West Coast states struggled to ready their roads for anticipated heavy tourist traffic when motorists around the country would flock to the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.
The biggest project was the Pacific Highway that later became U.S. Highway 99, stretching 1,687 miles from the Canadian border through the Siskiyou Mountains of Northern California. Interstate 5 follows the same basic route today. A national magazine of motoring, titled 鈥淢otor,鈥� called the route 鈥渢he great and coming West Coast boulevard.鈥�
Two years before the San Francisco Exposition opened, Motor magazine said Oregon was 鈥渢he slowest of the three鈥� Pacific Coast states to get its roads in shape, and Douglas County鈥檚 roads were the worst. It reported, 鈥淥nly a few miles, near the city of Roseburg, can be called a good road 鈥� The best completed portion of the highway is in Jackson County across the Rogue River Valley鈥︹��
The magazine recognized Oregon was 鈥渉andicapped鈥� by the combination of great distances of its section of the highway, the large number of bridges to be built and the small number of people to be taxed.
The Pacific Highway was improved considerably by the time the Exposition opened in 1915.
Sources: Stovall, Dennis H. "Oregon Begins Highway Building." Motor, The National Magazine of Motoring Nov. 1913: 94. Web. 13 May 2015; National Park Service. National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 13 May 2015. Web. 13 May 2015. <http://www.nps.gov/prsf/learn/historyculture/1915-panama-pacific-international-exposition.htm>.
