Canebrake / Great Overland Stage Route History

[Goofy Footer 539]

The road less traveled 

BY ELIZABETH FITZSIMONS 

MARCH 7, 2004 12 AM PT 
 

The story goes that in 1857, a young woman traveling to meet her fiancé in Northern California fell ill on the punishing stagecoach trip from the East.

She stopped to rest at the Vallecito station, a desert outpost about 70 miles east of San Diego where travelers revived themselves after making the “Journey of Death” through the Imperial Valley. She died at Vallecito and was buried in an unmarked grave in the wedding dress found in her luggage.

The grave, covered by a mound of stones and protected by a small fence, is still there. And so is her spirit, if you believe in such things. She is known as the Lady in White, and some say she restlessly roams the old station’s grounds, now a county park and campground 40 miles southwest of Borrego Springs on County S2.

It is a ghost story fitting for the road, which on most days is so quiet you can hear a car’s approach long before it passes. How many people travel it is anyone’s guess, but except for seasonal weekend visitors to the desert, it’s usually deserted. The small number of vehicles offer “no reason for us to be doing traffic counts,” said Mike Robinson with the county’s traffic division.

It may be that S2 is the county’s loneliest road.

Even so, S2 is a vital artery, used to deliver groceries and gasoline to a hardy few desert dwellers, and them to civilization. It runs from the sleepy Imperial County town of Ocotillo, near Interstate 8, to state Route 79, just east of Lake Henshaw in North County.

S2 is at its loneliest along the 40 miles from Ocotillo to the junction of state Route 78 at Scissors Crossing.

Bracketing this stretch are tiny communities of about 300 inhabitants each. At the south end is Ocotillo, and in the north Shelter Valley. The desert settlement sits in Earthquake Valley, but landowners changed the name of their community to something more inviting.

It didn’t have telephones until 1978.

Midway is Canebrake, named for the bamboo-like reed that grows around a nearby well.

About 20 homes on this 640-acre parcel are occupied year-round, with more people visiting on the weekends. Canebrake was once a federal homestead parcel, reserved for sailors and soldiers returning from World War II. Until the early 1980s, it survived without telephones or mail delivery.

“When we first came out here it was two tracks in the sand, no highway,” said Eileen Brennan, who has lived in Canebrake off and on since the 1950s.

“It’s just like living in heaven. There’s quail and bunny rabbits here every morning for you to feed. ‘Course, we got coyotes, too.”

In the early ‘50s, Brennan’s son delighted in the ghost stories told by a woman called Old Mary who sold milk and bread from a 4-by-8-foot shack near the Agua Caliente Hot Springs.

At 86, Brennan figures she’s outlived many of the folks from her early days in Canebrake. But there are many like-minded people to keep her company.

“There’s nothing out here. It’s just a group of people that love the desert and love to live out here. It’s an entirely different way of life.”

Rich history

Though the number of travelers on S2 today may be few and unremarkable, the road’s historical importance is grand. And the desert it crosses, an unforgiving expanse of rock, sand and cactus, is much the same as it always was.

Years ago, when S2 saw more use, some had high hopes for it. In the 1920s, it was called the “Gateway to Imperial County.” Today, at Ocotillo, it is called the Imperial Highway.

The route roughly follows some of Juan Bautista De Anza’s 1775 trek through the region and U.S. Army Gen. Stephen W. Kearny’s 1846 journey to San Pasqual near Escondido, where his Army of the West was defeated during the Mexican-American War.

Later, that course through the desert delivered gold-seekers to the hills of Julian and brought mail from the East. In 1851, it was part of Butterfield Stage Route, on which coaches carried passengers from Missouri to San Francisco, including the Lady in White.

All of those souls made the trip on a rough dirt road. It was unpaved until 1929. Paid for by the Imperial Highway Association, the pavement extended 15 miles from Ocotillo. From there to Sweeney Pass, the road was still a meandering pair of ruts in the sand.

In 1951, San Diego County built a road that followed the hillsides and traveled down the pass, but didn’t pave it. In 1953, residents pressed the Board of Supervisors for road improvements, which the county finally completed seven years later.

