USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 32
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2 The elevation of this pass was 10,032 feet.
3 One or two of these had their terminus as far south as Mazatlan
and Guaymas on the Gulf of Cal- ifornia.
4 See Appendix D.
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point near Santa Fé. A branch road was thence to be built along the old Santa Fé Trail to Independence; but the main line, according to the plan, was to take a more direct course to Fulton, Arkansas. This terminus was to be the common meeting place of roads running to Memphis and New Orleans. Branch lines to Council Bluffs and Austin, Texas, were also proposed at other points along the route; and in California, a road was to be built up the Sacramento to Oregon.
Still another proposed route followed Whitney's original line as far as the South Pass; but turned to California instead of Oregon, taking the course of the Humboldt River from a point near Salt Lake, and crossing the Sierras by one of the northern passes.
From this general summary it will be seen that railroad routes to California were plentiful enough on paper in the early fifties to satisfy the demands of every section. No intelligent choice could be made between them, however, from the data then available, since most of this was too general in character to satisfy the demands of railroad engineering. To meet this necessity for more accurate and detailed information, Congress at last authorized an official survey of the various routes.
The work was begun in 1853 under the direction of Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War. For more than two years it was carried on so vigorously and efficiently that nearly all the routes subsequently followed by trans- continental roads were carefully reconnoitered and their feasibility for railroad purposes pretty accurately deter- mined. In addition to this work, for which they were specifically organized, the surveying corps also gathered a vast store of material relating to the history, geology, botany, and ethnology of the trans-Mississippi west.
The surveys covered five principal routes. The most northerly lay between the forty-seventh and forty-ninth parallels; 5 the second ran between the forty-first and forty- second parallels; the third between the thirty-eight and 5 Surveyed by Gov. I. I. Stevens.
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thirty-ninth parallels; the fourth along the course of the thirty-fifth parallel; and the fifth near the thirty-second parallel.
It will thus be seen that the operations of the reconnois- sance parties extended from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific, and almost from the Canadian line to the Mexican border. Except as their labors actually touched California, however, space cannot be given in the present volume to the explorations of these parties. Among the most im- portant contributors to the success of the undertaking, as it related to California, were A. W. Whipple, R. S. Williamson, J. G. Parke, H. L. Abbott, and E. G. Beckwith, the successor of the unfortunate Gunnison who was killed by the Indians on the Sevier River.
Beckwith's survey covered the region from Salt Lake to the upper end of the Sacramento Valley. After leaving Salt Lake, his party followed the familiar emigrant route along the Humboldt; but at its sink, instead of turning south to the Truckee, the company took a more northerly course, mapping out two possible lines across the Sierras. One of these led through Madelin Pass, Round Valley, and the Pitt River Cañon. The other, a little further south, began the passage of the mountains at Honey Lake, crossed the summit by way of Noble Pass, and struck a tributary of the Sacramento, known as Battle Creek. Both routes termi- nated at Fort Reading, whence the route down the level valley of the Sacramento was already sufficiently well known.
Whipple's survey, on its part, covered much of the route afterwards adopted by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé. Leaving Fort Smith on the Arkansas, the line ran to Al- buquerque, New Mexico, and thence to the Colorado, by way of Zuñi, Aztec Pass, and Bill William's Fork, through a territory previously but little known. Leaving the Colorado a short distance above the Needles (so called because of certain mountain promontories), Whipple mapped out a feasible immigrant road to the Mojave. He then followed this stream until the Old Spanish Trail branched off to the Cajon Pass above San Bernardino. An examination of this
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pass, so long used by Santa Fé traders and fur hunters, showed it altogether practical for a railroad; and it after- wards became one of the great gateways for transcontinental traffic.
