamont Pass. Originally, US 48 was a road connecting the San Francisco Bay area with the San Joaquin Valley, traveling from San Jose to near Modesto, largely following the future routing of US 50, which replaced US 48. Its western terminus was located near the present location of the Interstate 238/Interstate 880 interchange. It generally followed the route of current Interstate 580 to the Interstate 205 junction. From here, US 48 continued east on Interstate 205, then followed Old Highway 50 (present I-205 Bus.) through Tracy, thence to Interstate 5. It then followed Interstate 5 to SR 120, where US 48 followed SR 120 to the old location of the SR 99/SR 120 interchange (present day intersection of Main and Yosemite in Manteca), the location of its eastern terminus.
California State Route 57
Then, in 1957, the northernmost part of present SR 57 was added to the state highway system as part of Route 240, which the legislature designated along the route planned for I-210. This became part of the proposed Temescal Freeway, later the Corona Freeway; a southerly extension of the Orange Freeway to Legislative Route 60 (SR 1) near Huntington Beach was added in 1959 as Route 273. Also in 1959, the legislature created Route 272, extending the line of the Orange Freeway north from the Pomona Freeway to the Temescal Freeway, completing the proposed freeway corridor that is now SR 57. When the entire route, except Route 240 which was still part of I-210, was redesignated SR 57 in the 1964 renumbering, none of these proposed freeways had been built; the only constructed segment was the old surface road from Fullerton towards Pomona. The part of old Route 19 east of Route 272 became part of SR 60. As part of the same renumbering, Route 180 on State College Boulevard became Route 250, which was amended the next year to provide for its deletion once that portion of the SR 57 freeway was completed (between I-5 and SR 91).
A groundbreaking ceremony was held in Placentia on January 30, 1967, to begin construction of the Orange Freeway. The first portion was dedicated on May 16, 1969, and opened soon after, extending north from the Riverside Freeway (SR 91) to Nutwood Avenue in Fullerton. Over the next few years, the freeway was completed from SR 91 north to I-10, and I-210 was built north to the present end of SR 57; the Pomona Freeway (SR 60), which overlaps it through Diamond Bar, was constructed at the same time. The last pieces of that portion were the freeway through Brea Canyon, which opened March 13, 1972, and the four-level Kellogg Hill Interchange at I-10, which was dedicated May 1, 1972, and opened soon thereafter. Finally, the Orange Freeway was extended south from SR 91 to I-5 in the mid-1970s, allowing Route 250 to be turned back to local governments, though the subsequent deletion from the Streets and Highways Code did not take place until 1981. With the extension of SR 210 around San Bernardino in 1998, the former easternmost piece of I-210 to the Kellogg Hill Interchange instead became a northerly extension of SR 57, though it remains officially part of the Interstate Highway System.
Mountain House, Alameda County, California
In 1915 the county road, passing in front of Mountain House, became the Lincoln Highway, America's first to-coast paved road.
U.S. Highway association
In 1912, the Lincoln Highway Association was created to establish the Lincoln Highway, a road between New York City and San Francisco championed by bicycle and auto parts and racing tycoon Carl Graham Fisher. Three years later, in 1915, the Old Spanish Trail Association was founded in Mobile, Alabama, to develop the southernmost national highway from St. Augustine, Florida, to San Diego, California. Subscriptions from individual cities and towns on the proposed route, along with individual memberships and donations from corporations, provided funds for the groups. Actual maintenance and construction of the roads remained the responsibility of the individual states.
Custer County, Oklahoma
Five years later, in 1858, Lt. Edward F. Beale was instructed by the Secretary of War John B. Floyd to improve an already existing road system from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The purpose was to create one major road to follow than the many routes that were being used. Beale was also instructed to locate bridge sites where Iron bridges would be built to ease the problem of creek and river crossings. As a result 6 Iron bridges were constructed in Eastern Oklahoma during the years 1859-1860. When Beale's construction crew entered the southeast corner of Custer County, they followed the same route the 49ers had in 1849. When he came to creeks that needed bridging, temporary wooden bridges were constructed across 7 creeks before leaving the county. These bridges were supposed to be replaced by Iron bridges, however Congress did not allocate enough money to have this come to pass. Total construction time for this road was 1857-1860 and the U.S. Government spent $210,000.00 to build this road from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, California. Thus making this road the first federally funded interstate highway to be built in the Southwest some 66 years before the famed Route 66 highway began in 1926. So if historians have named Route 66 the Mother Road, then the Beale Wagon Road must be the Grandmother Road and Route 66 one of its children.
