Mapping out a dream drive

Unfortunately we ourselves have never been fortunate enough to drive it, but the United States Route 101, over 800 miles in length and known as California’s longest freeway, must be a dream drive even these days, running along the Pacific Ocean on one side and the National forests on the other. But how about the same road back in 1912, when this picture was taken and when part of the 101 was made from wood?

The original caption reads: “Four Studebaker-EMF automobiles with their drivers and passengers parked on the Rincon Road wooden causeway in Ventura County on what would become US 101, just south of the Ventura-Santa Barbara County line.” When you zoom in on the picture you can make out the following words on the first car ‘See America First Pilot Tour of the Pasear by Inyo Good Road Club’. What was that about? We found the following:

The Pasear Tour was organised as part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which anticipated the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914. In 1911 the United States Congress decided the best way to celebrate this would be to hold a world’s fair, and designated San Francisco as the host city for this exposition. There was an immediate flood of inquiries from all over the country, as to how to best see California by motor car. The Inyo County Good Roads Club proposed that a statewide tourist route be mapped, called the Pasear Tour, that would “present to the tourist the sublimity of the ocean, the desolation of the desert, the grandeur of the Sierras, and the fertility of the valleys”. Maps were produced and the inaugural tour took place in 1912.

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