Remember "Dead-Man's Curve"?
Dateline: March 1925
There was one on the Mesa before the mid-1950s. Cliff Drive used to have a big bend in it across the street from the present-day Santa Barbara City College (see map). The road curved around a canyon. This month, residents of the Mesa were petitioning the city to remove the curve.
"The new route will be a safer drive than the present route … where the pavement is narrow, and in wet weather is very slippery and often dangerous. Elimination of 'Dead Man's Curve' would take a great hazard out of the present road to the Mesa and would not only make it safer, but easier to drive."
Older Mesa residents – "Mesa Rats" – that I interviewed years ago, referred to this part of the road as "the horseshoe." Anyone remember this?
[Spoiler alert – Cliff Drive was eventually straightened, but not until the mid-1950s. When the road was straightened, the "horseshoe" became Weldon Road.]