Show LAS LINE OF STAGE COACHES Runs Between Surf and Santa Barbara Bar-bara California The last ditch In which staging Is to die Is In southern California The line now consists of a double daily service of xhorse coaChes running between Surf at the SOuthern terminus of thG J roi > Ji L1 7 u iI H J = 1 p P7iu 9jfti YF l i5 1 iW r b iik tJ iq < t 5 ta1 T g 0 x4h 1 r r 1 t 4 j = f f q f g R h ra f 1 ry1 tf L r f < The Old and New Halfway Ranch House of Stage Line coastline division of the Southern Pacific Pa-cific raiiay and Sttata Barbara Cat which Is now the southern terminus ter-minus of that division or the Southern Pacific tlhvay The fillIng fill-Ing of the gap noW only seventy lilies wide will complete another trunk line between San Francisco and Los Angeles An-geles A days ride through the most entrancing en-trancing scenery I saw In California brought me from San FrancisCo to Lompoc ready for the stage ride on i the well equipped line that plies across I the mountains to Santa Barbara I Promptly at 6 oclock In the morning I the stage drawn by six spirited horses I swung In a graceful curve to the porch of the hotel its great body tossing on I Its leathern sprIngs like a ship In a billowy sea The WellsFargo express treasure box was stowed In the boot I beneath the drivers seat the UnIted I States mail fjaclrs plied upon top of It I climbed to the high 5eat I beside the driver Charley Jennings Sharp crackcracks punctuated the swish of the long lash through the mountain air Twentyfour Ironshod hoofs smote the hard smooth road and we were off in good oldfashioned stagecoach stage-coach style Which way lies this city of Santa Barbara I asked the driver as I I looked up a long valley that seemed completely walled In by towering tree and manzanlte shrubcovered mountains moun-tains Up the Santa Toes val I ej he Enid and over the mountain right where you see that white cloud up there that has set down on the top of the mountain to rest How Is the railroad to get over these high steep mountains I aslted the driver They dont go over theYlfo around them The railroad will follow the beach of the ocean most of the way but they have same pretty stiff work In one canyon Its deep and steeP and mighty rocky When Fremont came In here from the south with his army in the 40s thE MexIcans fortified that canyon They thought he would have to go through It and the were pre paled to give him a battle there But he was too cute for ell11 he came < over the mountain on a trail that this wagon road we are on follows very closely Dinner at Gold Spring Ranch perched dear tile mountaintfifrlerj t trout fresh caught hot biscuit honey golden butter and hot cofee vith an appetIte whetoiby tIle light air of a latitude half a U1Uc above the ocean was not to belCf1tlsed A elnsh down the steep and rocky sea c ward face at the Santa Ynez on a road thai clung to the giddy sidEs of yawning precipices dawn down the six horses on a aweep1ng gallop down onto the foothills clothed In yeUow mustard blQom Down In the valley onto a broad country road sixty feet wide and then we came to Santa Barbara JOHN HENRY MARTIN |