Back-roads tour offers taste of past

A back-roads car tour Saturday offers a chance to step back in time to when the only way to reach Crescent City was by stage coach.

As part of Oregon’s 150th anniversary of statehood, The Old Redwood Stage Road Tour will guide 75 people from Crescent City to Kerby, Ore., along the old stage coach route.

Organizer Roger Brandt said that this is the first time a tour of the local sections of the old stage roads has been done.

“We’ve been planning this for quite some time,” Brandt said. “I’ve known about the road for a long time and even wrote up a previous road guide for it.” 

The free 60-mile trip leaves from the Elk Valley Casino parking lot, 2500 Howland Hill Road, at about 10 a.m. and it isn’t just a driving tour.

“The tour includes information about the botany, geology and history of each section.”

Brandt’s road guide is separated into seven sections including pictures, that provide not only maps, but also information about the flora and geology along the route, and the history of the stage coach roads.

The route follows the third and last stage coach road to be built. It was completed in 1886 and was the primary route that people used to reach Crescent City from the interior until 1922.

“It started off with a regular stage coach,” Brandt said. “The one that everyone imagines, pulled by a string of horses.”

In 1912, auto service was offered and Brandt said that until 1922 there were both automobiles and horse drawn stages traveling the stage coach road to Crescent City.

“When they brought in the automobile service it was called an auto stage,” Brandt said. “They kept the ‘stage’ in the name.”

At the end of the tour in Kerby, there will be an antique car display, quilting, spinning and sewing demonstrations, and even some “cavemen.”

Works by area artists will also be displayed at the Southern Oregon Guild Gallery and lunch will be available.

The free tour only has room for 75 vehicles and advance registration is encouraged, although there is some room set aside for unregistered vehicles that  show up at 8 a.m. Saturday.

To register or look over the tour guide, go to Highway199.org . For additional information call Roger Brandt at (541) 592-4316.

“This is something I have been researching since 1989,” Brandt said. “People miss the point of how unique this region is; it becomes a matter of building community, of community pride.”