Rincon Parkway

The Rincon Parkway or The Rincon is a portion of California State Route 1 in Ventura County, California between the city of Ventura and the Santa Barbara County line. This route opened up in 1913 as the Rincon Causeway or the Rincon Sea Level Road to create the first driveable coastal automobile route for motorists traveling between San Francisco and Los Angeles, California.HistoryAs the automobile age began, motorists had to follow the Ventura River Valley towards Nordoff to the road over Casitas Pass. Civic boosters were eager for to open the more direct coastal route. The moment came with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Line. The construction of the railroad had provided an unimproved road flanked by rip-rap but it was often flooded in several sections from the ocean waves. Rock outcroppings has always made travel difficult along this dramatic meeting of the Santa Ynez Mountains with the Pacific Ocean.Historical travel by foot or horseback along the small alluvial fan beaches and coastal bluffs had to wait for the low tide due to the rock outcroppings. A safer but longer and steeper route was over Casitas Pass and is the more likely route used to travel between Mission San Buenaventura and Mission Santa Barbara than the El Camino Real as designated with commemorative bell markers. A stagecoach route was created around 1861 over the Casitas Pass was still used for stagecoach travel to the Santa Barbara area after the opening of a tunnel through the San Fernando Pass in 1876 which completed the inland railroad route and provided an alternate means of travel to northern California.