Imperial Valley press., 1922-05-20
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interesting tales OF the construction
of the Mountain Springs grade are told
10y Mcdonald who, with his interesting
family, makes his home at the service
station half way up the grade.
After the survey was completed it
took nearly seven years for the pro-
jected highway work to be put into
actual operation on the Mountain
Springs grade. But the delay has
proved worthwhile, as the highway
commission is building, under supervis
ion of Mr.. II. n. Smith, not Il mere
mountain road, but boulevard of
which valley dwellers may justly be
proud. But few people know that a
cor after leaving Mountain Springs
crosses the Imperialism Diego county
line seven times on the upper part of
the grade, which fact should give an
idea of the difficulties encountered in
building a highway on a solid granite
mountainside with its countless curves,
a highway with q minimum width of "a
feet--in some places attaining width
Of fifty feet, and nowhere a gradient
OF more than per cent, with much road
that is not more severe than three or
four per cent.
Mr.. Charles Grace, resident engineer,
has had his own troubles checking up
this survey maze seven years ago. Blue
prints show the beautifully prOportioned
curves and indicate clearly the location
Of each hub take, but finding said an
cient stakes under q desert sun and
beneath many a bed of cactus lying in
wait for the unwary, with the unex-
pected old Granddaddy Rather coyly
curled up in the shade of boulder, is
an arduous and destroying
task. When q surveyor gets out and
painstakingly measures "a $40 feet
from goodness knows where and 69%
feet from some other equally vague and
misty point and then discovers that
some departed campers who once were
short of fire wood have pulled up
particularly important stake to make an
evenings Java-well, Engineer Grace
claims that he has melted down to mere
shadow Q. Els former self Scratching
beneath bed of stickers for poor lost
hub stake placed there seven years be-
fore, and searching YEARLY until one is
almost reduced to the extremity of
clucking like desperate chicken, is
about as thanklcss q task as sitting on
n collection of doorknobs and waiting
.expectantly for q family.
An Illuminating incident illustrative
of highway "cares of state'' was re-
lated to the Press man by Mr.. McDon-
aid at Mountain Springs. 1t seems that
Mr.. II. II. Smith, superintendent of con-
struction in charge of the highway
work was once connected with the build
ing of the Panama Canal in some such
capacity as chief advisor to General
Goethals, or possibly in some slightly
lesser degree. In any event, regardless
of his official rating, he proved himself
an efficient and capable construction
engineer, then as now, as may be wit
messed by the thousands of Valleyitcs
who make use of the boulevard into
which he has converted the upper Noun
tain Springs grade. 1t seems that back
in those Culebra Cut days of the Pana
ma canal, Smith frequently wa known
to wander away after business hours in
quest of solitude and place to think
out uninterruptedly the plans for the
then next days campaign. On one of
these excursions he wandered to the
place where, many years before, as his
tory shows, the French under the famed
M. de Lesseps, had undertaken the
prodigious task of building a Panama
canal AS history further recounts, that
expensive undertaking turned out to be
n monumental failure and swept away
many fortunes of stock holders. The
machinery was left to decay where it
had been used, and much of it to this
day rests and rusts beneath a tropicai
sun and heavy, swamp verdure.
In his studlous quest this memorable
evening under discussion, Mr.. Smith
happened to find a particularly anti