BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SCR 37
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: wiggins
VERSION: 4/21/10
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 15, 2010
SUBJECT:
The Robert Louis Stevenson's Historic Trail to Silverado
DESCRIPTION:
This resolution names a portion of State Highway Route (SR) 29
in Napa County as the "Robert Louis Stevenson's Historic Trail
to Silverado."
ANALYSIS:
The committee has adopted a policy regarding the naming of state
highways or structures. Under the policy, the committee will
consider only those resolutions that meet all of the following
criteria:
The person being honored must have provided extraordinary
public service or some exemplary contribution to the public
good and have a connection to the community where the highway
is located.
The person being honored must be deceased.
The naming must be done without cost to the state. Costs for
signs and plaques must be paid by local or private sources.
The author or co-author of the resolution must represent the
district in which the facility is located and the resolution
must identify the specific highway segment or structure being
named.
The segment of highway being named must not exceed five miles
in length.
SCR 37 (WIGGINS) Page 2
The proposed designation must reflect a community consensus
and be without local opposition.
The proposed designation may not supersede an existing
designation unless the sponsor can document that a good faith
effort has uncovered no opposition to rescinding the prior
designation.
This resolution :
Designates the portion of SR 29 from post mile 37.9 to post
mile 39.5 in Napa County as the "Robert Louis Stevenson's
Historic Trail to Silverado."
Requests the California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans) to determine the cost of erecting appropriate
signs, consistent with the signing requirements for the state
highway system, and to erect those signs upon receiving
donations from nonstate sources sufficient to cover that cost.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . The purpose of the resolution is to recognize the
portion of SR 29 in Napa County considered the forgotten last
leg of the trail to Silverado for its historical importance in
the development of California and particularly of Napa and
Lake counties.
2.Background on the Silverado Trail . In the 1850s, volunteers
built the Old Bull Trail from what is today the City of
Calistoga over Mount St. Helena in Napa County to what is
today Middletown in Lake County.
Due to grades exceeding 35 percent along the Old Bull Trail,
which prevented wagon travel, the Legislature, in 1866,
authorized John Lawley to construct a private toll road to
replace most of the Old Bull Trail starting approximately 1.5
miles north of the City of Calistoga.
The toll road over Mount St. Helena was completed in 1868 with
grades of just 12 percent. This toll road is still in use
today as a public road and is known both as the "Old Toll
Road" and as "Lawley Road."
In 1872, John Lawley, along with William Montgomery and
SCR 37 (WIGGINS) Page 3
William Patterson, founded the Monitor Ledge Mine on Mount St.
Helena just off the Old Toll Road and later renamed that mine
and the surrounding community "Silverado."
During one point in its short three-year life, the mining town
of Silverado housed over 1,000 people. Many more people came
and went during that time in search of fortunes, every one of
whom traveled the toll road and the 1.5 mile remnant of the
Old Bull Trail that connected that toll road to Calistoga and
to the rest of the Napa Valley.
In the summer of 1880, a young author, running low on cash,
and his new bride left their honeymoon suite in the resort
town of Calistoga to become squatters in the mining town of
Silverado, which had been abandoned five years earlier. That
author was Robert Louis Stevenson.
Robert Louis Stevenson detailed his trip to Napa Valley in his
travelogue, The Silverado Squatters. In The Silverado
Squatters, the best-selling author introduced the world to the
beauty of the Napa Valley and the quality of its wine,
famously describing it as "bottled poetry."
In a chapter of The Silverado Squatters entitled "Starry
Drive," Robert Louis Stevenson recounted the brilliant night
sky above the 1.5-mile remnant of the Old Bull Trail as he
rambled back to his honeymoon perch one summer evening. Few
roads have ever been described so vividly.
In 1921, a local farm bureau successfully petitioned the
County of Napa to name a series of rough roads and trails
running along the eastern spine of the Napa Valley as
"Silverado Trail" after the mining town Robert Louis Stevenson
made famous.
Although that collection of roads running along Napa Valley's
eastern spine ended at Tubbs Lane just north of the Old Toll
Road, the County of Napa ended the newly named
Silverado Trail 1.5 miles short of the Old Toll Road because
the county was making arrangements to turn that 1.5
mile-stretch of road over to the state to incorporate it into
a new modern highway.
As a result of Napa County's decision to incorporate this
stretch of historic road into a modern highway, the history of
this pioneer pathway, Robert Louis Stevenson's
SCR 37 (WIGGINS) Page 4
"Starry Drive," and the last leg of the trail to Silverado,
has been lost.
That stretch of road predates John Lawley's Old Toll Road, was
originally built by California pioneers in the 1850s shortly
after California's statehood as part of the Old Bull Trail,
and is now memorialized by a historical marker in Middletown
in Lake County.
3.Consistent with committee policy . This resolution is
consistent with all of the provisions of the committee's
policy on highway designations.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 9, 2010)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: None received.