Ridge Route a Road Between Eras

In Southern California, a region built on the automobile’s promises of freedom and the engineer’s ingenuity, it is uniquely fitting that the latest addition to the National Register of Historic Places is a road--a 30-mile stretch of stomach-wrenching pavement linking Castaic and Gorman. The old Ridge Route, cut across the San Gabriel Mountains in 1914, connected Los Angeles to Bakersfield and cracked open the region to the rest of the state.

The Ridge Route long ago was supplanted as a transportation corridor by Interstate 5, but a trip along the narrow old road reveals a sense of history rare in a region based on the notion that newer is nicer. That sense struck Harrison Scott as he rediscovered the Ridge Route while driving with his son in 1991. More than any other person, Scott deserves credit for getting the road on the National Register.

Intrigued by the old road, Scott began making inquiries about how to preserve it. Then he agreed to track down documents and catalog every mile of the Ridge Route to help federal officials make a case for protecting the road. His research unearthed tidbits about the road that recall a time before superhighways, international fast-food conglomerates and sterile chain motels. For instance, the nine-room National Forest Inn offered 75-cent lunches. Motorists willing to camp out back were more than welcome. Cost: 50 cents.

Minus the roadside outposts, the Ridge Route today remains much as it was when motorists largely abandoned it for the wider “Ridge Route Alternate,” which later became the modern interstate. In that regard, it is unique among roadways. Of the 67,000 listings on the National Register, few are roads. In California, the Ridge Route joins only the Redwood Highway north of San Francisco.

Roads connect places. In this case, the Ridge Route also connects eras. It deserves preservation and protection as a piece of the past. A relatively recent past, yes, but one that is all too often devoured by the rush to pave over and improve all that is old. In a way, really, the Ridge Route stands as a testament to that Western urge, the desire to make the impossible passable. Scott recognized that about the Ridge Route and we are all richer for it.