Along Highway 101 between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, cast metal bells spaced one or two miles apart mark what is supposedly a historic route through California: El Camino Real. Variously translated as “the royal road,” or, more freely, “the king’s highway,” El Camino Real was indeed among the state’s first long-distance, paved highways. But the road’s claim to a more ancient distinction is less certain. In fact, the message implied by the presence of the mission bells – that motorists’ tires trace the same path as the missionaries’ sandals – is largely a myth imagined by regional boosters and early automotive tourists…
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As Phoebe S. Kropp explains in her book “California Vieja,” it took the convergence of two powerful trends at the turn of the twentieth century to transform El Camino Real from a forgotten pathway into a main-traveled road.