Approximately 160 miles east of San Diego, in the sand hills of eastern Imperial County, lie the remains of a once-vital artery that linked Southern California with Arizona. With its weathered wooden planks and rusted metal strips, the Imperial County plank road is a solemn reminder of desert travel by car in the early 1900’s. To walk along the 76-year-old road is to step back in time to an age when simpler technologies were called upon to meet the challenges of a harsh environment.
Spurred by a vision of commerce and mobility, San Diego leaders set out to make their growing city the center of a Southern California road network. Roads soon branched throughout the county, linking San Diego to other burgeoning cities. But despite its progress on a local level, San Diego still lacked a reliable and direct route to Yuma, Arizona, and points east. Adding urgency to this situation was the fact that in 1915 San Diego was scheduled to host an exhibition in Balboa Park celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal. Since the event was expected to draw thousands of visitors from around the country, the east-west route through the desert now became even more important. A dependable means had to be found for visitors to cross the sand dunes of Imperial County before the exhibition opened.
Local businessman and road builder, Ed Fletcher, saw a way to construct a road through the harsh dune environment. His idea was to lay two parallel wooden tracks, each wide enough for a car wheel, directly on the sand. Money was raised to purchase, ship and assemble 13,000 thick planks for the construction of this wooden road.
On February 14, 1915, the first planks were laid. By April 4, 1915, paid workers and volunteers had finished their work, having laid down two parallel tracks-each of which was 25 inches wide-spiked to wooden crosspieces. This wooden path covered six and a half miles of shifting sand east of Gray’s Well. In mid-April, a caravan of 25 cars with more than 100 riders traveled the length of the Plank Road. It was an instant success. But soon the planks became splintered under the weight of passing cars and mule-drawn scrapers, which was used to clear the road of drifting sand. Although the road had served its purpose, motorists had demonstrated the need for a good road. Thus, in June 1915, the California State Highway Commission assumed responsibility for the road and made it part of a network linking Southern California with Arizona.
Under the Highway Commission, a new plank road was built in 1916. Engineers replaced the thin parallel tracks with a solid plank roadway eight feet wide. Double-width turnouts were also constructed every 1,000 feet. Much of the road was pre-assembled at the nearby railroad town of Ogilby Station, and sections were carried by wagon to the road site. Although the new road was much easier to travel, its upkeep remained difficult. To keep the road in use as much as possible, a permanent maintenance force was stationed near Gray’s Well. For 10 years these crews worked constantly to keep the road cleared. Still, despite their efforts, the harsh winds that blew across the desert floor made the road impassable nearly one-third of the time.
While the plank road was an adventure for those who drove it, it was also a trial. Yielding the right-of-way tested motorists’ patience. Traffic jams in the middle of the desert was not uncommon. Motorists were suppose to use the turnouts so that the opposing traffic could pass, but sometimes-whether out of stubbornness’ or fear of backing up and perhaps running off the road-cars became gridlock. On one such occasion, a caravan of 20 cars met up with a lone motorist heading in the opposite direction. When the lone driver refused to back up to a turnout, the men lifted the car onto the sand while the women moved the caravan forward. The car was then lifted back onto the road after all 20 cars had passed.
But the Plank Road’s days were numbered simply because problems with maintenance and traffic flow. Highway engineers began to study how to attach a traversal surface to an ever-changing roadbed. They monitored sand-dune movement and tested various road surfaces. It was determined that an asphaltic concrete surface constructed on top of built-up sand would be the best solution. And so it was that a new 20-foot-wide road was officially opened on August 12, 1926.
Today all that remains of the Plank Road is a small section that the State of California has designated a historic landmark. The remnant is located approximately 160 mile east of San Diego off Interstate 8 at Gray’s Well road.
