I’ll begin vaguely, the past is so very clouded, the earliest migrants followed the trails from spring to spring, on what are now I-40 and I-10, more or less, until they came down Cajon Pass or Banning Pass, into Sunny SoCal. Railways came next, following the same routes, and with them came roads for maintenance, living quarters and eventually towns like Essex, Ludlow and Newberry Springs. 

Newberry Springs

Essex

 So Cal was not much outside of LA, the road system followed the old Indian trails, and a trip of 30 miles to the Beach took a full day for example, it wasn’t so great, traveling through the hills on a hot Summer day, but they did, my MIL was one of them, as a kid.The thriving agricultural towns to the east and south caught the eye of a certain local Magnate, and saw a need.

Henry Huntington

 From Wiki, “In 1898, in friendly competition with his uncle’s Southern Pacific, Huntington bought the narrow gauge city-oriented Los Angeles Railway (LARy), known as the ‘Yellow Car’ system. In 1901,        Huntington formed the sprawling interurban, standard gauge Pacific Electric Railway (the PE), known as the ‘Red Car’ system, centered at 6th and Main Streets in Los Angeles. Huntington succeeded in this competition by providing passenger friendly streetcars on 24/7 schedules, which the railroads could not match. 

 This was facilitated by the boom in Southern California land development, where housing was built in places such as Orange County’s Huntington Beach, a Huntington-sponsored development, and streetcars served passenger needs that the railroads had not considered. Connectivity to Downtown Los Angeles made such suburbs feasible.”

Behold!

Older cars

 

 The man had clout, and a vision, he opened up So Cal like never before, and the World is better for it, or was… Before the Great Car Revolution, people needed efficient Transportation, HH filled the need, my Mom could go from Long Beach to  Huntington Beach, and back, (yes, that Huntington) for 50 cents,

PE, early 50’s

What a cool thing in the ‘50s. You could leave LA in the morning, pick oranges or apples, in Riverside and Redlands, and be home in time for Supper, no wonder people flocked here.

The Mother Road

 Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926, although it took a year to get the signage up, it was a group of roads that kind of interconnected, but it got better over the years, and many an Okie took it from east to west, all 4 four of my Grandparents used it to get to Cali, for example. Again, down the Cajon Pass a road led to the promised land.

Cars

 Before Ike’s Interstate Highways, there were Freeways, not Tollways, but Free,ways,

cutting through the arroyos and canyons in the 50’s, this was the future, and the death of PE. After the Fed started the Highway system, rail travel was doomed in the Southwest, too spread out to be viable, cars being what cars are, people left the train system altogether.

El Camino Real

 And the 101 and rte1, and Pacific coast highway, got all that? If you pay attention, and follow the maps, you can drive the same path that Junipero Serra did when he established the California Missions, from San Diego to San Francisco, I confess I haven’t driven past Santa Barbara on the the trip, but what a taste of SoCal!.

Freeways

Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan basically went nuts building, the system, and work continues to this day, no matter how many lanes they add, it will never be enough.

Normal traffic

 Still the most efficient, well designed road system ever devised, with limited traffic, 75 80 mph is easy,

  With traffic, it’s a nightmare, but moving 12 million people with less than 10 accidents a day? Humans are pretty smart after all. It wasn’t always this way, growing up there were Ends to freeways, unfinished sections that required detours, unheard of now, SoCal is just one giant Freeway, surrounded by houses. 

I left, too much turmoil, but that doesn’t mean the History isn’t anything less than cool!

  • Thanks to Toxteth for the idea
  • Don’t get me started on William Mulholland
  • A link to some great photos, https://www.pacificelectric.org/