Image: 1871 County of Santa Barbara map
Early Roads on the Mesa
In 1873, the City of Santa Barbara's Street Committee began considering building a road to reach the Mesa. (Present-day Cliff Drive – a.k.a. the Mesa Road – did not exist yet.) One suggestion was to extend Gutierrez Street up to the Mesa. This proposal was rejected, however, and the committee began to investigate the possibility of using other streets as a means of accessing the Mesa. There were no roads on the Mesa, according to an 1871 map.
Why didn't they use Carrillo Street? The reason – the Carrillo Street hillside used to be much steeper than it is today. According to historian Neal Graffy, "Somewhere between 1964 and 1967, West Carrillo was finally extended to connect to Meigs Road and the Mesa."