Filming a Train Ride Down Pacific Coast Highway in 1898 | KCET
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Filming a Train Ride Down Pacific Coast Highway in 1898
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Nathan Masters
Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
Santa Monica's McClure Tunnel – is there a more dramatic 400 feet of roadway in all Southern California? First, the daylight fades as you leave behind the Santa Monica Freeway and plunge through the tunnel's eastern portal. The road curves through the darkness, and then a new world flashes before you. As your eyes readjust, it all comes into focus: the rolling surf of the Pacific, a strip of sand, the hills of Malibu. You are now driving the Pacific Coast Highway.
L.A.'s Earliest Film History
It's an old thrill – one that long predates both the Santa Monica Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway, as “Going Through the Tunnel,” a film shot in early January 1898 by the Edison Manufacturing Company’s Frederick Blechynden, shows.
As early as 1886, the Southern Pacific bored a tunnel through Santa Monica's ocean bluffs so that trains traveling through the Santa Monica Arroyo – a natural drainage that once marked the southern edge of town – could turn parallel to the beach toward a long shipping wharf up the coast. Pacific Electric trolleys later used this curved tunnel, which remained in service until shortly before its rotted wooden frame collapsed in 1935.
By then the state had already drafted plans to reconfigure the historic conduit. When the dust settled in 1936, Olympic Boulevard traced the old path of the railroad through the arroyo, and a wide, arched concrete tunnel curved through the bluffs where the wooden railroad shaft had been. One final change came in 1965, when the Santa Monica Freeway replaced Olympic Boulevard through the arroyo. Ever since, the tunnel has marked the western terminus of Interstate 10's route – and a dramatic way to experience the continent's end.
This story originally appeared on Gizmodo's Southland on April 29, 2014. The 1898 film footage above appears courtesy of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
A collaboration between the USC Libraries and KCETLink, Lost LA features the member collections of L.A. as Subject, a research alliance dedicated to preserving and telling the sometimes-hidden stories and histories of the Los Angeles region.Support the Articles you Love
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About the Author
Nathan Masters
Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
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