The cavalcade left downtown Santa Cruz precisely at noon on May Day 1868. The wagon of the Cornet Band led the way, rousing the citizens in carriages and on horseback with a variety of patriotic strains and lively airs. The celebration marked the opening of the San Lorenzo Road, forerunner of Highway 9.
The editor of the Sentinel liked what he saw. “Of the road we would remark in conclusion that it is one of the best mountain roads we ever traveled….The grade is easy and secure, so that a buggy or other team can easily trot the whole distance, either up or down. The scenery is grand, and the route will always be an object of interest to visitors, and pleasure seekers.”
After a two-hour drive over the 6 ½ mile road, the procession arrived at the schoolhouse at the Zayante Rancho. Tables were “covered with everything to tempt the appetite either in the eating or drinking line. Orders were given first for the ladies to fall in, and so they did.”
Local lagers and wines were enjoyed in abundance before the dignitaries addressed the crowd. The master of ceremonies, John Stanly, nephew of the owner of the Zayante Rancho, called for “three cheers for the San Lorenzo Road,” which “were given with a vim and a tiger.”
Stanly spoke of the challenges surmounted by the road builders. “So difficult was the job,” he recalled, “that the axmen, in many places had to swing themselves from bush to limb to make headway through the dense forest and along the steep hill-sides.”
Two contractors had given the work up in despair. New road gangs took over, but the $4,000 allocated to the project ran out before they could finish.
Realizing that development of their property depended on the road, which was several thousand dollars short of completion, the Stanlys had sold prime locations on the Zayante Rancho to “saw-mill men.”
There was also a buyer for the Big Trees–a popular grove of spectacular redwoods that is today’s popular Redwood Grove at Henry Cowell Park. Joseph Welch and his wife had decided to protect that bit of old-growth forest from the loggers and paid $8,750 for the right to do so. Finally there would be enough cash on hand to finish the job. The Zayante Rancho at the time covered a large area, roughly between Glen Arbor and the Toll House on Highway 9 and up Zayante Road toward Olympia.
Stanly proposed a toast to the ladies and called on the band for dance music. Within weeks, his uncle Edward announced that lots in the new town of Felton were for sale.
The road’s first winter was a wet one. In early January, the Sentinel noted that a section near Felton was “impassable for a considerable distance.” Two weeks later, the paper mentioned that “in one or two places between here and Felton, it has slid into the river.”
The most intense storm of the season hit in mid-February, 1869. Improvements suffered from contact with flooded streams and the San Lorenzo Road “caved in badly.”
Felton was “cut off from the world,” until April.
