Crescent City was an isolated community in 1854, with dense forest all around and its rocky ocean entrance often fogged in.
Pack mules traveled over ancient indigenous-people’s trails to supply the northern mining settlements in Josephine County, Ore. Crescent City businessmen, eager to cash in on the gold rush, organized to build a road so they could sell even more goods to the miners.
The Crescent City Plank Road and Turnpike Co. started talking people into investing in the road for a share of the tolls. It took them four years to construct a passable, 52-mile route to Sailor’s Diggings, a mining community just north of the California border near the current town of Takelma.
To satisfy investors, the company set tolls at $5 for a two-horse team, $8 for a four-horse team, and $10 for a six-horse team. Ten dollars in 1854 had the equivalent purchasing power of $306 in 2019.
Business in Crescent City improved almost as soon as the road opened, with Second Street becoming the staging area for loaded outgoing teams, incoming mud or dust-caked wagons, and stagecoaches departing every three days.
Source: Chase, Doris. They Pushed Back The Forest. Crescent City CA, Del Norte County Historical Society, 1959, pp. 35-38.
