Why California Abandoned Highway 80

Comments · 54

• TH

  @TheHypnotstCollector · 2 weeks ago

  Dad was driving San Diego/Alamogordo in 1957-58, took me along.  Canvas bag of water hanging over the radiator, a swamp cooler on the window did nothing.  It was hot. Along the sand dunes I saw Burma Shave signs and some wood on the sand dunes. I asked dad what that was and was a stunned 7yr old to hear it was a wooden highway. wow.  Last year I bought a post car of ebay that shows a stretch of road just like I remember it.  It was hot, my only childhood memory of Hot.

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• SK

  @skipperclinton1087 · 3 months ago

  Healdsburg Cloverdale is way up north in Sonoma County. I've passed that sign many times.

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• CA

  @cannabisflame · 3 months ago

  San Diego doesn't have a union station. There's Santa Fe Depot downtown, but Union Station is in LA.

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• MA

  @markjohnston6580 · 3 months ago

  As a kid growing up in El Centro in the 50's and 60's, my family and me would have Sunday picnics in the sand dunes. Evidence of The Old Plank Road was still very evident. Always sand in Mom's fried chicken.

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• RJ

  @rjmcallister1888-l3p · 3 months ago

  At least it tries to remember what is mostly now gone.  As the old Federal routes reach their centennial in November 2026, the story of US 80 actually gets told.  For those of us in the rest of the country, we saw US 40 and 50 go to San Francisco;  US 60, 66 and 70 go to Los Angeles;  US 80 to San Diego was an afterthought.  They weren't the only ones;  today's US 80 only goes to Dallas, abandoned by all the states west or obliterated by Interstates.

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• RO

  @RoadExplorer1 · 1 month ago

  i like your videos

• JO

  @JohnConrad-i1q · 3 months ago

  AI mispronounced El Cajon as well.

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• SU

  @superman9772 · 3 months ago

  hwy 80 was the same route as the older "Dixie Overland Route"... it was  from Georgia to California... it was started in Georgia ... it was the only year round coast to coast route and thus a very important part of national defense... i remember the "old plank road" and it was still "drivable" even when Interstate 8 had been completed... hwy 80 was a major route for migrants during the depression during the 1930s and actually had almost twice the traffic than the more famous route 66.... and  "northern" travelers used hwy 54 from springfield, il to el paso, tx to connect to hwy 80 much more than the famous route 66... many parts of hwy 80 are still used today

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• GU

  @guillermocafe7616 · 3 months ago

  Wonderful documentary. Old Hwy 80, then a 2-lane paved road, was just about 50 yards off our front wall/gate in New Mexico, in the 1950s-60's. We didn't know then, that it was just a remnant of the original Highway 80, and when I-10 was constructed, some miles to the north, traffic dropped off considerably. Maybe one of the longest stretches of old Hwy 80 starts off I-10 in Benson, AZ and goes south-southeast through Tombstone, Bisbee & Douglas, AZ then proceeds up north again to join up with I-10. Beautiful drive.

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• GR

  @GregBarker-b3o · 3 months ago

  I thought we were talking about #66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was pretty much replaced by I-10.

• TH

  @TheSkeewiz · 3 months ago

  The interstate highway system is designation for two digit numbering parallel routes east/west are lowest numbers start in the south raise to the highest in the North.   Numbering parallel routes North/South are lowest numbers start in the West raise to the highest in the East.  Three digit numbers are reserved for regional loops or bypasses, usually around cities off the major interstate highway.  Some examples:  I-5 has a bypass around Los Angeles, I-405.  Washington DC has a loop (I-495) and two bypasses (I-295 & I-395).  All three are off I-95.  Both bypasses and loops can have identical numbers in different cities (areas) along the same major Interstate route.

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• CO

  @ConnieHiles · 3 months ago (edited)

  I used to love burnin&apos; up Old 80 through Kitchen Creek on the way to the Sunrise Highway in my Firebird to get to Burnt Rancheria for camping and swimming in the nice pool there. Killer meals in the Restaurant there too. And lots of girls. 😅<br>It must still be open to Boulevard, because that&apos;s where the Wisteria Candy Cottage is. My Aunt started that in the &apos;40s, and last I checked, still in business.<br>Hey AI, it&apos;s Ha-cum-ba, not Ja like you are pronouncing it with a hard J. It&apos;s Spanish, the J is pronounced as H.<br>Seriously though, I loved driving US 80 after I-8 was finished, from San Diego to Yuma. Best places were in the San Diego mountains. Descanso, Pine Valley, Burnt Rancheria, Live Oak Springs &amp; Boulevard. Lake Cuyamacha was a blast also. &nbsp;Ah, the &apos;70s. Loved &apos;em.<br>I heard from a friend that you can&apos;t drive down the mountain into the desert anymore on 80. I wonder if you can still drive from Holtville to Yuma on it. Nothing like Mountain Springs Grade. There is a place where your car faces downhill, put it in neutral and she rolls uphill.<br>Another awesome place was Julian.

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