Given the
problems that he was having with the road, it comes as no surprise that Brown
decided to take a vacation during the spring of 1868. Since he would be gone for a year, he needed
someone to take care of the road during his absence, and he placed newspaper ad
which announced that he was leasing the road to two men. The two lessees, a Mr. McKenney and a Mr.
Mathews appear to have had no major problems during the majority of their
tenure, but March of 1869 saw heavy rains damage the road severely. So bad was the flooding, that a party of men,
who were on the road where it crosses Cajon Creek, lost their wagon, the items
that were in the wagon, and their four horses – which had drowned. The men themselves almost drowned, too!
Despite
the seemingly impossible task of keeping the road in usable condition, sympathy
for Brown’s headaches was scarce. The
outcry regarding the road’s poor condition actually grew louder as traffic
along the toll road increased over the years.
One
person described the Brown Toll Road as a “narrow, deep and tortuous canyon,
the roughest I have ever traversed on wheels; there was ten miles of this from
the tollgate to Martin’s Ranch.”
This sandy outcropping in the Cajon Pass can eventually become a muddy mess, if it rains long enough.
Photo by Scott Schwartz.
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