California State Route 94
SR 94 was built along the routing of an old stagecoach road that was part of the primary road from San Diego to Yuma, Arizona. A trip to East County in the 19th century along the road would last two days. James Pascoe surveyed the route through Campo for the county in 1869 that was shorter than the existing route through Warner's Pass. The road was known for its curves, climbs, and boulders, making travel difficult. The first automobile went on the road in 1904. By 1913, an unpaved automobile road extended to Campo from San Diego, and work took place to improve the condition of the road in 1916. A year later, the road continued east to join with the state highway leading into Imperial County. In 1927, the Potrero bridge was replaced, after a storm washed it out. By 1928, the paving of the Campo road was about 43 percent complete. In February of the next year, the progress was at 74 percent; the total cost was $122,474 (about $ in dollars). The Sweetwater bridge was finished in March at a cost of $60,000 (about $ in dollars). The Campo road was the only road through the Peninsular Ranges to stay open for the entirety of the next winter; other roads were closed due to snow, leading to increased traffic along this road. This was largely due to the lower elevation of the road, at only .
Tejon Pass
The Ridge Route was the first automobile highway linking the Central Valley with the Los Angeles Basin. It was laid in a sinuous fashion through the ridges and gullies of the Sierra Pelona Mountains to the Tejon Pass around 1910. The northern portion of this highway, which became a part of U.S. Route 99, was known as "The Grapevine." The Ridge Route was replaced by a three-lane alternate highway in 1933, a four-lane expressway in 1947, and later by the eight-lane Interstate 5 Freeway in 1970.
California State Route 99
The route from Davis to Oregon via Routes 7 and 3 came to be known as part of the Pacific Highway, an auto trail organized in 1910 to connect Canada and Mexico. The split in the Sacramento Valley was known as the East and West Side highways (the latter also carrying the Pacific Highway). South of Sacramento Route 4 was the Valley Route, but the San Joaquin Valley Tourist and Travel Association held a contest to rename it, selecting Golden State Highway as the winning entry in July 1927. To this day, "Golden State Highway" is SR 99's default name in areas not given other names by the Legislature, and the name continues from its end at Wheeler Ridge on I-5 as the Golden State Freeway from there to downtown Los Angeles.
California State Route 1
Route 56 along Big Sur was incorporated into the state highway system and re-designated as SR 1 in 1939. The section of road along the Big Sur Coast was declared the first State Scenic Highway in 1965, and in 1966 the first lady, Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, led the official designation ceremony at Bixby Creek Bridge. The route was designated as an All American Road by the US Government.
History of the San Fernando Valley
In 1769, the expedition led by explorer Gaspar de Portolà reached the Los Angeles area of California overland from Baja California. Accompanying him were two Franciscan Padres, Junípero Serra and Juan Crespí, who recorded the expedition and identified locations for a proposed network of missions, along which the royal highway ("El Camino Real") was eventually built.
U.S. Route 50 in California
When the California Freeway and Expressway System was created in 1959, it included US 50 from Sacramento to Nevada. (The Oakland-Sacramento portion was also included, mostly as part of the Interstate Highway System.) Two segments had already been upgraded to freeway or expressway standards — an expressway through Placerville, championed by its mayor Alexander Howison Murray Jr. and completed in 1955, and a freeway bypass of Camino with an expressway continuing west to Five Mile Terrace, completed in 1957. From Pollock Pines east to the bridge at Riverton, the road was widened to four lanes in about 1960. The next decade saw the improvement of every remaining two-lane section between Rancho Cordova (near Sunrise Boulevard) and Riverton, with the final section, connecting Bass Lake Road and Shingle Springs, opening in July 1970. The freeway was completed west to I-80 (now Business 80) and SR 99 in early 1973, bypassing the mostly four-lane Folsom Boulevard. US 50 was extended west along former I-80 to the new I-80 bypass in 1981, when the old I-80 became Business 80. Since Business 80 was not a valid legislative designation, the remainder became State Route 51.
