Page 14 - sw_yesterdaysoflosangeles1927

In the Old STage Days

M OTORISTS who now whisk by the old Calabasas and New-

berry Park stage stations on the Coast highway on their
one-day drive to San Francisco, probably seldom pause
mentally in the exhilaration of their ride, to offer up thanks to
the motor car and highway builder. It is this popular combina-
tion that has revolutionized modern travel in the long-stretched
Golden State and contracted the day's horizons.
In the picturesque but bumpy and dusty stage days, the average
time of travel to San Francisco was between 90 and 100 hours,
with frequent stops for change of ·horses. Calabasas, 29 miles out,
was the noon halt for the "swifter" stages and the night's stop
for the slower freighters. A picture of the old Calabasas stage
station is shown above. At Newberry Park, 46 miles, where the
old hotel stands today as it did when abandoned for stage use 40
years ago, the passengers piled out for their first night's surcease
from the swaying and jolting.
However, peaceful sleep did not always come to the wearied
travelers. Bullet holes still remaining in the walls of the old bar-
room tell the stories of hectic disturbances.
When the motor car first came into touring use, the hardy
pioneers followed the same sort of road, for the most part, that
the stage bequeathed, excepting that stretch between Ventura
and Santa Barbara over Casitas Pass, as trying a collection of
curves and grades as was ever devised.
The original stage road, ousted by the Southern Pacific's
coast line, followed generally the present causeway route.