How do you drive across a sand dune? On a plank road, of course. At least that's how it once happened in Southern California's Imperial County.
This is the story of one of the more ambitious undertakings in the development of roads in America.
As the automobile gained popularity in the early 19th century, so did the notion of good roads. In Southern California, the race for motorist dollars caused rivalries between San Diego and Los Angeles as each city vied for a key position along Southern California's future highway system. San Diego's city leaders feared losing this battle, as they had when the transcontinental railroad bypassed their city.
The Route Controversy
From 1912-1915, Southern California newspapers covered the divided opinions of a proposed California-Arizona road. A Los Angeles faction favored a northern route, from Yuma, Ariz., to Brawley, Calif., that branched to Los Angeles. San Diegans supported a southern route, from Yuma through the Imperial Valley to San Diego; however, the Imperial Sand Hills stood in the way.
"Colonel" Ed Fletcher, a San Diego, Calif., businessman and road builder, believed a road of planks crossing the Sand Hills was feasible. To test his theory, Fletcher sponsored a road race from San Diego to Phoenix, Ariz. A Los Angeles Examiner reporter would travel another route, from Los Angeles to Phoenix. With six horses pulling his automobile through the sandy stretch, at 19-1/2 hours Fletcher bested the reporter's time.
When California and Arizona approved a span across the Colorado River, and San Diego announced a tourist-drawing exhibition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915, Fletcher's proposal gained steam. He raised monies to purchase 13,000 planks and, with proponents, convinced the Imperial County Board of Supervisors to allocate $8,600 toward the road's construction across the Sand Hills to Yuma. With a work camp established at Gray's Well, on the Sand Hills' western edge, workers drove the first spike on February 14, 1915.
The Road to Success
It took under two months for paid and volunteer crews to haul and lay the planks. On April 5, 1915, the Yuma Examiner declared the 25-foot wide, 6- 1/2-mile plank road worthy enough for "all kinds of automobiles and rigs to travel over."
As a test, on April 12, over 100 people piled into 25 cars and left Yuma, crossing the Plank Road en route to Holtville, California. At the conclusion of the successful journey, the travelers shared a picnic of punch, ice cream and cake, provided by Holtville residents.
While the plank road solved one problem, it created several others. Through driver error and sand-slick planks, vehicles slipped off the road. When this happened, motorists hoisted their wayward vehicles back onto the road. Teams of mules and horses, stationed at intervals, hauled out the thoroughly planted. Streams of traffic took a toll on the road's surface, as did maintenance crews' constant clearing.
The road also created an etiquette issue. Tire-mounted poles indicated turnouts, and protocol gave oncoming traffic the right of way, but minimal turnouts hampered passing. Insecure or stubborn drivers who refused to budge created massive traffic jams. The media coined the term "road hog" to describe these individuals.
Despite its pitfalls, by the 1920s the Plank Road was accepted and well-traveled. The byway offered Imperial Valley residents an easier route to Yuma to purchase farming and other supplies and Yuma business people a quicker trip to California's coast.
But within months, weather, traffic and maintenance took its toll; in 1916 a second plank road replaced it. That road lasted into 1926, when the Highway Commission approved an asphalt concrete surface road atop a raised sand embankment.
The Road to Preservation
Following its abandonment, the cost to demolish or disassemble the road proved too high. Various groups and organizations requested portions and were granted permission to remove them. The remaining planks slowly disappeared beneath shifting sands, or at the hands of firewood scavengers.
In recognition of its historic early transportation technology, the State of California designated the ruins a California Historical Landmark. Today, the Bureau of Land Management oversees the visible fragments of this desert oddity.
