Taking a Ride Down County’s Memory Lane

Today we bring you a glance in the rearview mirror of Orange County.

Usually we try to share some insights and news about the road ahead, but this week, as another Southern California summer comes to a close, we find ourselves a little sun-weary and nostalgic. So sit back, pour yourself a Labor Day lemonade and join us in the good old days.

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GROUNDBREAKING GRIDLOCK: One of our favorite local freeway moments happened the first time drivers were trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Orange Freeway, back on May 16, 1969--nine full days before the freeway even opened.

It seems that two women driving in separate cars on Nutwood Avenue in Fullerton each saw a group of cars cruising up the onramp to the Orange Freeway. Both drivers assumed this meant that, after two years of construction, the freeway was open for business. They were wrong.

The two drivers merged with the flow of cars, but, in a matter of moments, they found themselves hemmed in when all the cars around them abruptly stopped and parked, filling all four lanes. The bewildered drivers found themselves in the middle of the freeway’s dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremonies and, as politicians, reporters and engineers strolled several hundred yards to a stage, they were told by shrugging parking officials that they would just have to wait.

The ceremony, featuring a senator, winners from seven beauty pageants and the Valencia High School band, dragged on, according to the account by Times reporter Howard Seelye. “As the two women fumed they resigned themselves to a long wait. . . . And they didn’t even attend the ceremonies,” he wrote. After the festivities, according to Seelye’s account, “automobile engines came alive and the two women were obliged to join a caravan touring the two-mile freeway stretch until the first offramp provided them a means of escape.” Not surprisingly, the women declined to give Seelye their names.

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A TRICKY ROUTE: Some local freeway history tells the tale of what could have been. For example, take this story from the July 1, 1969, edition of The Times: “Orange County’s newest freeway is expected to be named for President Nixon. But the president will be out of office before it’s built.” And how. Funding fell through for that eight-lane, 38-mile freeway. So the freeway expected to bear the name of the 37th president ended up truncated and sad--much like his second term of office.

The Richard M. Nixon Freeway was supposed to stretch from north Orange County to Marina del Rey. But that plan now exists only on yellowed maps. Only two nubs on each end of the freeway were ever completed--a few miles in Marina del Rey (which was renamed the Marina Freeway in 1976, two years after Nixon resigned under fire) and the two-mile, two-lane segment of Imperial Highway in Yorba Linda, which still bears the leader’s name.

The legacy of the modest Nixon Freeway may soon be the subject of revision: While it never reached the proposed full size of eight lanes, plans are being kicked around to expand the county’s tiniest freeway to a respectable four lanes.

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SANDS OF TIME: We got in this nostalgic mood after seeing some of the 75-year-old photographs that will be included in an exhibit on the development and culture of Pacific Coast Highway, that coastal artery that winds through both the region’s gritty industrial areas and some of its most scenic seaside settings. If you get a chance, drop by the Fullerton Museum Center to check out “Coast Road: 1900-1950,” which pulls together images and items from the piers, beaches and cities that began to thrive along PCH as the automobile became part of California lifestyle.

“The beaches weren’t always accessible places, but when the car arrived, people needed destinations,” curator Lynn LaBate explained. “They had a car and time to go, so they needed places to go.”

The exhibit, assembled by the Automobile Club of Southern California, includes vintage surfboards, fascinating ink-on-vellum maps, a 1940s Harley-Davidson motorcycle and old postcards. The photos include snapshots of Balboa, Huntington, Laguna and Newport beaches.

The exhibit starts Saturday and runs through the end of the year. The Fullerton Museum Center is at 301 N. Pomona Ave., just east of Harbor Boulevard in downtown Fullerton. Admission is $3, $2 for students, and children younger than 12 are free. If you go on Thursday, you get a discounted fee of just $1. For more information, call (714) 738-6545.

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HIGHWAY ROBBERY: Horseplay helped usher in a pivotal moment in Orange County’s freeway history. It was late 1968 and the final segment of the San Diego Freeway--from MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine down to the El Toro Y--was dedicated and ready to open. Organizers, perhaps sensing the years of road rage and commuter frustration destined for that stretch of freeway, decided the best way to commemorate the moment was with gunfire. As a gaggle of politicians and VIPs looked on, an 1885 Wells Fargo overland stage rumbled up the brand-new Jamboree Road onramp only to be confronted by two bandits, who were actually horsemen from nearby Irvine Ranch.

The mock holdup was enacted near the spot where, in 1888, Los Angeles County Sheriff James Barton and three deputies were gunned down by the infamous Juan Flores and his band of robbers, who then fled into Modjeska Canyon. The eventual capture and public execution strained race relations for years, according to historian Pamela Hallan-Gibson’s book “The Golden Promise.”

After the sensitive tribute to the sad chapter in local history, a top highway official spoke and quickly brought the event back to the importance of the freeway project. In a moment of stunning clarity, he pointed out that the day was “a momentous occasion because the San Diego Freeway finally gets to San Diego.”

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ON THE WAGON: One of the graphic artists in our office points out that your humble Roads Scholar is not the first Times columnist devoted to sharing tales from the road. Back on Sept. 14, 1882, a new column titled “On the Road” debuted in these pages, featuring the homespun dispatches of reporter Jessie Yarnell as he rode via horse and buggy around the San Fernando Valley. Hmm. A long horse ride in the Valley? In September? Perhaps they weren’t the good old days after all.

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The Roads Scholar wants to hear your insights, stories and questions about traffic, the commuting experience and Orange County transportation issues.

You can call him at (714) 966-5724, send e-mail to geoff.boucher@latimes.com or mail letters to him at The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Please include your full name, hometown and phone number.