Half Moon Bay Memories & El Granada Observer

Commuting Coastsiders are holding their breath….but officials say it’s only temporary, a matter of hours– intermission time at Devil’s Slide.

I guess you should know that I will miss the old Devil’s Slide route. Thinking about getting stuck in traffic inside a tunnel makes me feel helplessly claustrophobic. I hope they put in skylights and picture windows!

(Photo above shows a rock slide at Devil’s Slide decades ago)

In the mid-1990s storms closed Devil’s Slide for several months. Closed the road. With my friend and neighbor, Peter Logan, we drove as close as we could get to the “Slide”, parked the car and walked the rest of the way, a thrilling experience. Then we could go no further–Peter’s photo shows the reason why:

The old San Mateo-Half Moon Bay Road led to the quaint town of Half Moon Bay. Please click to enlarge.

El Granada-Miramar

El Granada-Miramar

El Granada-Miramar

The work begins.

The last two photos focus on approximately the same area–notice that “Frank’s” Restaurant does not appear until later.

Three decades after the Ocean Shore Railroad declared bankruptcy and pulled out of the Coastside, the train’s right-of-way was paved over with a new road, eventually called Hwy 1. The paving occured in stages up and down the Coastisde, between the 1940s and 50s.

This R. Guy Smith photo could have been taken in the early 1950s–when development was taking place on “the other side of the hill” but not on the Coastside, still wide open. In this picture it seems the Ocean Shore left us little to remember it with. But if you look closely some landmarks are visible such as the old Amesport Pier (1860s, rebuilt 1916) at Miramar. That’s Pillar Point to the north.

Notice there’s no traffic? What’d they do, close the highway so the photographer, R. Guy Smith, could get the shot? Nice.

Don’t you wish THiS was the road to Half Moon Bay? It is the old Highway 92.

Photo: Spanishtown Historical Society, Johnston Street, Half Moon Bay

Is this a dangerous place for a bus stop?

The bus stops at Coronado and Plaza Alhambra in El Granada, across the street from the Wilkinson School and a couple of blocks from the El Granada school. There’s no crosswalk anywhere so if you cross the street when the big bus, with the right-of-way, is coming, headed for the bus stop, you’re in big trouble. You could run, but….

There’s another much safer bus stop a couple of blocks down the street.

Shouldn’t this bus stop be eliminated?

That’s the bus stop on the left.

I decided to type the document called “Organization of the Moss Beach Chamber of Commerce was announced today.” (February 12, 1952).
In my previous post, you can click on the original and read it, too.

This is the baby chamber of commerce of California, but its Secretary-Manager R. Guy Smith is the senior member of the Central and Northern California Chamber of Commerce Executives organization. His membership dates fromm 1925 when he was secretary of the old Coastside Civic Union which promoted the formation of Joint Highway DistrictNo. 9 which is composed of the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Cruz. It was formed for the purpose of building along the ocean that portion of State Highway No. 1 from San Francisco to Santa Cruz.

The first problem now confronting the new chamber is the permanent improvement of this popular highway at Pedro Mountain.

Earth and rock slides have interrupted traffic each winter since its first opening in 1937, fourteen years ago.

The chamber advocates two practical solutions to this problem.

The first solution would be an elevated four lane causeway across the face of Pedro Mountain at the present location. Built high enough to permit all slides of earth and rock to pass beneath it. Supporting elements would be heavy and strong enough to resist the crash force of the heaviest boulders that would be likely to strike it. Foundation of the supporting elements, or piers of the causeway would be upon solid granite rock.

The second solution would be a four lane tunnel located either at Green Canyon, or at the canyon immediately to the south. This tunnel would be about 2800 feet long and approximately 500 feet above sea level. It would shorted the present road by one mile and cost approximately $500,000,00. This is the opinion of an engineer who is thoroughly familiar with this road.

A tunnel at this point would be entirely through solid granite rock, emerging on the north side of the mountain above the stratified rock formation which is responsible for the slides that are now causing trouble.

This work would be done under the TEN YEAR COLLIER PLAN of 1947 which calls for a four lane highway along the coast from San Francisco to the junction with the San Mateo road, a distance of 30 miles.

The “new boulevard” at Montara.

I got to know the Coastside Comet Editor George E. Dunn’s son, also called George Dunn–and he was retired when I met him and he had been a newspaper man, too–and he insisted I have this photograph of Ox Mountain, because, he said, this is what that beautiful place looked like before it became a county wide refuse dump off Highway 92, a couple of miles east of the town of Half Moon Bay.

Here it is the “before” shot of Ox Mountain:

Overheard outside the El Granada post office

Locals talking, worriedly, about friends being rear-ended on Highway 1. “It’s happening all the time,” one woman said.
My boyfriend’s car was rear-ended two weeks ago at 8:15 a.m. near Miramar. Popped and broke the trunk lock and scared him– no wonder, his small car was struck by a monster SUV.

He called me and I ran down to make sure everything was okay. On the ground I found this small jagged piece of gray plastic. I picked it up only because I thought it was part of our car’s bumper or something–. I was holding the useless piece of plastic when the young man who hit my friend’s car (the kid must have been in “shock”) took the plastic from me, thanking me over and over as if it was worth a million dollars–by the way the house across the street sold in one week for $1.2 (see earlier post).

I have often dreamed of closing Highwy 1 between Princeton and Miramar, leaving the foot and bike paths–but we need access–something to work on. It seems like a good idea to close the automobile road between those two points.