Newhall Tunnel

South portal (from a photo I have)

By September of 1907, a tunnel bored a short distance to the west of the Beale's Cut was the preferred solution over deepening the cut. By January of 1909, the Highway Commission had approved plans for a tunnel. Funding would come from a Los Angeles County bond issue.

In December of 1909, the Board of Supervisors awarded the contract for the construction of the tunnel to E.E. Shaffer of Los Angeles. He was the successful bidder agreeing to do the job for $63,364 and have it done in less than six months. Actual work was due to begin on December 30, 1909. Plenty of blasting powder would be used for the job (from the LA Times of 12/28/1909).

60 men were employed and nearly 100 horses and mules were to be used. The men would soon have their own camp near the tunnel site where they could live. Very little machinery would be used. Schaffer believed that blasting powder and manpower would get the job done. There was also cutting and grading needed on both sides of the tunnel, making the whole project about 5100 feet in length. The contract did not include preparing the road surface. That would be done after the tunnel was completed.

The tunnel was opened in October of 1910.

The total length of the finished tunnel was 435 feet. It was 17 feet high and 17 feet 5 inches wide. It was about 200 feet below the summit and about 250 feet below Beale's Cut. The road grade was reduced from about 26 % through the cut to about 6 % through the tunnel.

In 1917, this road became part of the State Highway system as Route 23. It would later become Route 6 and then Sierra Highway.

By the middle 1920's, the narrow tunnel was beginning to become a bottleneck to traffic. Motorists began demanding a solution. The number of automobiles registered in California in 1910 was 44,132. The number registered in 1927 was 689,902. The population in Los Angeles County increased from about 504,000 to 2,250,000. These increasing numbers were causing the bottleneck. On May 1, 1927, in a 24 hour period 24,480 autos carrying more than 75,000 people passed through the tunnel (from the Van Nuys News of 6/17/1927).

Early proposals were to construct a new tunnel or construct a road over the summit near Beale's Cut. Another idea was to construct a road from San Fernando up to the Pacoima Dam and then to Sand Canyon. From there it would go either up Mint Canyon or Soledad Canyon to the Antelope Valley.

In early 1930, a contract was awarded to McCray Company to change the alignment of the just north of the tunnel. Up to 1930, the road going north exited the tunnel and turned to the right (east) onto today's Clampitt and Remsen Roads. Then it followed the roads in a wide loop to where they run into today's Sierra Highway and continued on to Newhall. The new road would go straight north from the tunnel and run into the point where Remsen Road joins Sierra Highway, basically following today's alignment. That would shorten and straighten the road. The contract price was for about $70,000 for a length of 1.1 miles. It was finished in June of 1930.

But something still had to be done about the bottleneck at the tunnel.

Article from American City of April 1916. This is the north portal (entrance) of the tunnel.

Title: "Newhall Tunnel" (1912)
Dug in 1910 by Los Angeles County. The completion of this tunnel was the end of the need for Beale's Cut. This photo is dated 1912, two years after the tunnel opened. Was there a landslide at this time? The tunnel is located about 1/4 mile west of Beale's Cut.

Source: Lippincott Collection, Water Resources Center Archives - University of California, Berkeley
Copyright Note: This image is not in the public domain and is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.
Used by permission of the University of California, Berkeley, Regents.

Title: "Newhall Road Tunnel" (1912)

Source: Lippincott Collection, Water Resources Center Archives - University of California, Berkeley
Copyright Note: This image is not in the public domain and is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.
Used by permission of the University of California, Berkeley, Regents.

South portal (entrance) of the tunnel. The rock beds in this area slope down to the west.

Postcard of south portal. This is a very common postcard. I have three of them myself.

South portal dated 1914

North portal

At a little over 17 feet wide and high, larger trucks had problems driving through the tunnel. Two trucks going in opposite directions would have a big problem.

1927: "Typical Sunday traffic between San Fernando and Newhall, Los Angeles County." (From California Highways and Public Works)

1933 USGS topographic map of the Newhall Quad. From the San Fernando Pass the older alignment of the road turned to the right (east) where it circled around to the north. The 1930 realignment went straight north joining the older alignment and continuing on to Newhall. Note that the road curved left to Newhall, there was no road directly to the north as there is now. This map also shows the recently completed Weldon Canyon Road (Highway No. 99), built to relieve some of the traffic at the tunnel.

Plaque honoring the construction of the Newhall tunnel located south of the tunnel. (Photo from this website by Mike Ballard.)

Newhall Tunnel Site
<----- 1/4 Mile

Constructed By
Los Angeles County Highway Commission
A.D. 1910
Geo. H. Bixby, Chairman
Martin C. Marsh John W. Calvert
Arthur E. Loder Chief Engineer

Board Of Supervisors
C.J. Nellis, Chairman
H.D. McCabe R.W. Pridham
S.T. Eldridge C.D. Manning
E. E. Shaffer Contractor

The marker that had the Newhall tunnel plaque is on the right. On the far left is the 1916 Fremont Pass marker. The two newer markers on the right were constructed between 1957 and 1965 (see Beale's Cut page).I don't know what plaque on the middle marker said. All the plaques were stolen many years ago and never replaced.

Future plans for the tunnel

The road to the tunnel in 1914. The old road to Beale's cut is on the right closer to the creek bed.

Newhall grade just south of Newhall Tunnel looking west (Photo taken 1-23-1928 by Lynne M. Correll).

Photo caption: "Vicinity of the Newhall tunnel. Knife like ridges with vertical eroded sides are characteristic of this region. Chamise and sage are the common types."

Images from the Wieslander Vegetation Type Mapping Collection are courtesy of the Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library, University of California, Berkeley, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/vtm/

About the same view almost 80 years later (Taken 2-17-2007)