Page:Big Oak Flat Road (HAER No. CA-147) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/10

 1 June to 15 August. Annual tolls collected were about $1,780, against which were set annual maintenance costs of about $350. Priest estimated the value of the road at $45,000. The commission, however, was of the opinion that such a road could be built for only $30,000, with better grades and alignments. Although many hoped that the commission's report would lead to the purchase of the toll roads, it would be another sixteen years before the Big Oak Flat Road was purchased and freed from tolls.

The first automobiles to enter Yosemite over the Big Oak Flat Road were Locomobile steam cars driven in July 1901 by a Mr. and Mrs. Baird and a Mr. and Mrs. Aiken. They were followed the same month by Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Clark of San Leandro, who wrote of an arduous journey over granite dust "inches thick." Few other cars made it up and down the Big Oak Flat Road in the next few years; indeed, the Yosemite Tourist stated that cars could be "bought for a song at the foot of Priest's Hill," a long steep grade west of Big Oak Flat. When Dr. Clark returned in 1905, he called the grades "almost insurmountable," and his trip "an adventure of some magnitude." He urged other drivers to carry extra parts such as drive shafts and springs.

James M. Hutchings, Yosemite entrepreneur and early promoter, was killed on the road in November 1902 when his carriage horses bolted at "the Zigzag," throwing him to his death. Hutchings had greeted the first carriages to travel over the road, and had briefly owned the road in 1878 and 1879.

Automobiles were banned from Yosemite National Park in 1907 by Acting Superintendent H. C. Benson, and it was not until 16 September 1914 that they were readmitted on the Big Oak Flat Road. The first checking station was erected at Crane Flat, and in 1915 was supplemented by new ones at Gentry's and at the foot of El Capitan. Cars were permitted to run uphill or downhill only at stated intervals. The speed limit was at first 10 miles an hour, but this proved too great for "the Zigzag," and the speed was soon reduced to 6 miles per hour over this section. Charlie Baird, who had operated stagecoaches over the road, introduced motor stages on the run in 1914.

The completion in 1907 of the Yosemite Valley Rail Road and its accompanying wagon road from the rail terminus at El Portal to the Valley caused an immediate and significant reduction in usage of the Big Oak Flat Road. The new railway charged less than half the stage fare, and the turnpike company found itself with a liability. On 19 July 1915, the Big Oak Flat and Yosemite Turnpike Company sold the route to Tuolumne County for $10,000. (One of the county's viewers, C. H. Burden, had been a passenger on the first stage over the road in 1874.) The county soon deeded over the portion within Yosemite National Park to the National Park Service. Tolls were eliminated and better maintenance ensued. The Park Service did institute an eight-dollar charge for automobiles (later reduced to five dollars), in addition to the existing entry fee. Farther west, the state rebuilt the section of the road between Chinese Camp and Knight's Ferry, and Tuolumne County rebuilt the severe Priest Grade between Moccasin Creek and Groveland. The county also replaced the old covered bridge over the South Fork of the Tuolumne River with an open deck