page_title: Interstate 8
section_title: Early road
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 8 / History / Cuyamaca Mountains / Early road
caption_attribution_description: A section of old U.S. Route 80 west of Descanso Junction, California. Taken in March 2007. This section is not open to vehicular traffic. Photographer: Bob DuHamel
context_page_description: Interstate 8 is an Interstate Highway in the southwestern United States. It runs from the southern edge of Mission Bay at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in San Diego, California, almost at the Pacific Ocean, to the junction with I-10, just southeast of Casa Grande, Arizona. In California, the freeway travels through the San Diego metropolitan area as the Ocean Beach Freeway and the Mission Valley Freeway before traversing the Cuyamaca Mountains and providing access through the Imperial Valley, including the city of El Centro. Crossing the Colorado River into Arizona, I-8 continues through the city of Yuma across the Sonoran Desert to Casa Grande, in between the cities of Phoenix and Tucson.
  The first route over the Cuyamaca Mountains was dedicated in 1912, and a plank road served as the first road across the Imperial Valley to Yuma; east of there, the Gila Trail continued east to Gila Bend. These were later replaced by U.S. Route 80 across California and part of Arizona, and Arizona State Route 84 between Gila Bend and Casa Grande.
context_section_description: A stagecoach road existed into the 19th century that passed through the mountains east of San Diego. Before the freeway was constructed, the automobile road through the mountains east of San Diego was narrow and wound through the mountains; it was officially dedicated in 1912. This trip was known to take up to four hours, and frequently resulted in the radiator boiling over, flat tires, or broken fan belts; inclement weather would result in cars becoming mired in the mud. The road was paved in 1926, and was open by 1927; remnants of this road were still present in the late 20th century. Another road was built in the early 1930s, to remove curves and widen the lanes. This was a two-lane road that still had many switchbacks, with one popularly known as "Dead Man's Curve". Construction of I-8 took place atop much of the roadbed of the highway from the early 1930s. The delay in extending a road to San Diego caused increased development in Los Angeles and resulted in that city becoming the trade and population center of Southern California, according to the San Diego Union.
caption: A section of old US 80 (Wildwood Glen Lane) now closed to vehicular traffic west of Descanso Junction
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