Odd, Old News: No Such Thing As Impassable Roads For Fool-Proof Modern Motor Cars

Bucking Snow On Bell Springs Mountain.

Nuggets of old news are served up by David Heller, one of our local historians.

Last week’s Odd Old News comment section about early roads into Humboldt County stimulated this week’s article that captures the early journey of a truck traveling north to Eureka from San Francisco in 1916.

“Horseless carriages” had arrived in Eureka by boat around the turn of the 20th century, in the summer of 1903, H.L. Ricks’ automobile was the first to be driven up the old stage route. Because of the novelty of the automobile engine, a number of early vehicles were referred to as kinds of automobiles, there were “automobile airships” and “automobile boats”. Trucks were still in early stages of development as “commercial automobiles”. In 1914 GMC came out with its first light delivery truck, built by the Buick Motor Company on the original Model F Buick touring car chassis. The bed of the truck was 4 feet, 10 inches long, 3 feet wide, and 7 inches deep. Fitted with 30 X 4 inch pneumatic tires, the body was low, standing 39 inches above the ground for ease of loading and unloading. From a cursory study, it appears that people could order the basic Buick chassis with a base price of $1,090 and add a cab with windshield and/or the “express cargo body” as extras. The Buick one-ton shown was this early model without the extras.

As one Southern Humboldt old-timer–excuse me, venerable elder, is fond of saying, we have two seasons here… mud and dust. Muddy winter road conditions inhibited almost all auto traffic, and April marked the beginning of “automobile season”. The Buick truck was apparently the second truck to come up the stage route from the south, but was the first to come north in the deep mud, and snow season, a truer test of the truck’s capabilities. The article shows that by 1916, the yet to be named Redwood Highway was built to Longvale from the south, in the next few years it would be built up Rattlesnake Creek to Garberville. The dreaded Rattlesnake grade incline, where the wagon road went uphill from old Cummings station that had been the bane of early auto journeys, apparently didn’t faze the truck as it made its way to the Mail Ridge/Bell Springs wagon road.

The success of this Buick truck in making it through to Eureka in the winter of 1916 did not change the habits of most automobile owners who continued to travel in the “automobile season” to avoid the “mud season”.

Early Routes out of Humboldt —

Map By Lillie E. Hamm, Public Domain, With Modifications By Miles Eggleston/North Coast Journal

A crop of a late 1890’s map of Humboldt County’s different stage routes as dotted lines, and the original 1877 “Overland Route” wagon road south in red. The green line is the more direct 1893 “Mail Ridge Route” (now Dyerville Loop Road) from the confluence of the main and south forks of the Eel (Dyerville) to New Harris. The 1918 Redwood Highway, and later U.S. Highway 101 route, follows the South Fork of the Eel River. (Thanks to Ernie B. for finding this map.)

NO SUCH THING AS IMPASSABLE ROADS FOR FOOL-PROOF MODERN MOTOR CARS
Humboldt Times
March 19, 1916

Some of the recent performances of gasoline propelled vehicles would tend to prove that there was no such thing as an impassable road. All the San Francisco block books show the now famous Duncan street hill to be impassable to teams, yet after enough practice and experimenting almost all of the best known cars succeeded in getting over the top of this 50 per cent grade, but the performance of these cars is eclipsed by the record breaking trip of the Buick one-ton truck last week which succeeded in making the run from San Francisco to Eureka at a time when all authorities agreed that the roads were difficult.

One day was consumed in preparing for the mud plug and three days were required for the 300 mile trip, and according to the crew’s report the car showed no bad effects from its unusual experience, upon its arrival in Eureka last Monday morning at 11 o’clock.

The truck was in charge of Perry Graves and C. A. McGee, both of the Howard Auto Co., Pacific Coast distributors of Buick cars. This is not Grave’s first record-breaking trip between San Francisco and Eureka. Last spring he had the honor of taking the first automobile (a Buick one-ton truck) into Eureka from San Francisco; but that trip was almost a month later and only makes the trip this year seem the more remarkable. In discussing road conditions and the trip in general, McGee has the following to say: “When we left San Francisco we knew there were many difficulties ahead of us. Everyone familiar with road conditions assured us that the trip was absolutely impossible at this time, and if it had not been for our absolute faith in the Buick I am sure we would have backed out.

The first night’s stop was at Cloverdale and at 7:30 Saturday morning we were on our way to Willits over the new state Highway which is certainly a great improvement over the old ‘Blue Slide’ road. Several miles of rough road were found near Hopland and then highway the rest of the way to Willits. This was the end of good roads for many miles, and according to the natives our journey was soon to come to an end on account of impassable roads. We decided to go to Laytonville via Sherwood Instead of taking the new road via Longvale. There had been no travel over this road for several months, and it was certainly in bad shape. The Buick never faltered, however, and it took the grades and mud with the utmost ease.

Cummings, at the foot of Rattlesnake grade was the second night’s stop. Sun up Sunday morning found us on our way up the grade, and there is no questioning the fact that it is a real grade, and to add to the difficulties our Buick had to overcome, we encountered snow five miles from Bell Springs and the next ten miles was through mud and snow, in some places a couple of feet deep. We reached the summit about 10 o’clock and then began the descent to Harris and Alderpoint where the Eel River is crossed. Some very deep mud was found on this piece of road. From AIderpoint to Blocksburg the roads were in better shape, but lots of mud was encountered between Blocksburg and Bridgeville where the third night’s stop was made.
At Bridgeville we were told that the washed out section of the road along the Van Dusen River had been repaired and that we only had 13 more miles of bad road ahead of us. So we started on the last lap of our journey Monday morning in a very happy frame of mind.

The scenery was grand but the roads were not. There is an end to all things, however, even bad roads, and at Strong’s Station we came to a gravel road which was as good as anyone could ask for and the thirty miles into Eureka was made in fast time.

Humboldt and Sonoma counties are both working hard on their roads, and they will be in good shape this summer. Mendocino County, however, does not appear to consider good roads necessary, and for that reason motorists will not enjoy their trip through this county until the state highway is completed. Judging from what we saw of the roads it will be at least sixty days before the roads will be open to pleasure touring.

In spite of the unfavorable road conditions, the Buick truck made the 300 mile trip without the least bit of trouble of any kind, and averaged better than 12 miles to the gallon of gasoline.”

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• The Bicycle Bandit of Humboldt County
• The Hansell Ranch Orchard at Camp Grant
• Mountain Children
• More Caves of Mystery
• Sam’s Story of Snaking, Snakers, and Snakeries
• An 1884 Look at Dogholes, Lumber Loading Chutes, and the Rockport Suspension Bridge
• The Early History of the Save the Redwoods Movement
• Mammoth Beets And The Sugar Beet Industry That Never Took Root In Humboldt County
• When Empress the Elephant Came to Humboldt County