Drive Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849 (S2), Borrego, California

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County Route S2 (CR S2) is a county highway in the US state of California. It runs for 65 miles (105 km), north–south, in Imperial County and San Diego County. S2 is the third longest county route in California and is almost exclusively a two-lane rural road. It largely follows the route of the former Southern Emigrant Trail and Butterfield Overland Mail. South of the 78, the name of the highway changes to the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849, then further south, it forks at a remote junction with the historic dirt road to become to Sweeney Pass Road. Highway S-2 dates back to the late 1700s when, as a dusty trail, the Spanish used it. In 1826 it was Mexican mail route. Famous people also used the trail, including Kit Carson and General Stephen Kearny, who led the Army of the West to war with Mexico. Mark Twain also rode the trail in a mail coach with his brother Orion, and wrote about it in his book Roughing It (1872). In 1861, his brother had been elected Secretary of the Nevada Territory and they left St. Joseph, Missouri, for the trip west. Passengers were allowed only 25 pounds of luggage with the coach carrying 2,700 pounds of mail. Travel by stagecoach, with the exchange for fresh horses at various stops along the way, provided a fairly quick journey for its day. The trail became a road when the steep walls of Box Canyon blocked the Mormon Battalion, the only religious "unit" in American military history serving from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican War. Using the hand tools they had with them they cut a passage large enough to let their wagons through. Thus, the first road into the interior of Southern California was created and became known as the Southern Emigrant Trail. In the 1850s, Gold Rush miners and numerous others, including the Butterfield Overland Mail, traveled through Box Canyon. And finally, modernization reached the desert-the road was first paved in 1929.

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