Horace Gasquet’s Toll Road

The Gasquet Toll Road is a corduroy road, with a bed composed of timbers laid across its width and a surface of dirt and gravel. The result is an improvement over impassable mud or dirt roads, yet rough in the best of conditions and a hazard to horses due to shifting loose logs.

A newspaper of the time described it as a “wagon road leading from the forks of the Smith River up the middle fork of said river on the left hand bank thereof about four miles, thence across the same; thence to the mouth of Patrick’s Creek; thence up Patrick’s Creek to Shelly Creek; thence to a point on the state line between California and Oregon, about three miles east of the ‘Robin’s Nest,’ being about twenty miles in length and intended to be a toll road.”

Corduroy roads built of huge logs were the mainstay of local logging practices and called skid roads. These were the origin of the more widespread meaning of ‘skid road’ and its derivative ‘skid row,’ referring to a poor area.

The Gasquet Toll Road was planned by a French immigrant, Horace Gasquet, and was built by Chinese American workers. The road was begun in 1881 and completed in 1886.

On May 15, 1881, petitions were circulated among the citizens of Del Norte County to document their endorsement of the plan and ask for approval by the board of supervisors to build a new road. The May 15, 1881 issue of the Del Norte Record quotes Gasquet: “Understanding this great work, I consider myself the servant of the people interested and a full accounting shall be made of all expenditures and progress.”

Although the road may have been repaired or resurfaced with dirt and gravel in later years, it has largely retained its original composition and construction. It can still be used, but it is narrow and winds through the mountains.