Thousand Oaks, CA
Today the trip from northern Conejo Valley (Thousand Oaks) to Oxnard and Port Hueneme on the Pacific, or Moorpark to the north, can be made via modern roads, but prior to the building of the Norwegian Grade, the journey was long and treacherous, especially when hauling dry farming crops.
The Norwegian Colony in the Conejo was founded by 5 families seeking a better future in the US. In 1890, they purchased 651 acres in the northern part of the valley from George Edwards, which they divided into 5 lots, which were then allocated by lottery:
Lot #1 – 199 acres to Ole Andersen;
Lot #2 – 111 acres to Lars Pedersen;
Lot #3 – 139 acres to Nils Olsen;
Lot #4 – 97 acres to Ole Nilsen;
Lot #5 – 105 acres to George Hansen.
With no source of irrigation water available, they were dry land farmers, working other jobs in the off season. Transporting their crops to market required traveling west to leave the valley over the Potrero and Conejo grades, or north on a precarious stagecoach road over a saddle in the mountains and down into the Santa Rosa Valley.*
After an accident with the wagons, leaving George Hansen bedridden for a year, the families combined the upper right of way, donated by Nils Olsen, with a 40-foot right of way bought for $50 from Adolf and Roumaine Wyseur.
“Historic Norwegian Grade was built by hand between 1900 and 1911, using picks, shovels, crow bars, farm equipment and $60 worth of dynamite given by the County of Ventura.
“The grade was constructed by members of the Norwegian Colony and their hired help to provide a safe way to move bales of hay and sacks of wheat and barley to the farmers on the Oxnard Plain and to the Hueneme Wharf.
“The route for the grade was selected because it provided a gradual descent with no hairpin turns and would be safer than existing routes to the Oxnard Plain and Moorpark.**
“In the early 1900’s, there were no bulldozers, earth moving equipment, etc. Work was done by hand using a star drill and a sledge hammer to pound holes into the very hard volcanic rock; dynamite was inserted into the holes, fuses lit, everyone ran for cover, and it blew. The resulting rocks and debris were moved by hand and a horse-drawn fresno (scraper), to build the narrow one lane roadway.
“Construction was done in the winter and early spring months because baling and harvesting took precedence during the summer and fall. The road was later widened to two lanes.”
The new route cut a full day off the trip. Today the farms are long gone from the Conejo; the Santa Rosa Valley has farms and scattered housing developments. In 2010, the City of Thousand Oaks renovated the deteriorating road, and unveiled the memorial plaque at its reopening.
*I am still trying to pin down the location of the wagon trail north to the Santa Rosa Valley. Accounts I have read say it was partially obliterated by grading in the 1950’s.
HistoryTrove.com 
On the other side of the country, immigrant labor built the Williamson Road through the wilderness.
“The work of cutting the road through the wilderness was commenced in May or June, 1792. According to the draft now on file in the land office, it commenced at Loyalsock, passed through where Williamsport was afterwards built to Lycoming creek, up which it ascended by the Indian path to Trout run. Here the builders fairly entered the wilderness when they commenced the ascent of Trout run. The forest was dense and gloomy, but by dint of hard work a road was made over Laurel hill to the site of Liberty. From this point the site of Blossburg, on the Tioga river, was reached. At Canoe Camp, eight miles down the river, the road was abandoned, and the party set to work making canoes out of the heavy timber which grew there. Having a sufficient number completed they embarked and floated down the river to Painted Post and then ascended the Cohocton to their point of destination, where they founded the town of Bath.”– op. cit.
I have read that the immigrants were appalled at the task they had agreed to undertake. Joyce Tice writes: “Unaccustomed to life in the wilderness, and having little knowledge of such work as was required in felling trees and road building, they were often a detriment instead of an advantage to the real laborers.”
https://www.joycetice.com/1897/ch08.htm
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