Does anyone like driving over the Cuesta Grade? At least it’s no longer ‘too steep’ for cars

Does anyone like driving over the Cuesta Grade? At least it’s no longer ‘too steep’ for cars

Recently a semi-truck driver found that Old Stage Coach Road was built for — let’s everyone say it together now — stage coaches.

GPS maps are lousy historians and sometimes bad trip advisors. Paper maps can be your friend.

At least he didn’t have the problem of a 1953 truck driver who drove all the way into town with no brakes.

So why is the automobile road on one side of the canyon and Old Stage Coach Road on the other? Road rage was a contributing factor in the current alignment of the Cuesta Grade.

OLD CUESTA ROAD–A photo from the California Division of Highways [now Caltrans] which once reported 71 hazardous curves on the highway north of San Luis Obispo. The dirt road was built to replace Stage Coach Road in 1915 and improved in 1923, the photo is from about 1922.

Back in the early 20th century, travel was making the transition from horses to chuffing internal combustion engines.

A July 10, 1908, Tribune story described dangers when horses and cars met: “Accidents caused by horses taking fright at automobiles are growing so frequent here lately as to be a serious menace to our future existence.”

In that story, a pastor and friend were between Templeton and Paso Robles in a horse-drawn buggy when a passing car startled their horse who jumped and turned, throwing them out of the buggy.

An Indiana driver immediately stopped “and hastened to tender assistance.”

One of the men had to be taken to the hospital. The auto driver left $50 to defray medical expenses and $10 to repair the buggy.

This problem was amplified on the narrow Cuesta wagon road.

When it was built in 1876 by San Luis Obispo County, it was state of the art for stage coaches, wagons and carriages.

The Board of Supervisors formally accepted the road work Nov. 13, 1876, as reported in the weekly Tribune five days later.

The contractors were named Harris, Lemon & Wing, but most of the shovel work was done by a Chinese crew provided by labor contractor Ah Louis.

The supervisors then directed the road committee to employ a man to maintain the road “at a salary not to exceed $50 per month.”

By Jan. 7, 1902, maintenance work was being done by inmates from the jail. The Board of Supervisors was considering ordering striped clothing for the chain gang.

But what had been a state-of-the-art road in 1876 was not up to the needs of the 20th century 30 years later.

According to the July 14, 1908, Tribune, the Board of Supervisors decided to reopen an old stock road on the other side of the canyon as an automobile road.

Horse teams were avoiding the city because of the danger of automobiles.

About a dozen people pose for a photo with a six-horse stagecoach outside the Ramona Hotel in San Luis Obispo on May 5, 1894. The last stagecoach over the Cuesta Grade departed as the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in town.

The March 5, 1909, San Luis Obispo Tribune talked about the dangers of mixing horses and cars on a narrow road with no guard rails and steep drops.

“During the last few years, several deaths have occurred on the Cuesta Grade wagon road as a result of teams taking fright from automobiles,” the article read. “One of these accidents was caused by a team frightening at an automobile driven by Banker Tilden of San Francisco. It resulted in one death.”

The county’s early attempt at making an automobile road got less than stellar reviews.

The editor of the Tribune at the time, Benjamin Brooks, was peeved at the ingratitude of the gasoline-driven drivers. He was a horse and buggy or railroad man.

But soon a clamor as loud as a wheezing Model T motor would push the state and federal governments to assist in building roads, and the highway over Cuesta Grade would no longer be a county road.

A photo shows northbound Highway 101 in San Luis Obispo, with the Monterey Street exit, Motel Inn and Cuesta Grade in the background, circa 1960.

The Morning Tribune carried this article on July 26, 1910, with typos corrected and paragraphs breaks added for readability.

AUTO ROAD CREATES COMMENTMachine Owners Got What They Wanted — Will Supervisors Change Grade?

Autoists coming to this city have been loud in their complaints of the road arranged for automobiles over the Cuesta Grade, and some, in returning, have gone some other way rather than attempt the steep incline when traveling north from this city.

Others leaving here for the north have been compelled to take the wagon road in order to get over the mountain.

As a result, the complaints have gone out over the state and now the Santa Cruz Sentinel has some unkind things to say about the road that was built expressly for autoists.

Before the road was rebuilt, in years gone by, it had been used for regular traffic, the stages passing over it besides the farmers traveling between this city and the other side of the mountain. It was not considered too steep in those times and many a heavy load has been hauled over it.

With the automobile, it seems to be different. The majority of the fine machines of high power are unable to get over the grade that has been made for them.

When the subject was first brought up by the Supervisors, automobile owners were called and were present when they were questioned by the board as to the grade their machines could negotiate before taking action.

The single lane concrete Cuesta Grade road on Highway 101 still survives in remnants. Much of the curving road was bypassed with the multi-lane highway replaced it.

For this reason the autoists are to blame for the road being as steep as it is.

County surveyor Parsons was called and he advocated for the widening of the present road used for regular wagon traffic, but the auto owners were determined to have a separate road and the board decided to grant their demands.

Another committee appeared at a subsequent meeting of the board and at the time the committee representing the auto owners informed the supervisors that a 17 percent grade for the half mile to the top of the hill from this side would be entirely satisfactory to them as they would be able to get over without any trouble.

They said there was a crying demand for the road.

In September 1908, a contract was let by the Supervisors to have the road built at an expense of $7,319.60, and some time afterwards, it was finished and auto owners began to travel over it, and at the same time began to complain that it was too steep.

In view of the fact that the autoists got just what they asked for they should be satisfied, and now the majority of them use the wagon road.

Snow covers the Cuesta Grade on the morning of March 19, 1991.

The taxpayers whose money paid for the new road are not using the road as they are not owners of automobiles, but they do object to the owners of machines using the wagon road.

As a result of the extra expense the board would probably have succeeded better by improving the regular road, that is out of the question now, although there is hardly one machine in forty that attempts to go over the highway.

In mentioning the interview with autoists the Santa Cruz Sentinel says:

Automobiles returning from trips to the coast report a dangerous state of affairs on the road between Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo on what is known as the San Luis grade, which should receive the attention of the authorities in that county.

At the top of the grade going down from this side the road forks and a sign has been placed at the left hand which reads “Automobile Road,” and has a hand pointing to that side.

The automobileists state that this road is so steep and rough that it is extremely dangerous to go down with a machine, as the brakes will not hold unless in the very best condition. In case anything went at all wrong, it is almost a certainty that a bad wreck could occur. Ed Gerow and Pierce Haas, the latter with several ladies in his car at the time, narrowly escaped having bad accidents while going over this piece of road.

They had to run into mud holes and against the bank in order to check up the machines, and Haas had to wait and fix up his brakes before proceeding to the bottom of the grade.

Road work on the Cuesta Grade in 2012.

W.C. MacFarlane who recently made the trip to the coast, was warned of this place and took the right hand road. He reports the latter to be in good shape and should be used by automobiles.

He says that the placing of the sign to the left-had road is a danger to all travelers.

As San Luis Obispo is taking in a good deal of money from tourists from the valley who pass that way, the least that they should do would be to place the signs along the roads so that they would not be misleading.

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