Page:Big Oak Flat Road (HAER No. CA-147) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/4

 Another section, between Big Oak Flat and Priest's, was already in use.

The Chinese Camp and Yo Semite Turnpike Company estimated their cost for a road as far as the Valley rim at $10,000; it would be supplemented by a wire suspension bridge across the Tuolumne River at Deering's Ferry at an additional $10,000 cost. The investors hoped to have the road opened by 1 June 1869, and hoped to attract users of the Central Pacific Railroad's "short line" from Stockton to Milton in Calaveras County, near the western end of the road. (The branch line was completed in 1870.) George W. Coulter was company president, and Charles Cutting was secretary. The company obtained a state franchise on 20 February 1869. In September, company directors George E. Sprague, Leo E. Stuart and John B. Smith persuaded the Board of Commissioners of the Yosemite Grant to award them an exclusive franchise to construct a wagon road entering the Yosemite Grant from the north side of the Merced River. The franchise carried a stipulation that the road was to open by 1 July 1871.

A "great army of workers," including many Chinese, began the main phase of construction in the spring of 1869. By June 1870, the construction crews had pushed the road from Big Oak Flat through the two Garrottes and on to "Cuneo," or Hodgdon's Ranch, once known as 'Bronson's'. The company reorganized as the "Yosemite Turnpike Road Company," a joint stock concern, on 20 January 1871. However, the project was running out of money and the time for completion was rapidly approaching. By the July deadline, the road had been built only as far as Gentry's Station, located at the top of the cliff on the edge of the Yosemite Grant. The state gave the company an extension to the end of the year, but the road was built no further, as the remaining 3 miles would require an extraordinarily expensive drop down the cliffs to the valley floor. On 1 January 1872 the company forfeited its exclusive rights to construct a road into the Valley.

The Yosemite Turnpike Road Company had no real incentive to incur the costs of extending their road down the steep grade below Gentry's, as they could collect tolls on the section already completed. From Gentry's, travelers could take saddle trains down a rough trail into the valley. Early Yosemite pioneer and entrepreneur James M. Hutchings ran the first pack trains down this route to his holdings, eventually maintaining 100 pack animals for the route. By May 1873, Simon Shoup, Johnny Hardin and Jerry Hodgdon were running stages on the road, carrying passengers as far as Gentry's Station; they were followed in business by the Nevada Stage Line.

Mariposa Countians, who had their own schemes for wagon roads to the Valley, derided the Tuolumne County group's incomplete road and the tolls charged: 