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Highway 101 Association
By John Daley
In 1996, the City of Oceanside's Historic Preservation Commission engaged historian Kathy Flanigan to prepare the context study The Role of Transportation in the Growth of the City of Oceanside. The expectation from the Commission was a short report reflecting the community's growth and development of transportation from Indian trails to the automobile. Instead what was presented to the community was an incredible undiscovered resource. How could something so important to our City, County, State and Country be unrecognized?
Kathy, in her usual way, discovered and shared her findings with us in this wondrous report. For over two hundred pages she explores the building of the Coast Road, US Highway 101. While the report dealt with Oceanside, its history was repeated up and down the route almost to the mile. Clearly this is California's Mother Road.
Understanding the significance of US Highway 101 to the history and development of California, the State Legislature was lobbied to designate the Highway as Historic Route 101. State Senator Ron Packard and Assemblyman Bill Morrow presented a joint resolution, ACR92, which was unanimously approved and adopted in September of 1998.
You only need to learn the location of the route through San Diego County to understand the road's significance to our community's history. Neighborhoods like San Ysidro, Market Street, Little Italy, Old Town, Pacific Beach, La Jolla and all the coastal cities of San Diego North developed along it.
Speed forward to the formation of the "Highway 101 Association" in 2002. This not-for-profit group was formed to research the history and preserve the road, bridges and commercial archeology along Highway 101. Supervisors Bill Horn and Pam Slater were instrumental in the formation of the Association. They both formed 101 task forces within their districts and encouraged both groups to collaborate to become the Association.
So far six communities have banded together to accomplish the goals set forth. The focus of this group is economic development. Two of the cities are Main Street communities and all are tourist destinations. The group believes the way to save our resources is to give them value. Using some of Main Street's ideas, the Association hopes to assist communities who wish to preserve their commercial archeology and to improve the community's downtown economics.
The Highway 101 Association is now cruising to bring the Historic Highway to you. To learn more visit 101cafe.net.
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