Why California Abandoned Highway 80

In October 1912, a San Diego businessman named Ed Fletcher had his car pulled across the Algodones Dunes by six horses to win a race against a Los Angeles newspaper reporter. That race led to the construction of California's Plank Road — seven miles of wooden planks laid across shifting sand — which led to US Route 80, the first transcontinental highway to reach the Pacific. Once known as the Broadway of America, Old Highway 80 ran 180 miles from San Diego through the Cuyamaca Mountains, past the hot springs resort at Jacumba, down the treacherous Mountain Springs Grade through In-Ko-Pah Gorge, across the Imperial Valley, and over the dunes to Arizona. Along the way, a sugar magnate built an impossible railroad through Carrizo Gorge, a real estate developer turned a desert border town into a Hollywood getaway, and an unemployed engineer carved animal sculptures into boulders during the Great Depression. Then Interstate 8 was built, bypassing every town on the old road. Jacumba's hotel burned. The railroad rusted in the gorge. The Desert View Tower kept watch over the empty valley. Today, fragments of the original 1915 Plank Road still sit in the sand a few hundred yards from the freeway, and most of abandoned Highway 80 can still be driven — if you know where to look. Sources San Diego History Center, "The Mountain Springs Grade: Conquering San Diego's Mountain Barrier to Commerce with the East" (sandiegohistory.org) Federal Highway Administration, "U.S. Route 80: The Dixie Overland Highway" (fhwa.dot.gov) GribbleNation, "The History of US Route 80 and Interstate 8 in California" and "The Algodones Dunes Old Plank Road" (gribblenation.org) San Diego Automotive Museum, "The Plank Road" (sdautomuseum.org) DesertUSA, "The Old Plank Road Crossing the Imperial Sand Dunes" (desertusa.com) AARoads, "Historic U.S. 80 California" (aaroads.com)