California Trail
In 1855, the California Legislature passed "An Act to Construct a Wagon Road over the Sierra Nevada Mountains" and appropriated $100,005 dollars to do it. Sherman Day, a part-time California State Senator was appointed to survey the possible routes. After extensive searches, he recommended the Placerville route (Johnson's Cutoff) as the best prospect and surveyed an improved route. The California Supreme Court ruled in 1856 that the law was unconstitutional since it violated the state Constitution's allowable $300,000 debt limit without public vote. Discouraged but not defeated, road proponents got El-Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo counties to kick in $50,000 for road construction. Contracts were let and they got a new bridge across the South Fork American River ($11,300); a new sidehill road along Peavine ridge that was only to above the river and avoided the sharp ascents and descents there and extensive work on a new road up to Johnson's Summit (Echo Summit) and another less precipitous road down to Lake Valley. This was the first route over the Sierraas on which extensive, public financed, improvements were made. The new route was christened the Day Route. Winter and its attendant runoffs raised havoc with the road and in spring 1860, when the mobs were trying to get to Virginia City, Nevada and the new Comstock Lode strike, it was reported as a barely passably trail in places (April 1860). To get supplies to Virginia City, Nevada and the Comstock area after 1860, the road was extensively improved as a toll road to the mines in Virginia City, Nevada. It is now followed roughly by U.S. Highway 50.
U.S. Route 80 in California
Route 12 was added to the state highway system in 1909 from San Diego to El Centro, and Route 27 was added from El Centro to Yuma in 1915. Before a highway was constructed through the Imperial San Dunes, travelers had to pass to the north in order to reach Yuma. The first route through Imperial Valley was originally a plank road made of pieces of wood that were tied together. The road was completed by October 1912, and portions were still visible into the 2010s. The Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge across the Colorado River was open in 1915, and a new plank road was opened that year which became state-maintained in 1917, and used a foundation of wooden rails, with the planks bound together by steel, as opposed to simple planks that were fastened to rails. However, traffic congestion and dusty conditions made travel along the plank road difficult. The delay in constructing a road to San Diego caused increased development in Los Angeles and resulted in that city becoming the trade and population center of Southern California.
U.S. Route 40
The route was built on top of several older highways, most notably the National Road and the Victory Highway. The National Road was created in 1806 by an act of Congress to serve as the first federally funded highway construction project. When completed it connected Cumberland, Maryland, with Vandalia, Illinois. The Victory Highway was designated as a memorial to World War I veterans and ran from Kansas City, Missouri to San Francisco, California. Other important roads that have become part of US 40 include Zane's Trace in Ohio, Braddock Road in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Black Horse Pike in New Jersey, part of the Oregon Trail in Kansas, and the Lincoln Highway throughout most of California.
El Camino Real (California)
In 1912, California began paving a section of the historic route in San Mateo County. Construction of a two-lane concrete highway began in front of the historic Uncle Tom's Cabin, an inn in San Bruno that was built in 1849 and demolished exactly 100 years later. There was little traffic initially and children used the pavement for roller skating until traffic increased. By the late 1920s, California began the first of numerous widening projects of what later became part of U.S. Route 101.
In 1892, Anna Pitcher of Pasadena, California initiated an effort to preserve the as-yet uncommemorated route of Alta California's Camino Real, an effort adopted by the California Federation of Women's Clubs in 1902. Modern El Camino Real was one of the first state highways in California. Given the lack of standardized road signs at the time, it was decided to place distinctive bells along the route, hung on supports in the form of an high shepherd's crook, also described as "a Franciscan walking stick." The first of 450 bells were unveiled on August 15, 1906, at the Plaza Church in the Pueblo near Olvera Street in Los Angeles.
