The earliest connection between Santa Cruz and San Jose was an old Native American foot trail. The first road that could be navigated by a wagon was a dirt toll road built by Charlie McKiernan, known as “Mountain Charlie” by locals, sometime around 1853. Portions of this road still exist as Mountain Charlie Road, to the west of Highway 17 and south of Summit Road.
After realignment to increase the road width; many sections of the original stage route were cut off. These sections became side streets named with variations containing Old Turnpike. Some of these now dead-end streets have retained the look of narrow stagecoach roads.
R 17 was opened in 1940, replacing several other modes of transportation, including the old Glenwood Highway from 1919 (which still exists in Glenwood), and the railroad which went all the way from Santa Cruz to San Francisco and Oakland. The railroad stopped operating in 1940 and the tunnels that it passed through were sealed soon after. Nearly all the tunnel entrances still exist, but are unusable as the tunnels themselves are collapsed. The rise in the use of automobiles made the railroads unprofitable.
The highways combination of narrow shoulders, dense traffic, sharp turns, blind curves, wandering fauna such as deer and mountain lions, and sudden changes in traffic speeds have led to driving conditions that result in a number of accidents and fatalities.
Thank you for that story. I love reading about that whole area because that was my playground and I have great memories from that era. This was in the mid 60s and there were still buildings standing from the days of the stage and then the railroad.