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A letter in last Wednesday's Post complained that the
tourism boosters have been at it again. This time, 232
miles of highway have been christened with a beguiling new
name, the San Juan Skyway,
which should lure
free-spending tourists from as far away as Arizona, maybe
even Utah. In the process, we lost a familiar route, the
Million Dollar Highway.
I have always respected the scenery, avalanche zones,
black ice and hairpin curves along that 23 miles from
Silverton to Ouray. But I've never understood why it is the
Million Dollar Highway.
I've seen three
explanations:
1. Otto Mears spent a million dollars to build the first toll road up the Uncompahgre Gorge and on over Red Mountain Pass.
2. Construction cost a million dollars per mile, which was real money at the time.
3. The gravel once used to surface the road came from the ores of the San Juan mines, and carried a million dollars' worth of gold and silver.
Before 1925, all highways had names, rather than numbers, and from what I can gather, most of those names emerged for unknown reasons, too.
U.S. 40 was the Victory Highway.
Why was it, any
more than any other road in America, connected with a
victory? U.S. 50 was the Rainbow Route,
although it
is not shaped like a rainbow; it runs quite directly from
Washington to San Francisco. You sometimes see brochures
touting U.S. 160 through Colorado as the Navajo
Trail,
although the Navajo were never Colorado
residents.
Before the automobile, people were more prosaic. The
principal pioneer route to the West was known simply as the
Platte River Road.
To get from Pueblo to New Mexico,
you took the Taos Trappers' Trail.
Westbound in
Dodge City, Kan., you chose between the Mountain
Branch
and the Cimarron Cutoff,
both branches of
the Santa Fe Trail.
Our ancestors seldom used anything other than the most
practical name. The only exception I know of is the Smoky
Hill Trail, which ran east from Denver in 1859. In flights
of fancy, it was sometimes called the Starvation
Road
or even the Smoky Hell Trail.
But that information comes from official sources, and the names people really use are seldom found on government maps. You learn that quickly in a rural area. When visiting Cripple Creek, I was constantly mystified by constant references to the High Line, Phantom Canyon and the Shelf Road. I was often lost during my first year in Kremmling because I could not locate the Trough Road, Parshall Divide, the Back Troublesome and the Front Troublesome -- all prominent arteries in western Middle Park.
To Denverites, the Valley
is a highway. In this
part of the state, where the Valley
is the San Luis
Valley, there is the Gunbarrel
-- 35 miles of
perfectly straight U.S. 285 between Saguache and Monte
Vista.
Those common names don't appear on the official state
highway map, and neither does one that is even more
convenient. Or maybe you think it's easier to say Take
Colo. 119 north from Blackhawk to Nederland, then follow
Colo. 72 to Raymond, where you proceed on Colo. 7 to Estes
Park
than it is to say Peak to Peak Highway.
Whether anyone likes it or not, perhaps the San Juan
Skyway
will catch on; the state may even put it on
maps. And then we might consider some other highways that
could use better names.
Radioactive Route
is certainly more concise than
Colo. 93 between Golden and Boulder.
Local pride
leads me to suggest Stairway to Heaven
for the
eastern approach to Monarch Pass. Climbing at 214 feet to
the mile from Poncha Springs to the summit, it is the
steepest long stretch of year-round highway in the state.
What makes the name even more fitting is that the curves
near Garfield lead the state in fatalities per passenger
mile.
And look at the boring designations for other roads.
Killer 82
from Carbondale to Aspen. Killer 83
in the Denver suburbs. Pray for me, I drive 285
from
Denver to Bailey. Unless we come up with some better names,
people might get the idea that Colorado highways are
dangerous.
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