Carina Monica Montoya - Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Carina Monica Montoya

All rights reserved

Front cover, top left: Pacific Coast Highway traffic at sunset. Courtesy of EGDs portfolio, 5707669; top right: Aerial view of Santa Monica Bay. Copyright Department of Transportation; bottom left: Winding Pacific Coast Highway near Pacific Palisades. Copyright California Department of Transportation; bottom right: Surfer walking with surfboard by palm trees. Courtesy of Carol Highsmith Archive/Library of Congress.

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.106.3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montoya, Carina Monica.

Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County / Carina Monica Montoya.

pages cm

Summary: A historic tour on Pacific Coast Highway north-to-south from Malibu to Long Beach-- Provided by publisher.

Summary: Explore the history of Californias Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County, and discover the important role the route played in the development of Southern California-- Provided by publisher.

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-020-7 (paperback)

1. Los Angeles County (Calif.)--Tours. 2. Pacific Coast Highway--Tours. 3. Los Angeles County (Calif.)--History, Local. 4. California, Southern--History, Local. 5. Automobile travel--California--Los Angeles County--Guidebooks. I. Title.

F868.L8M68 2014

979.493--dc23

2013050154

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Contents

Foreword

The Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) is one of the most widely recognized and storied drives in the world. It includes the communities of Long Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu, longtime magnets for millions coming to seek the magical interface between land and water, and reaches from the urban city to the rural region that hugs the rugged western reach of the coastline. Its not always been easy to build and maintain a roadway along this dynamic, ever-changing location. Time, tides, fires, storms, landslides and earthquakes all conspire to sever the tenuous ribbon of asphalt and concrete that links large cities and remote communities and serves many thousands of travelers, residents, tourists and businesses on a daily basis. In Malibu, the friable cliffs are composed of sedimentary rock laid down under an ancient sea and subsequently crushed, folded and uplifted over a period of millions of years. The steep hillsides easily erode, dropping rock and sand (and the occasional large boulder) onto the highway, necessitating a quick cleanup or months of nail-biting, steering wheelpounding detours while engineers devise strategies to obviate the obstruction. Sometimes a massive retaining wall, complete with steel tendons driven deep into the earth and grouted into place, is the only engineering solution available to maintain a safe and traversable roadway. Soil conditions can vary from location to location, requiring specialized treatment during construction to avoid settlement and cracking of the pavement. The marine environment, which includes salty sea air, sun, rain and fog, can damage and deteriorate steel signs, culverts, structures and guardrails, requiring regular maintenance and periodic replacement to ensure the traveling publics safety. Bridges can take a beating, both from the steady hum of daily traffic as well as the usually placid flow of the streams and rivers they cross, which can swell into raging torrents of water during floods as the rivers rise and the tides swell to scour at the bridges columns and abutments.

But on a clear day, with a light breeze and warm temperatures, a drive on PCH enjoying the magnificent Malibu coastline is one of lifes great pleasures. Its to the credit of several generations of planners, highway engineers, geologists and maintenance personnel that we can access and enjoy this beautiful region on a regular basis.

Robert C. Pavlik

Environmental Planner and Historian

California Department of Transportation

San Luis Obispo, California

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my editors at The History Press, especially Jerry Roberts, for seeing my vision of this book, and special thanks to Julia Turner, project editor, for her professional help, guidance and patience.

I am indebted to Robert C. Pavlik, environmental planner and historian of the California Department of Transportation, for his invaluable knowledge, assistance, generosity and his willingness to write the foreword to this book; Deborah Cismowski, history librarian at Caltrans Transportation Library & History Center, for her professionalism, help and assistance in providing access to hundreds of vintage photographs of Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County; and John Moss, of John Moss Photography, for his talent, skill and professional services.

Special thanks to Lou La Monte, mayor of Malibu, for his written contribution to the book; Matthew W. Roth, Auto Club historian, for generously providing me with information pertaining to the early history of Pacific Coast Highway; and the Library of Congress, for the use of the Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs collection.

My deepest appreciation goes to Dave Cole, TT POA, for his generous transportation services and hands-on involvement in the writing of this book; Lincoln Minor, the unofficial mayor of Malibu Pier, for his information about Malibus pier; Will Geers Theatricum Botanicum for its generous photograph contribution; and John Stebbins and Mikhail Kolesnikov for their fantastic photographs.

Introduction

Comprising around seventy-five miles of mainland coast in Los Angeles County, the northwest coastal area remains largely untouched. Urban developments hand has not yet encroached upon its rugged mountains that reach down to Los Angeles Countys rocky, sandy shoreline. Its picturesque coastal shoreline runs uninterrupted from Malibu to Santa Monica.

State Route 1, more commonly called Pacific Coast Highway, runs northsouth along most of the coastline. The highway ribbons through some of the most picturesque landscapes and scenic routes, which has led it to become a designated All-American Road.

California has long held the title of innovator and leader in the construction of highway routes. CA-1 was one of its early roads that opened in 1912, spanning over five hundred miles along the Pacific Coast from Mendocino County to San Juan Capistrano.

The history of the construction of the highway is interwoven in the histories of the coastal communities it serves. Built piecemeal in various stages and having several different names through the years, it wasnt until 1964 that the state designated it as Highway 1. In the early years, the coastal road was first called Roosevelt Highway, but it was later designated as Route 60, then changed to Route 3 and again redesignated as Route 101 Alternate. It also has unofficial names, such as Cabrillo Highway and Palisades Beach Road. More confusing is that portions of Pacific Coast Highway disappear, and the highway becomes Interstate 101, then in some areas a street and in other areas a boulevard. But it eventually reverts back to being Pacific Coast Highway.