California Has Chased a Moving Highway Downhill Since 1935. In 2024 It Gave Up and Chose a Tunnel

There is a three mile stretch of United States Highway 101 on the coast of northern California that is not where it was built. Since the 1930s parts of it have moved forty feet sideways, toward the Pacific, and dropped thirty feet, and in a bad year some sections move several feet. Six thousand vehicles a day drive across it, between the redwoods and the ocean, over two dozen retaining walls that have cracked and shifted with the ground they were meant to hold. And in 2024, after ninety years of patching, California decided to leave it. Not now. The replacement, the longest highway tunnel the state has ever built, is not due to open until 2038, and the money to dig it has not been found. This is not a story about a landslide. It is the story of a road put on moving ground before anybody knew the ground moved, of a state that has known since 1935 that it was on the wrong hill, and of the arithmetic that kept it there, one lane at a time. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. DeLorme California Atlas and Gazetteer: https://amzn.to/3Tod0UR WHERE IT IS Last Chance Grade is the three miles of US 101 about ten miles south of Crescent City, Del Norte County, inside Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, between Crescent City and Klamath. Expect one-lane signals without notice. The abandoned 1920 alignment is Enderts Beach Road, off 101 two miles south of Crescent City; it ends at a trailhead for the Coastal Trail, which continues along the old grade on foot. PRONUNCIATIONS Klamath: KLAM-uth. Enderts: EN-derts. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES California Highways and Public Works, March 1934 and September 1935, on the realignment and the August 18, 1935 dedication. Tom Fearer, "US Route 101 and Last Chance Grade," Gribblenation, February 2021, on the 1888 to 1895 county road and the 1920 alignment. Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2025 (Hailey Branson-Potts), on the Strembergs, the movement figures, the walls and the costs. San Francisco Chronicle, July 25, 2025; SFGate, July 6, 2025; KCRA, November 17, 2025. Caltrans District 1, Last Chance Grade project: draft environmental document, December 15, 2023; design funding, 2025. California Transportation Commission documents and Tunnelling Journal, August 25, 2026, on the 2.5 to 3.5 billion dollar estimate and the 2031 construction start. North Coast Journal, January 2021, on the slides and night closures. IF YOU WERE THERE If you have driven the grade, waited at the one-lane signal, or your family remembers March of 1972, tell me in the comments or write to [email protected]. A photograph of the 1935 dedication or of the old log road along the beach would be very welcome. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. My other channel, Mob Docket. American organized crime from the court file and the newspaper of the day: @MobDocket #Highway101 #LastChanceGrade #California