the state——in 1926. Most of this road lies under I-5 and SR 99, but the southernmost piece in Grapevine was bypassed by the Alternate west of it, and is now between southbound and northbound lanes of I-5. History Before the Ridge Route Before the Ridge Route, roads between Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley were less direct. El Camino Real (Spanish, "the King's road"), the first major road in California, connected Los Angeles and the missions, presidios and settlements with San Francisco and Sonoma. The San Joaquin Valley route split from the El Camino Real at present-day Universal City, the western leg running along the Pacific Coast and coastal valleys and the eastern El Camino Viejo, (Spanish, "the old road") via the San Joaquin Valley to San Antonio, now East Oakland. Another route between Los Angeles and Bakersfield followed the southern approach to the Ridge Route to Saugus, but took a longer route between Saugus and Gorman, heading northeast through the San Francisquito Canyon to the Antelope Valley and west to Gorman. The rest of the route, from Gorman toward Bakersfield via the Tejon Pass, followed the same path as the Ridge Route. The Butterfield Overland Stage, the first overland mail service to California, went from Tipton, Missouri and Memphis to San Francisco via Los Angeles. From October 1858, when the first stage passed through Tejon Pass, until April 1861, the route was identical to El Camino Viejo, running via San Francisquito Canyon. In order to keep the stages from running directly northwest from San Bernardino and bypassing Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors spent $8000 in 1858 (about $ in ) to deepen the cut—later Beale's Cut—at San Fernando Pass, south of Saugus and Newhall (east of Sierra Highway, west of the Antelope Valley Freeway or State Route 14). The path followed by the stages was changed to pass along the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles in April 1861. Similarly, the residents of the City of Los Angeles approved the expenditure of a good deal of money towards the building of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had originally planned to bypass the city. The line to San Francisco, including the San Fernando Tunnel through San Fernando Pass, was completed on September 5, 1876. The railroad's route between Saugus and Bakersfield was even longer than that of El Camino Viejo and the Butterfield Overland Stage, heading