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The Norwegian Grade is a two-mile stretch of Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks, California, United States, carved out of a steep hillside by members of the Norwegian Colony and their hired help between 1900 and 1911. For construction, they used picks, shovels, crowbars, farm equipment, and $60 worth of dynamite given by the county of Ventura. At its 100th anniversary, the grade was serving over 6000 cars every day. Nils Olsen, George Hanson, Ole Nelson, Lars Pederson, and Ole Anderson purchased in 1890 along the northern boundary of Rancho El Conejo.〔("Map of Part of Rancho El Conejo" ) 5 MR 14. ''Ventura County Recorder'' Surveyed July 1881 by J.A. Barry, Recorded May 1, 1912. Retrieved October 15, 2014 from (CountyView GIS: layer "Record Maps" )〕 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. ==Construction Methods== 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. 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 grade was later widened to two lanes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Norwegian Grade」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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