For centuries Cajon Pass was an important thoroughfare for travelers and traders between the Mojave Desert and Southern California. Following the route of the Old Spanish Trail, most travelers crossed the pass on its east side, but that route was narrow, rocky, and poorly suited for wagons. In 1850, William T. B. Sanford built a better wagon road through West Cajon Pass. A few miles south of the site, it left the Old Spanish Trail near present-day Victorville, crossed Baldy Mesa Ridge, descended West Cajon Canyon to Mormon Rocks, and rejoined the Old Spanish Trail near the present location of the Interstate 15 Truck Scales. Known as the Sanford Crossing, Sanford Cutoff, or Sanford Pass Route, this western route was less rocky than the eastern one but still very steep at the summit. On the descent, cattle and wagons often slid the first fifty feet, and on the ascent as many as 32 mules were needed to pull each wagon. In 1855, Sanford and Phineas Banning built a new alignment about one and one-half miles west of the original road, but grades still reached 30 percent. The difficult ascent and descent continued to trouble freighters until the John Brown Toll Road through Coyote Canyon, now called Crowder Canyon, opened on the east side of Cajon Pass in 1861. Sanford was killed in the 1863 explosion of the steamer Ada Hancock in San Pedro Harbor.