With the paving came a granting of residents’ request to change the road’s name from Imperial Highway to the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849. According to the county’s account, a minor detail eluded the residents and the supervisors. The route had never been known as “great” and the mail route did not exist in 1849.

Lonely, but inviting

Perhaps the best way to experience The Loneliest Road is to start in Ocotillo, where the distant mountains look like crumpled brown paper bags. Spilling out before them is an endless repetition of soft-looking teddy bear cholla and the spindly ocotillo. Later this month, officials in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park say the desert, fed by recent rains, will hit its peak for wildflower blooms.

At Sweeney Pass, the mountains close in, squeezing the asphalt from both sides as S2 twists and turns through canyons, past places where people have come to get away – some permanently, some just for a break. Everyone has their own reason and their own pursuit.

On a recent afternoon, a shirtless man did push-ups on a rock next to his car. He had pulled into a little nook off the highway, a space clear of rocks and brush, and begun a workout with 40-pound barbells. Muscular, tanned and sweating, he stood in the sand wearing ankle-high socks, but wasn’t interested in talking.

Farther north, a fork to the left leads to the Agua Caliente County Park and its general store, the spot on which Old Mary’s store once stood. The first sign of life this day was Paul Dobrasin, who steered his off-road motorcycle into the small parking lot shaded by pepper trees. He had just crossed 40 miles of desert on dirt roads, a bone-shaking journey from Ocotillo Wells that left him parched and his motorcycle low on gas.

But the store was closed, and the soda machine outside out of order. He sat on the curb, studying his map, as a skinny coyote trotted along the road behind him. Dobrasin, who is 50 and lives in San Pedro, camps at Ocotillo Wells and spends his days riding his motorcycle on the road or the web of dirt paths near it. Hugging the turns and gliding along S2’s undulating asphalt, it is as if Dobrasin is flying. No one is around to distract him. It is just him and the road.

At the thought of it, his suntanned face softened, and he smiled dreamily. “Oh, S2 is great.”

Back on his bike and heading north, his image shrank in the distance.

The quiet returned.

Hangers-on

At Butterfield Ranch mobile home park, the history of S2, the ghost stories and decline of the ranch are kept alive by a hardy group.

The 100-acre park, hard by the highway, once was home to as many as 500 trailers, RVs and campers. Thirty years ago, there were year-round residents and waiting lists to get in. Much like S2, there were high hopes.

A dozen occupied mobile homes remain today. Knee-high grass droops over the concrete spaces that used to be filled with RVs. The clubhouse is closed, and the pool is empty.

The flight from Butterfield Ranch began in the 1980s. For some, living in such a remote place had lost its charm.

“These were older people who were scared to live so far from a hospital,” said Barbara Searles, 46, a park resident.

Today, a building that once housed the Butterfield Ranch Restaurant, destroyed by fire in 1998, still has black soot marks above the windows. Once the only place to get a meal for miles, it has never re-opened. A store, post office and lounge also were heavily damaged, and also sit empty.

Searles supports herself and her 9-year-old daughter by collecting sage and selling it for its restorative powers. She has begun organizing residents to improve the park. She wants to bring people, and pride, back to Butterfield Ranch.

In Searles’ plan, the residents would buy and own the land together, and the area’s history would be incorporated into the new park. As difficult as life can be out here sometimes, Searles said she would never leave.

“I can’t even fathom going back to the city,” she said. Searles doesn’t watch television. And she doesn’t care to journey to Ramona or Imperial, a small town near El Centro, just to see a movie.

The simple life is a good one when you are raising a child, she said. Searles’ daughter goes to elementary school in Borrego Springs, where there are “no gangs, no drugs, no living in the fast lane,” she said.

An empty chair

The quiet and the desert’s austere beauty are what have drawn Washington state resident John T. Stone here for many years.

Stone has set up what looks like an outdoor living room next to his motor home at Agua Caliente County Park. He has arranged two chairs neatly on a rug. But instead of looking to a television, they face out across the desert floor.

A covey of quail skittered across the road near Stone’s home away from home.

“I like the sound they make, that soft cooing at night,” said Stone, 78.

For years, he and his wife traveled from their Pacific Northwest home to this campground. This year, Stone has come alone. His wife died last fall.

