2019 May Paso Robles Magazine

| San Miguel Reflections
By Lynn Barbie Schmitz Butz
Well before the advent of the railroad in
1886, rough roads crisscrossed the North SLO
County as the pioneers arrived and settled. One
major thoroughfare ran westward from the Estrella
Plains to the Nacimiento ranchland. The
road came to San Miguel on the southern end
of town from what is now North River Road.
It wound down the bluff to the river, across an
“Arizona crossing,” then up to and continuing
past the Mission. It was likely the road to
Mission San Antonio and a much more direct
route than today.
Stagecoaches, the main source of public
transportation, and mail riders traveled north
and south between San Luis Obispo and
Monterey. And as the state grew, need for a
highway system was increasing. According to
Nathan Masters’ 2013 article “How El Camino
Real, California’s ‘Royal Road,’ was Invented,”
Highway 101 was one of the first of several
long-distance highways through the state.
In spite of being also referred to as “The
King’s Highway,” it does not follow the route
which originally connected the 21 California
missions from San Diego to Sonoma. Construction
of the highway was authorized in
1910; however, it was not completed until
mid-1920 and was designated Highway 101
by the state legislature in 1925. It ran through
cities and towns, often as the main street.
Built in 1915, the highway from Paso Robles
to San Miguel followed along the river. In
early accounts, after passing the Caledonia
Adobe, it curved to run behind the mission
and likely connected with the old road leading
west. We have not found specific information
about when that highway was re-routed to the
front of the mission but by the 1940s it ran
straight through town parallel to the railroad.
In 1930 the state decided to rebuild the
highway right through the Caledonia Adobe
which had been purchased in 1923 by Charles
F. Dorries. He had cleaned and restored the
dilapidated building, opened a real estate office,
created a historical museum, and planted
a large orchard. Dorries and others in San
Miguel successfully fought off the challenge
and the new, two-lane road was re-routed to
the west side of the buildings. Then, in the
early 1950s, to build the four-lane highway
we have today, the state once again demanded
land from the Caledonia, reducing the acreage
but sparing the buildings.
As the highway bypassed the town, the old
adobe buildings were abandoned to decay but
restored by San Luis Obispo County as a park
in the 1960s. Today, a piece of the 1915 cement
highway is still in place in front of the historic
building where the Friends of the Adobes
maintain the Rios-Caledonia Museum.
14 | pasomagazine.com Paso Robles Magazine, May 2019