Page 10 - spike-harrington1976

The original old Pass was no doubt used by the Indians
from prehistoric times right down to the mission period.
The padres of San Fernando Mission tried, without much
success, to improve the trail so that carretas could get
over it as well as making it easier for the stock and
lessening the chances of their falling off the trail to
their death. Even Fremont and his men had difficulty in
getting over the Pass with their equipment. Memories of
the San Marcos Pass must have passed through his mind.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors finally
decided that something had to be done ·about the bottle-
neck hindering traffic into the pueblo and in 1854 award-
ed a contract to construct a new road across the San
Fernando mountains a little southwest of the old Cuesta.
The new road with its long narrow cut was opened the
next year but still proved to be very steep. It was over
this road that Edward Fitzgerald Beale brought his camel
corps on their way to Fort Tejon in 1857. It was also on
this road that the famous story of Phineas Banning driv-
ing his stagecoach down the steep grade while his pass-
engers walked it, had the misfortune of the stage turn-
ing over and over until it reached the bottom and Ban-
ning got out unhurt. The Butterfield stages came this
way until they ended service in 1861.
After the 1862 floods a toll service was put into effect
and a franchise was granted by the Legislature to Andres
Pico, C. H. Brinley and a man named Vineyard, to make
the Pass usaJble for increased traffic. But the trio did not
exercise their franchise and it was given to Beale who
was no longer Surveyor General of California and Nevada.
His franchise was finally approved in 1864 .. Banning's
stage wagons continued over the route accompanied by a
contingent of soldiers each trip. A small adobe ,house was
located at the foot of the grade in which the tollkeeper
lived.
By the time Remi Nadeau and his Cerro Gordo wagons
were bringing wealth into Los Angeles in the 1870s the
Cuesta was much traveled. Gold, silver, lead and copper
mines were scattered around the Soledad country and one
of them, the "Escondido," was owned in part by Andres
and Romulo Pico. Mines along the Kern River county
as well as other parts of the Mojave made for extra
travel.

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