The southern, or thirty-second parallel route, had already been in part surveyed by Lieutenant-Colonel Emory, first while serving in General Kearny's expedition and after- wards as a member of the United States-Mexican Boundary Commission. But a more extended examination of the route was made by the surveys of 1853 and 1854. The line between the Red River and the Rio Grande was surveyed by Captain John Pope. From El Paso the work was carried westward by Lieutenant Parke to the Pima villages on the Gila River in Arizona. Emory's survey of the boundary line was considered adequate to bridge the gap between this point and the Colorado. West of the Colorado the work was entrusted to Lieutenant Williamson.
While the routes leading to California were thus being examined, other parties were making a reconnoissance of possible routes within the state itself. The most important work along this line was done by R. S. Williamson and his chief aide, Lieutenant Parke. The first task assigned William- son was to discover a feasible route from the Gila River to San Francisco Bay, connecting with the thirty-second and thirty-fifth parallel surveys east of the Colorado. In the course of this work, Williamson made a careful examination of the mountain passes that led eastward from the lower San Joaquin Valley, and of those through the Sierra Madre Range to the coast.
Williamson's expedition left Benicia July 10, 1853, and entered the San Joaquin by way of Livermore Pass. Cross- ing to the east side of the valley, the party took the usual route to the delta of the Kaweah, where they secured the services of Alexander Godey, the famous guide who had given such material aid to Frémont at an earlier date.
Walker's Pass was the first objective of the expedition. Contrary to popular impression-for this pass had long been described as the logical gateway through the Sierras-it was
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found to be wholly impractical for railway purposes on account of the difficulty of its westward approach. Because of this drawback and the position of the pass relative to the location of the proposed routes, Williamson pronounced it "the worst of all the known passes in the Sierra Nevadas" for a transcontinental railway.
Though disappointed in the character of Walker's Pass, Williamson was agreeably surprised to find that the Te- hachapi offered a satisfactory outlet for a railroad from the San Joaquin to the Great Basin. He next examined the Tejon Pass, but found it, like Walker's, very far from satisfactory. The Cañada de las Uvas (Grape Vine Cañon), opening into the Tejon, furnished a much more practical route between the San Joaquin and the Mojave Desert. This pass and the Tehachapi Williamson accordingly favored in his report.
Williamson's next problem was to discover an outlet through the Sierra Madre Range, which lies between the Mojave Desert and the sea coast. A wagon road had already been built from Los Angeles by way of San Fernando into the valley of the Santa Clara. Thence it followed the sinuous course of San Francisquito Cañon, passed by Elizabeth Lake, and entered the Tejon. Upon examination, however, the San Francisquito Cañon proved impractical for a railway. But east of the San Francisquito lay another cañon, which an extended survey showed to be well adapted to the desired road. This canon, known to the Californians as Soledad, and now used by the main line of the Southern Pacific, Williamson called the New Pass.
The New Pass furnished an outlet from the Mojave as far as the Santa Clara River. From this valley a line could be run without too great difficulty to Los Angeles. It was also believed that the course of the river would furnish a practical route for the extension of the road toward the Salinas Valley and San Francisco. Further east of Soledad Cañon, the Cajon Pass offered a gateway between San Bernardino (with an easy connection to Los Angeles) and the proposed Mojave River-Colorado line.
1
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One of the most important contributions to the surveys in California was made by Lieutenant Parke, who examined the great San Gorgonio Pass lying between the two highest peaks of the Sierra Madre Range-Mt. San Gorgonio (or Greyback) and San Jacinto. This pass, pronounced by Williamson to be the "best pass in the Coast Range," (as indeed it easily is), furnished a feasible route from San Pedro and Los Angeles down the valleys, since known as Coachella and Imperial, to the junction of the Gila and the Colorado Rivers. It thus afforded a practical outlet for the proposed southern, or thirty-second parallel route to the Pacific. It was also hoped that a line might be run from the Colorado, by way of Warner's Pass, or through some similar gap in the mountains farther south, to San Diego; but upon examination, neither Warner's nor any other pass in the locality proved suitable for the desired line.
