The Redwood Highway and its Gas-Powered Visitors
Birth of the Redwood Highway
The Redwood Highway, a small part of the larger Highway 101, starts at the Golden Gate bridge and passes through the majestic Redwood forests of Humboldt County. It has not always been the lovely ride that most know of today. A century ago, in its infacy and not fully connected to those outside of the Curtain, the road was a system of wagon trails, with four main outlets in and out of Humboldt County: Two roads to the south to inner and coastal Mendocino County, A road east to Trinidad State Highway, and one headed north headed through Crescent City headed to Grant's Pass. These roads were extremely unreliable, however, as they were often at the mercy of Humboldt County weather.
The unification of the Humboldt part of the Redwood Highway came in the mid 19-teens, when local legistative bodies slowly approved contracts for grading large stretches of the highway. Paving the highway was a huge step: pre-paved time for getting from San Francisco to Eureka was 4 days versus 10 to 14 hours post-paved highway. As technology improved, trip time got slowly chipped away. Slowly but surely the Redwood Highway as it is known today came together.
Reflection on Culture in Humboldt County
Humboldt County, like most other parts of the country, boldy embraced the invention of the automobile.
This opened up a whole new industry in the Pacific Northwest. The introduction of the automobile enabled both Travel, even a few miles, was now more convinient without the limitations of a wagon.
Exposure to the world of the automobile was vital in bringing the auto culture to Humboldt County. The most popular media outlet of the day, the newspaper, seemed to take care of that. Coverage of what was happening in Detriot and Henry Ford's Model T spiked popular interest. And the county's own auto show in April 1916, one that proved to be mightly successful, enabled the new invention to spread quickly.
Car Ownership
The top photograph is of the Plaza in Arcata, taken from H Street pointing North circa 1910. The roads are unpaved, and the number of cars in the street are few and far between.
The bottom photograph is also of the Plaza and almost the same angle. Hige changes seemed to have happened in the 6 years between photographs, the most obvious being the paved roads and the increased density of cars. The organization of the street and automobiles reveal a town that had, in less than 6 years, fully embraced the automobile culture.