KENNON ROAD

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Kennon Road is a roadway in Benguet province in the Philippines connecting the mountain city of Baguio to the lowland town of Rosario in La Union province. The project was begun in 1903 and opened for travel on January 29, 1905. It was originally called the Benguet Road and later renamed in honor of its builder, Col. Lyman Walter Vere Kennon of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For travelers coming from Manila or the provinces in the central plains of Luzon, it is the shortest route to Baguio.

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The construction of the road commenced in 1903 by cutting across the mountains of Benguet with the combined efforts of Filipinos, Americans, Filipino-Chinese and Japanese nationals. It was considered one of the most difficult and expensive civil engineering projects of its day, with expenditures by the newly established colonial government in excess of $2.7 million.

Photo from: imagesphilippines.com

More than 2,300 foreign and local workers worked on the road. Aside from Filipino engineers and construction workers and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers headed by Col. Lyman Kennon, foreigners from 36 countries were recruited to work on the road; the majority, about 1,500, were Japanese. Hundreds of workers died from malaria while more plunged to their deaths while building the road. After the road was completed, some of the foreign road workers decided to remain in Baguio to live permanently.

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The original road was a Macadam Telford-type road which was later improved into an all-weather asphalt roadway. More recently, some portions of Kennon Road have been replaced with concrete pavement. – wikipedia.org

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