Norwegian Grade

The Norwegian Grade is a 2 miles (3.2 km) section of Moorpark Road from the Santa Rosa Valley up into the Simi Hills and the city of Thousand Oaks, within Ventura County, California.

Until the construction of California State Route 23 Freeway, this was the most direct route between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks for automobile and truck traffic.

The road was carved out of a steep canyon hillside by members of the Norwegian Colony in Thousand Oaks, and their hired help, between 1900 and 1911.

Nils Olsen, George Hanson, Ole Nelson, Lars Pederson, and Ole Anderson purchased 650 acres (260 ha) in 1890 along the northern boundary of Rancho El Conejo. These settlers, known as the Norwegian Colony, needed a safe way to move bales of hay and sacks of wheat and barley to the Oxnard Plain and the Hueneme Wharf.

The new route down the grade would allow a gradual descent with no hairpin turns down into the Santa Rosa Valley and would be safer than existing routes to the Oxnard Plain and Moorpark.

Nearby California Lutheran University is located at the site of the Norwegian Colony. The campus was donated by the Pederson family, who were among many Scandinavian immigrants populating the hills of northern section of the Conejo Valley. The historic Joel McCrea Ranch is at the bottom of the grade at the head of the Santa Rosa Valley.

In the early 1900s, 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. For construction, they used picks, shovels, crowbars, farm equipment, and $60 worth of dynamite given by the of Ventura County. The resulting rocks and debris were moved by hand and a horse-drawn fresno scraper to build the narrow, one-lane roadway.

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