As a result of these investigations, Williamson concluded that a road built from the Mississippi to the mouth of the Gila would reach the Pacific most easily by way of San Gorgonio Pass, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles. If it were decided to make San Diego the terminus, the line could be extended south along the coast after leaving the San Gorgonio Pass. This was the only feasible plan of reaching San Diego, since the mountains made a more direct ap- proach impractical.
Three possible routes presented themselves for extending the road to San Francisco. The line might run northward along the Colorado from the Gila, then turn westward to the Mojave, and enter the San Joaquin by way of the Te- hachapi. Or, having reached Los Angeles by the Cajon or San Gorgonio Pass, it might either be built northward along the coast, or else be carried back to the Mojave Desert by way of Soledad Cañon, and extended to the San Joaquin through the Tehachapi. Having reached the San Joaquin, the line could find an outlet through the Coast Range by the Pacheco Pass to San José.
Lieutenant Parke was in charge of the investigations covering the route along the coast from Los Angeles to San
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Francisco. His examination was carefully made, but the details cannot be entered into here. He thought the road might be built for $20,000,000 and pointed out the beneficial effect it would have upon the development of rich agricul- tural lands between Los Angeles and Monterey. A half century elapsed, however, before the Southern Pacific, following Parke's suggestions, completed this vital link between the north and south.
The careful surveys of Williamson and Parke in Southern California were duplicated in the northern part of the state the following year (1855). Williamson was again put in charge of the work; but as Parke was busy elsewhere, Lieutenant H. L. Abbott was detailed to act as chief assist- ant. The main object of this investigation was to discover a feasible route between the Sacramento Valley and Oregon, either by way of the Willamette River or the Deschutes. The Deschutes route involved a recrossing of the Sierra Nevadas along the earlier line mapped out by Beckwith, and a survey of the region lying between the eastern outlet of Noble's Pass and the Klamath River. The course of this stream was then followed for some distance, until a low range of hills allowed the party to cross to the Deschutes. The valley of this river, which was supposed to furnish an outlet to the Dalles, after a time proved impossible for railway purposes; and though a pass was afterwards found leading into the Willamette Valley, the route as a whole proved too difficult and the country too sterile to make the construction of a railroad practical.
The second line marked out for survey between California and Oregon was much more favored by Williamson and Abbott. It tapped the rich mining regions of Shasta and Trinity Counties, and ran through the fertile Umpqua, Rogue, and Willamette Valleys. On this route the chief difficulty was presented by the mountainous country lying between Shasta City and Yreka. Indian troubles, however, unfortunately prevented a careful examination of much of the region; but Abbott's conjecture that the route would prove eminently practical upon further investigation, was
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later verified by the construction of the Oregon and Cal- ifornia Railway from San Francisco to Portland.
The Pacific Railroad Reports, which embodied the find- ings of Whipple, Gunnison, Stephens, Beckwith and the rest, showed plainly enough that no insurmountable difficulty had been placed by nature in the way of a railroad to the west. But unfortunately for the immediate construction of such a road, the same reports showed that it might follow at least four routes across the continent, thus keeping alive that sectional rivalry which had already proved such a serious impediment to the railway bill. The selection of the southern route by Secretary Davis as the most desirable for railway purposes, did little to mend the situation. He was charged with pro-slavery and sectional motives, though his choice was wholly justified from the engineering and financial standpoint, and the battle between the various routes went on as vigorously and indecisively as before.
In this contest the southern route scored two important gains. One, the acquisition of the Butterfield Overland Mail, has already been spoken of. The other, which trans- pired some years before the Overland Mail, (while in fact the railroad surveys were still in progress), was the so-called Gadsden Purchase. This further acquisition of Mexican territory was urged because it was found that a railroad following the general line of the thirty-second parallel would be compelled at times to dip south of the border, owing to topographical difficulties, and run for part of its course through the state of Sonora.
