Carmel Magazine

running concurrently with other roads such as US Route 101. As evidence of the dissimilarities between northern and southern Californians, the manner in which the road is identified by number differs: in the south, it's "the 1," while northerners simply call it "1." It's always identified by the numeral, never spelled out. Doctor Roberts When he arrived in Monterey in August of 1887, Dr. John L.D. Rober ts was a 24-year-old freshly minted physician, eager to make his mark on medicine and the world at large. He soon purchased 160 acres of coastal land to the nor th of Monterey, subdividing them to create the present- day town of Seaside. By all accounts, the Father of Seaside was a fine doc- tor and a community pillar, serving as postmaster of Seaside, spending 36 years on the Monterey School Board, and 20 years as a Monterey County Supervisor. The weather on the evening of April 21, 1894 was the stuff of happy sailors: though visibility was a bit hazy, seas were calm and there was just a puff of breeze. Not that the wind mattered to the SS Los Angeles. She had been converted to steam propulsion 20 years previously and was C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 4 105 Dedication of Bixby Creek Bridge, November 17, 1932. (L-R) F.W. Panforst, State Highway Engineer; Senator-elect E.H. Tickle; Audrey Maudsley; T.A. Riordan, State Labor Commissioner; John Skeggs of the Highway Commissioners; John Howe, Highway Commissioner Secretary; and Lester Gibson, Division Engineer for the Highway Dept. The first vehicle to navigate the new highway was driven from San Simeon to Carmel by Lester Gibson, the engineer who had performed the road's original survey. The road wasn't yet finished, but finally, Dr. Roberts' vision was a reality.

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