The most notable Bridge to Nowhere in Southern California is on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River and was originally intended to be part of a road connecting the San Gabriel Valley with Wrightwood. The East Fork Road was still under construction when it was washed out during the great floods of March 1938. The East Fork Road project was abandoned as a result of the floods, leaving the bridge forever stranded. The bridge is only accessible via a 10-mile round-trip hike.
This virtual cache is about a lesser known Bridge to Nowhere, located at the east end of Naples Island in Long Beach. This bridge is on 2nd Street and crosses the south end of Marine Stadium and is named the J. H. Davies Bridge. Davies, who went by Herb, was the local structural engineer who was responsible for the preliminary plans of the bridge. Davies passed away in 1953 at age 51, a little less than three years before the bridge construction was completed on April 20, 1956. Yes, the bridge was completed but without approaches at both ends due to legal issues, making it the Bridge to Nowhere. Finally, over three years later on September 5, 1959 with the approaches completed, the bridge was opened in both directions and it became the Bridge to Somewhere.
On July 26, 1984, the Olympic torch relay which transferred the flame from Athens, Greece to Los Angeles came down PCH in east Long Beach then turned westward on 2nd street and progressed over the east approach, then the bridge, and then the west approach and further on towards downtown Long Beach. This progression was more or less of a crawl as a couple thousand or so enthusiasts joined in along with the relay participants which prevented westbound traffic on 2nd Street. Each participant had their own torch, ran (or crawled) one kilometer and the flame was passed from torch to torch. The Druids father, Jim, carried the torch for one kilometer the following morning on the downtown Long Beach waterfront and the torch at the Los Angeles Coliseum was lit on July 28 at the start of the 1984 Olympics by Rafer Johnson who was the 1960 Olympics decathlon champion. My father finished over 80 marathons from age 62 to 80 including the Boston Marathon. He ran track and cross country at Rutgers where he graduated from 100 years ago this year!
To get credit for this Virtual cache, you must do both of the following:
- Go to the plaque at either end of the bridge (WP1-posted coordinates at the east end, WP2 at the west end). Access from WP3 parking coordinates at the east end is best, about a 3-minute walk to the plaque. Email or message me the name of the next to last person listed on the plaque including middle initial and punctuation.
- Include in your log a photo of yourself (or of a piece of paper with your caching name, GPS, or something similar if you do not want to be in the photo). There should be some recognizable section of the bridge in your photo but do not show either of the plaques.
Failure to meet the above requirements will result in a deleted log.
Virtual Rewards 5.0 - 2026-2027
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between February 3, 2026 and February 3, 2027. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 5.0 on the Geocaching Blog.