From Fort Yuma to Benicia, California",[1] in The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions by Randolph Barnes Marcy.
[2] The Itinerary was derived from the report of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson on his topographical survey party in 1853, that was in search of a railroad route through the interior of California.
[3] Transportation and commerce to the northern part of California from Southern California prior to 1849 was carried north along the coast via El Camino Real or later diverted to the north, from the San Fernando Mission inland via El Camino Viejo "the old road", a route over the mountains north of Los Angeles, along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, turning west across the coast ranges to reach Oakland and San Francisco.
During and after 1849, transportation and commerce to the gold mines of the Mother Lode from the south became a northern extension of the Southern Emigrant Trail up the east side of the San Joaquin Valley from the El Camino Viejo.
Another route, not well known or used, diverted north from "the old road" at Castac Pass to follow La Cañada de las Uvas or Grapevine Canyon down into San Joaquin Valley.
Also in 1853, a Los Angeles businessman, Henry Clay Wiley installed a windlass atop the Fremont Pass to speed and ease the ascent and descent of the steep Santa Clara Divide, and built a tavern, hotel and stable nearby.
In the next few years, settlements and miners camps gradually spread along this route along the Sierra foothills looking for new gold mines.
Cattle and horses from Southern California, were driven north along the route and immigrants and teamsters continued to follow it.
With unclaimed placer gold sites becoming more scarce in the Mother Lode region to the north, a stampede to the Southern Mines followed.
To make it practical to get the business of supplying the Kern River gold miners from San Pedro, Phineas Banning made a few adjustments to the old road, carving a small cut through the Santa Clara Divide then running eastward before descending down Elsmere Canyon to Lyon Station.
These kept the Stockton–Los Angeles Road active, connected with two trails cut across the Sierra Nevada mountains over which pack trains carrying supplies were sent to these new mines.
[8] In 1858, the southern portion of the road from Los Angeles to Visalia was taken as part of the route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, being used until 1861 when the American Civil War put an end to its use.
Commercial use by long haul freight wagons, stagecoaches, and livestock continued until the mid 1870s when the railroad from northern California reached Los Angeles.
The route began at Stockton leaving the city toward the southeast toward the foothills of the Sierras to avoid the marshes called "tules" and the often flooded lowlands or lakes along the course of the San Joaquin River and the lower reaches of its tributaries.
These streams were commonly known as the "Four Creeks" but were distributaries of the Kaweah River that divided itself after emerging from the Sierra's forming a delta before entering Tulare Lake to the west.
Between these two streams the town of Visalia grew up from its beginning in 1853, located west downstream from the original route of the road.
[2] In the 1870s, construction of the railroad through the San Joaquin Valley and to Los Angeles, drew population from the Sierra foothills into the towns along the rail line and replaced long distance hauling of freight and passengers on the road.