Hike along Cuesta Grade reveals hidden secrets of Highway 101 history
Author’s Note: Whenever I see a historical marker or an interesting structure on a road trip, I often wonder about the unknown stories behind those landmarks.
Stephen H. Provost, former Tribune journalist and Cambrian editor, explores the answers to these questions in his book, “Highway 101: The History of El Camino Real.”
It’s the second book in his nonfiction series California’s Historic Highways, which includes “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street.” You can find it on Amazon and at Craven Street Books in Fresno, or it can be ordered via Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.
In addition to nonfiction history books, he has written fantasy and paranormal novels. Learn more at his website, www.stephenhprovost.com.
Stephen graciously offered to be guest author of Photos From the Vault this week while I take time to get my second-dose COVID-19 vaccine. Here is his column.
— David Middlecamp, Tribune photographer and Photos from the Vault columnist
It might seem ironic, but in researching and taking photographs for five books on highway history, I’ve done a lot of walking. I’ve trekked to the ruins of San Francisquito Dam for my book on Highway 99, and I’ve hiked up to the top of Cumberland Gap for my latest project, “Highways of the South.”
When I was researching my book on Highway 101, I climbed out onto two abandoned viaducts along the Eel River in Mendocino County. But one of the most intriguing places I hiked was the Cuesta Grade.
The 1925 Motel Inn, originally the Milestone Mo-Tel, stands at one end, Santa Margarita just beyond the other. (The original highway passed straight through its downtown.)
As I investigated the road itself, I found out there weren’t one, or even two, but three routes through the pass, each at a different elevation, and each from a different time.
The first Old Stage Coach Road, also known as the Trail of the Padres, runs along the west side of the pass. San Luis Obispo County passed a $20,000 bond in 1876 to pay for a dirt trail capable of carrying horse-drawn wagons.
Ah Louis was contracted to build it. Today it’s a mostly dirt country road through trees, which filter dappled sunlight down on you as you pass beneath their branches.
A 1912 photograph shows seven Studebaker-EMF cars parked near the Cuesta Grade on what was known as the Pasear Tour. Organized ahead of 1915 expositions in San Diego and San Francisco to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, it was an excursion to promote better roads and to map a circular tourist route from near the Mexican border up to the Bay Area and back again.
I discovered the second roadway, at the bottom of the canyon, when I stopped at a pullout along the modern highway, U.S. 101. I was there to photograph one of the 400 stylized mission bells that started going up in 1906 to promote the historic road.
As I looked down, though, I was surprised to see a horseshoe-shaped ribbon of concrete at the bottom of the canyon. This was the original alignment of U.S. 101, constructed in 1915. Back then, highway builders didn’t dynamite their way through the mountains, they went around them. Hence, the narrow horseshoe shape hugging a hill on three sides, and the 71 total curves along that section of road when it was built.
I doubled back and headed down to investigate, and wound up hiking a modest distance along the quiet, now deserted old road before my trek came to an end at a gate. The horseshoe, unfortunately, was farther down the road, on private property.
The 1915 road only served as the primary route through the pass for 23 years. In 1926, when the federal highway system was established, it became a section of U.S. 101, and retained that designation until 1938. That’s when the modern route on the east side of the canyon was completed.
The four-lane bypass, built at a cost of $1.05 million, eliminated 59 of those 71 curves — including the horseshoe — over 3½ miles, cutting more than half an hour off the trip through the pass. A massive 122,000 cubic yards of dirt had to be moved to fill just a single 350-foot stretch of roadbed.
Those are just a few of the stories you’ll find in the history of the Cuesta Pass, a crucial north-south connection along one of California’s historic highways.