To keep the road wholly on American soil, President Pierce therefore sent Colonel James G. Gadsden of South Carolina to negotiate with Mexico for the desired territory. Gadsden, himself a railroad president and one of the earliest advocates of a line to the Pacific, had suggested in 1845 that its terminus be made either Mazatlan or San Francisco. He was an ardent enthusiast for the southern route, and suc- ceeded without great difficulty in securing Mexico's consent to the transfer of some 45,000 square miles, lying just south of Arizona and New Mexico, for $10,000,000. After a good
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deal of debate, the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate and went into effect June 30, 1854.6
While the federal government was thus concerned with the question of a railroad to the Pacific, the people of California were also busily engaged in agitation for the project. Their newspapers were continually harping upon it; mass meetings and conventions were called to further the enterprise; and California Congressmen and Senators were made to feel that the chief end of their political life was to secure the enactment of a railroad bill.
The State Legislature similarly showed great enthusiasm for the enterprise. Much of this, expressed in oratory and memorials to Congress, did little good; but a few practical results were accomplished by other means. Most important of these was an examination of that portion of the Sierra Nevadas lying between the American River and Carson Pass, for the purpose of constructing an immigrant road that later might serve as a railway route across the mountains. This investigation, carried out under the Surveyor General's orders by Sherman Day and George H. Goddard (whose name is still retained by one of the highest peaks in the Sierras), served materially to supplement the surveys previously made by the federal government.
In California, however, as in the nation at large, sectional rivalries prevented general support of any one route. San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco each had its ambi- tions to become the railway center of the west; and the result was a frittering away of energy in urging local claims that might better have been spent in concerted action. This lack of harmony among Californians seriously weakened the railroad cause at Washington, and was one of the reasons for the long years of delay between the time of the completion of the surveys and the actual construction of the road.7
6 The Southern Pacific for much of its course from Yuma to El Paso now runs through this Gadsden Purchase. The treaty also provided for certain transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
7 Public opinion held the Pacific Mail Steamship Company largely responsible for the failure of Con- gressional action.
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So, in spite of a need which grew more urgent every year, various adverse factors continued to defeat the Pacific rail- road, until the patience of the people of California was almost gone. In 1859 a San Francisco editor summed up this popular feeling in the following exasperated protest:
"If ever a people belonging to, and forming part and parcel of a great nation, were subject to a downright persecution from the government to which they owe allegiance, the people of California are the ones of all others that furnish the most prominent and striking example of such treatment. We are wholly at the mercy of a gang of political harpies, who care no more for the interests of California than they do for those of the wild tribes of the interior of South Africa. . . . If all that we have given to the world thus far, all the benefit that California has bestowed upon the rest of the Union, all that she is yet to become are to count for nothing in the estimation of the Government, then let it be so understood, and let us cast about us and see what we can accomplish single handed."
If this editorial fairly represented public opinion on the coast, as it did without much question, then political neces- sity, as well as economic expediency, demanded the enact- ment of a railroad bill. The outbreak of the Civil War brought the issue to a climax. The federal government at last saw that the railroad must be built if California were to be kept within the Union. At the same time, since the southern route was eliminated from consideration because so much of it lay within Confederate territory, the question of the location of the road was greatly simplified. Secession and war thus cleared the way for the eagerly awaited, but long delayed, Pacific Railroad.
The chief authorities consulted in the preparation of this chapter were:
1. Explorations and surveys for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. [Pacific Railroad Reports] (Washing- ton, 1855).
2. Albright, George Leslie, official explorations for the Pacific railroads, University of California, Publications in History, v. XI.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD
THE Pacific Railroad Bill, which closed the long struggle for a transcontinental railway, provided that the road should start on the one hundredth meridian, between the Republican and Platte Rivers, and proceed westward along "the most direct, central, and practical route to the western boundary of Nevada, there to meet and connect with the line of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California."