Stone said he loves the desert and plans to stay until April. At least that is the plan. He will see how he feels. He’s never been here alone, and he may get quite lonely, he said.

What better place to grieve, than on The Loneliest Road?

Elizabeth Fitzsimons: (760) 737-7578; elizabeth.fitzsimons@uniontrib.com

[Goofy Footer 539]

Nearly 20 year old article, it’s a nice time capsule piece of the area. We have a few people who enjoy desert history on the site

 

@Bagstr @kkug @dirt dame @tntmo @paulmbowers @MacDuncan @97xr400r @kato @350thumper @Uncle Champ

Edited April 27, 2023 by Goofy Footer

[Mr.JAJA 380]

We where looking there for a house 4 sale just recently.

[MacDuncan 131]

Thanks Goofy,

It is interesting how it is occasionally challenging to navigate new explorations (and research) when names are the same for different areas.  It might be fun for you and others to enlighten us with names that are the same, but are in different areas. 

For example, you might earn a pricey ticket if you rode Black Mountain in Poway on your moto, but Ramona Black Mountain sure is fun. 

And, if the weather cools a bit in 8 days, I might ride to Picacho on the CABDR, but not the Picacho in Arizona.

And, it was a coincidence that I was just wondering if the snow on Canebrake has melted enough to ride to Kennedy Meadows without going up the Kern, nor the 9 mile asphalt, but there isn't much snow in Canebrake if you wanted to also do a loop by the mud caves. -  smiles.  I appreciate the research and info about Dual Sporting you have been pushing out lately.  Cheers, Mac

[Goofy Footer 539]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:12 PM, MacDuncan said:

Thanks Goofy,

It is interesting how it is occasionally challenging to navigate new explorations (and research) when names are the same for different areas.  It might be fun for you and others to enlighten us with names that are the same, but are in different areas. 

For example, you might earn a pricey ticket if you rode Black Mountain in Poway on your moto, but Ramona Black Mountain sure is fun. 

And, if the weather cools a bit in 8 days, I might ride to Picacho on the CABDR, but not the Picacho in Arizona.

And, it was a coincidence that I was just wondering if the snow on Canebrake has melted enough to ride to Kennedy Meadows without going up the Kern, nor the 9 mile asphalt, but there isn't much snow in Canebrake if you wanted to also do a loop by the mud caves. -  smiles.  I appreciate the research and info about Dual Sporting you have been pushing out lately.  Cheers, Mac

If you think the US repeats names, look at a Mexican map! Baja has multiple versions of the same place and yes, most every one is awesome!

@MacDuncan CABDR’s south end will be toasty. MidMay is when I usually call it for big lower desert riding unless a cold front pushes in. Time to look to the High Desert (in my opinion).

@DSM8 good sir, can you provide any info on Kennedy Meadows area snow conditions from the recent ADVRider WARPED event?

 

[DSM8 360]

No one was able to get thru from the Kern side due to the road being closed at McNallys down in the valley.
No idea on conditions up there at this time.

[paulmbowers 236]

I'm thinking we have two Canebrakes- one in Kern County, the other off S2.

[MacDuncan 131]

PB, cite your sources! 

[paulmbowers 236]

12 hours ago, MacDuncan said:

PB, cite your sources! 

I consider myself a primary source.

[tntmo 887]

2 hours ago, paulmbowers said:

I consider myself a primary source.

My college professors said no Wikipedia, no PMB.  Sorry! 

[Goofy Footer 539]

20 minutes ago, tntmo said:

My college professors said no Wikipedia, no PMB.  Sorry! 

Your college professor said use an Abacus!

 

Which, looping back to the original topic is likely the calculator of choice for ol Canebrake(s)

[Goofy Footer 539]

@MacDuncan and @paulmbowers I have another Double Name Destination Game cued up and ready to share when you are ready.

[paulmbowers 236]

22 hours ago, Goofy Footer said:

@MacDuncan and @paulmbowers I have another Double Name Destination Game cued up and ready to share when you are ready.

It's Paris!
Or Austin?
 

[MacDuncan 131]

Even without a boat, I can ride my moto to Glascow....

Did we win goofy?