This is a stretch of the road from Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff as it looked after a tunnel was dug in 1924 by Coconino County workers. The photograph was taken near the present-day Encinoso picnic area.

The road from Sedona through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff, Arizona’s scenic Highway 89A, was just a patchwork of private tracks until the first part of the 20th century.

J.J. Thompson built the stretch from Sedona to what is today Indian Gardens in 1887 and settled there. He took the easy route, building along the creek bed, only to regret it a few years later when a storm washed out the road. His next effort was built above the creek, and was the labor of several years.

A little more than a decade later, a road was built from Flagstaff to the spot where the West Fork flows into Oak Creek. It was built by “Dad” Thomas who owned property on the West Fork, but was paid for with money donated by a group of Flagstaff fishermen, who liked to fish the area but disliked packing in their supplies by horse.

Thomas used old logging roads south of Flagstaff as much as possible until he reached Fry Canyon. From there, he had to clear the way himself. It took 5 years, from 1901 to 1906, to complete the road, which in many places was little more than a wagon track. Rough as it was, it was the first roadway between Flagstaff and Oak Creek Canyon.

Frank Pendley of Slide Rock Ranch, Jess Howard and Albert Purtymun built the section of road that connected Indian Gardens to the Thomas place. Again, it was a labor of years. Work was completed in 1914, when a small wooden bridge was built at Slide Rock. For the first time, a road was open all the way from Sedona to Flagstaff.

In the 1920s, Coconino County took the road into its system, improving the stretch on the canyon floor by widening it to two lanes. The narrow one-lane road up the side of the canyon to the rim and Flagstaff remained a series of steep switchbacks with occasional pullouts. Drivers were expected to honk before starting on the road. If there was no answering honk, they could proceed to a pullout. If by chance two cars met, one had to back up to the last pullout to let the other car pass.

The road was difficult and dangerous. Tim Riordan and his son-in-law Bob Chambers had a frightening experience one time in Riordan’s Lincoln touring car. The car was too long to make one particular curve, and the men had to back up and go forward several times to get around it. When they finished, they got out of their cars to take a break. Chamber walked to a spot along the curve where there was a large log, which he and Riordan believed was a safety guard to keep cars from backing up too far. He put his foot on the log, and it rolled over the edge and crashed down the hill. Both men were so shaken by the experience, they had to sit by the road for a time to recover.

Today, you can see remnants of the old road from present-day Highway 89A near the top of the canyon rim.

—Arizona Capitol Times archive. Photo courtesy Cline Library, Special Collections and Archives, Northern Arizona University.