Old Highway 399, Part 3: The Maricopa Highway (Ojai to Rose Valley) (CA 33)

The mountain portion of the Maricopa Highway alignment is the most rugged and critical part of US 399's former routing (and CA 33's modern routing); without it, the link between coast and valley would not be possible. It is dramatic and beautiful, and we will spend three parts on it because of its isolation and splendour.

A route from the Central Valley to the coast had always been envisioned by local boosters, enough so that a preliminary survey was done around 1890 over the Pine Mountain Range that CA 33 crosses now which was subsequently used to construct a wagon trail in 1891. The trail was difficult and twisty, and lost more than a few wagons off its sheer cliffs. By the dawn of the 20th century, automobile enthusiasts found the highway severely wanting as it had been little upgraded since. The 1911 Good Roads Club managed to get the attention of state senator J. I. Wagy and future Division of Highways Chairman Harry A. Hopkins, and thus was established the 1913 Bakersfield, Maricopa and Ventura Road, "an Act declaring and establishing a state highway from the city of Bakersfield through a portion of the counties of Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura to the city of San Buenaventura, designated and known as the Bakersfield, Maricopa and Ventura state highway" (Ch. 610, 16 June 1913), later amended in 1915 (Ch. 748) amusingly using the old Nordhoff name for Ojai. Despite this apparent legislative victory, however, the wagon trail remained the only route in the region for nearly a decade afterwards; the survey that the 1913 act authorized was slow to complete, and only the northern end of what would become US 399 was designated as a full-fledged Legislative Route Number with the next bond issue of 1919 (starting with Part 5).

Displeased with the slow progress, Kern, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties determined to construct the highway on their own in 1926 under the local Joint Highway District. This initial segment went north from the Pine Mountain summit (Part 4) to the existing highway in the Cuyama Valley, which was LRN 57 and is now CA 166 (Part 5). In 1929, the state legislature finally adopted the partially built alignment and committed to complete it, this time with the federal Bureau of Public Roads and National Forest funds, constructing future CA 150 over Casitas Pass at the same time. As part of the project, three tunnels were blasted through Wheeler Gorge, completed in 1931, greatly reducing the circuitous route required to deal with the steep grades, and multiple culverts and small bridges were completed for the Matilija Creek and Sespe Creek and their forks that the highway ran parallel with or crossed. The view from the construction over the Topatopa Mountains is shown at the above right. The route finally opened as Joint Highway District Number 6 on 22 October 1933, just in time to be subsumed as LRN 138 the same year and submitted to become a US highway for the initial signage of California highways in 1934. (The number 399 was assigned shortly afterwards.)

As a parenthetical note, the Maricopa Highway never did get officially funded by California in law; the 1913 act on the books still authorized only a survey and nothing more despite the fact that by now the highway existed and was in fact finished (just with local and federal funding, not state dollars). This legislative irregularity was fixed with the revised Streets & Highway Code in 1935, repealing the original and unnecessary survey and officially acknowledging the Highway's presence as LRN 138. If the state could figure out more tricks like that today, maybe we wouldn't have the budget problem we do.