Mormon Hogback
The earliest wagon route through this part of Cajon Pass descended Coyote Canyon, now known as Crowder Canyon. At the canyon’s upper narrows, large rocks and confined passages made travel extremely difficult. Wagon crews sometimes had to unload their freight, remove the wheels, and drag or carry the dismantled wagons through the obstruction.
In 1850, William T. B. Sanford and a Los Angeles freighting concern developed an alternate route several miles to the west. The road crossed a high, narrow ridge that became known as the Mormon Hogback. Although it avoided the worst obstacles in Coyote Canyon, the new route was still steep, narrow, and dangerous.
Cuts made along the mountainside improved portions of the road, but the grades remained difficult for heavily loaded wagons. In 1855, Sanford improved the western route by constructing another summit crossing approximately a mile and a half west of the earlier road. This later alignment became known as the Sanford Cutoff or Sanford Pass route.
HOGBACK - An eroded, steep ridge of resistant rocks produced by erosion of the broken edges of highly tilted strata.