The bill thus authorized the construction of two distinct roads; the one, designated the Union Pacific, was to reach from Omaha to the California boundary; the other, known as the Central Pacific, was to be built eastward from Sacra- mento until it crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is the purpose of this narrative to deal only with the construc- tion of the Central Pacific (except where the history of the two roads becomes inseparable), and leave the fascinating, but somewhat intricate affairs of the Union Pacific and Oak Ames' Credit Mobilier, to other writers.
The Central Pacific found its origin in the enthusiasm of one man, and owed its completion to the determination and shrewdness of four. A civil engineer, named Theodore D. Judah, had come to the coast in 1854 to lay out a pioneer railroad called the Sacramento Valley line, which ran between the city of Sacramento and Folsom. Before Judah was through with this local road, he had been caught by the challenge of the Sierras and began to plan the conquest of the mountains.
Within the next few years, often in the dead of winter when the snow lay fifteen or twenty feet deep on the higher levels, Judah made twenty-two examinations of possible routes across the Sierras; and in the intervals between these
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trips tried to organize popular backing for his undertaking. The California public, so far as mere talk was concerned, was full of enthusiasm for the road; but for a long time Judah's efforts did not bring out any financial support.1 He con- tinued his agitation, however, as vigorously as ever, and at last secured the tangible assistance the enterprise so badly needed. This was the incorporation, June 28, 1861, of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, with a capital stock of 85,000 shares of a nominal value of a hundred dollars each.
The officers of the new company were all engaged in business in Sacramento, and from the very beginning the Central Pacific became more a partnership affair than a corporation. Leland Stanford, nominated but ten days before the organization of the company for the governorship of the state by the Republican party, and destined to win the election the following September, was chosen president; Collis P. Huntington became vice-president; Mark Hopkins, treasurer; and James Bailey, a jeweler through whom Judah had become acquainted with Stanford and Hunting- ton, secretary. Judah himself was chosen chief engineer.
The three men first mentioned, together with Charles Crocker, whose name intentionally did not appear as one of the company's directors, were in reality the Central Pacific Railroad. They afterwards became the most powerful rail- road group in the west, and for nearly a generation were the controlling factor in the state's economic development. At this time, however, they were neither very rich nor very widely known, and the task to which they had put their hands was overwhelmingly great.
Stanford, Hopkins, and Crocker were all born in New York; and Huntington, though a native of Connecticut, had lived most of his life in the same state. Stanford and Hopkins, as young men, were educated for the law; but
1A great railroad convention was held at San Francisco in 1859 at the call of the State Legislature, to which every county in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon
was requested to send delegates. Its sessions, presided over by John Bidwell, lasted for several days, but accomplished little or nothing of a practical nature.
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Huntington and Crocker had known little schooling of any kind, except the schooling of poverty and hard work. All four reached California at the time of the gold rush, and eventually became the leading merchants of Sacramento. Stanford and Crocker were in the dry goods trade; while Huntington and Hopkins, more than a decade before, had formed a mutually satisfactory partnership to deal in hard- ware and miner's supplies.
From the time these four men joined forces in the organ- ization of the Central Pacific until the combination was finally dissolved by death, they worked together as a unit, opposing a solid front to all opposition, and never allowing personal disagreements or jealousies to defeat their purpose. This perfect team work largely accounted for their phenom- enal success. It is remarkable, however, considering the character of the men, that they should have maintained such harmonious relations over so many years, for with the possible exception of Hopkins, all four were men of deter- mined wills and vigorous opinions.2
One of the reasons for the successful cooperation of the four, was the wise division of labor very early made between them. Almost from the outset, Crocker was put in charge of the actual construction of the line. Huntington became the company's eastern representative, attending to national legislation, purchasing material, and securing funds. Stan- ford handled state politics and managed the financial end in California; and Hopkins, with his "keen, analytical mind," served as a valuable advisor for the others, and particularly aided Stanford in local matters.
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