Ridge Route
The two general routes followed by the Butterfield Overland Stage and the Southern Pacific Railroad—known respectively as the Tejon Pass Route and the Tehachapi or Midway Route—were the main automobile routes between Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley around the start of the 20th century. The State Bureau of Highways recommended in 1895 that a more direct route be built to shorten this distance. A bond issue was approved in 1909 and 1910 to build a state highway system, including the Ridge Route. The new California Highway Commission was unable to raise funds in the East, but Los Angeles again contributed funds to ensure that construction would go forward.
California State Route 1
SR 1 was built piecemeal in various stages, with the first section opening in the Big Sur region in the 1930s. However, portions of the route had several names and numbers over the years as more segments opened. It was not until the 1964 state highway renumbering that the entire route was officially designated as SR 1. Although SR 1 is a popular route for its scenic beauty, frequent landslides and erosion along the coast have caused several segments to be either closed for lengthy periods for repairs, or re-routed inland.
U.S. Route 99 in California
By 1968, US 99 was completely decommissioned with the completion of I-5 in Washington and California, but the highway's phasing out actually began July 1, 1964, thanks to the passage of Collier Senate Bill No. 64 on September 20, 1963. The bill launched a major program designed to greatly simplify California's increasingly complicated highway numbering system and eliminate concurrent postings like the aforementioned US 60/US 70/US 99. The highways that replaced it are:The stretch between Wheeler Ridge and Red Bluff is signed as SR 99 which makes it California's second-longest state highway behind SR 1. However, the newly enacted "Historic U.S. Route 99" extends from Indio starting from I-10 in the Coachella Valley all the way down the Imperial Valley to Calexico on the Mexican border with Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.U.S. Route 99W was a short-lived alternate of US 99 in the Central Valley of California, running from north of Manteca via French Camp to Stockton. At the same time, from roughly 1929 to 1933, U.S. Route 99E ran to the east, having the same termini as US 99W.
California State Route 47
Plans for freeways in Los Angeles County evolved from a 1937 Automobile Club of Southern California plan, which was modified by the city's Transportation Engineering Board (TEB) in 1939. The former included a single freeway connecting Los Angeles to Long Beach, beginning at Pasadena and heading south-southwest to Lynwood, then paralleling Long Beach Boulevard to Long Beach. The TEB's plan shifted this route farther east to near the present Long Beach Freeway, while keeping the route near Long Beach Boulevard as a second freeway leaving the Ramona Parkway (San Bernardino Freeway) east of downtown and heading south near Alameda Street and Long Beach Boulevard to Long Beach. This second freeway came to be known as the Long Beach Parkway or Alamitos Parkway, and connected in north Long Beach with a Terminal Island Freeway southwest to Terminal Island. Because the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was located on the island, the U.S. Navy paid for the construction of the $14 million freeway from the island to Willow Street, including the $5.3 million Schuyler Heim Lift Bridge. Construction began in early 1946, and the completed link was dedicated on January 10, 1948, replacing the older Henry Ford Bridge.
California State Route 99
This north–south central highway became part of US 99 in 1926, as part of the new United States Numbered Highway System developed by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), though signs were not posted in California until 1928. US 99 also continued southeast from Los Angeles along a paved state highway, Route 9 and 26, to US 80 in El Centro. The paved county road south from El Centro to the Mexican border became a state highway in mid-1931, and part of US 99 in mid-1932.
In mid-1929, AASHO approved a split designation between Sacramento and Red Bluff, with US 99W replacing the original western route via Davis, and US 99E following the East Side Highway (Route 3) via Roseville. A short-lived split also existed between Manteca and Stockton in the early 1930s, with US 99E becoming the main route and US 99W becoming an extended SR 120 where not concurrent with US 50.
Antelope Hills, Oklahoma
After gold was discovered in California in 1848, the large number of people traveling west created a need for a wagon road. Captain Randolph B. Marcy was commissioned to lead a party to survey the route for such a road from Fort Smith to California. This became known as the California Road. Marcy described the Antelope Hills as, ". . . about one hundred and fifty feet high, of porous sandstone, and appear to be the result of volcanic action. They rise almost perpendicularly from the smooth prairie, are flat upon the top, and present every indication of having been raised out of the earth by volcanic agency. They are near the 100th degree of longitude, and are sometimes called the Boundary mounds, as being near the line formerly claimed by Texas as her eastern boundary."