USA > California > Sacramento County > History of Sacramento County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, 1913 > Part 24
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During 1862 the Sacramento, Placer and Nevada Railroad was
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built from Folsom to a point near Newcastle. The road had been organized in 1859 to build an extension of the Sacramento Valley Railroad from Folsom via Auburn to Grass Valley and Nevada City. The public-spirited citizens of Auburn furnished funds which enabled it to be constructed from Folsom to Wildwood Station, a distance of about eleven miles, and it stopped there. The Robinson Brothers, who had built the Sacramento Valley Railroad, and were largely interested in it, were the promoters of this road, which cost for the eleven miles $278,000. It proved a losing venture, and was sold under foreclosure in the spring of 1864; Robinson Brothers purchased some of the stock, intending to use it as part of their road. When the purchasers under foreclosure attempted to take up the rails and ties, they were bitterly fought by the Central Pacific and the Auburn people who had con- tributed to build it. The courts were appealed to and resort was also made to force. On account of the violence engendered, the militia was called out, but the Robinsons were successful, and the material was removed and relaid on the road from Folsom to Latrobe. About a hundred workmen who removed the rails, including Robinson, were arrested for contempt of court, which was a poor satisfaction for the Auburn people who subscribed toward building the road.
The Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad, commencing at Folsom, was constructed as far as Latrobe in 1864 and 1865, and hung fire there for several years, finally being carried on to Shingle Springs. In 1887-88 the work was taken up again and the road completed to Placerville, under the name of the Shingle Springs and Placerville Railroad. The road as far as Latrobe was laid with the ties and rails taken up from the Auburn road. It was through a rich country, where the principal industry in former days was mining and stock-raising, but at the present day the capability of the foothills for producing fine fruit and grapes has been proved, and El Dorado county is fast be- coming the home of the orchardist and vineyardist.
The Amador branch, running from Galt in this county, to Ione in Amador county, a distance of twenty-seven miles, was built by the Central Pacific Company in 1876, in order to gain access to some mines of lignite coal near Ione.
The Freeport road originated in a plan to divert the northern and eastern trade from Sacramento by building wharves, etc., at Freeport and a railroad from there to some point on the Sacramento Valley road. The road bed was graded for a distance of nine miles from Freeport, and the track laid. It was intended as part of the Sacra- mento Valley road, and was purchased with it by the Central Pacific and the track taken up.
In the ensuing quarter of a century a number of roads were in- corporated, some part of whose lines would tonch the county of Sacra- mento, but none of them proceeded to construction.
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In 1909 and 1910 the Southern Pacific Company constructed the Sacramento Southern Railroad, running down the Sacramento river, with the intention of tapping the rich fruit orchards and other lands between the city of Sacramento and Isleton and the country lying back of them, and developing a country rich in freight possibilities, and also opening a short ronte to San Francisco. The work of con- struction is still going on, trains being run daily as far as Wal- nut Grove. The road will also develop the river section of Yolo county. It was incorporated July 7, 1903, and will run down the river to Antioch, to connect with the San Pablo railroad, which was con- solidated with the Northern and afterwards taken over by the Southern Pacific.
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California was incor- porated in San Francisco, December 2, 1865, with a capital of $50,000,000. The Southern Pacific Branch Company was incorporated in Sacramento December 23, 1870, with a capital of $20,000,000, and was consolidated with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of Cali- fornia August 19, 1873.
The Northern Railway Company was incorporated in Sacramento July 19, 1871. On May 15, 1888, it acquired by consolidation the Win- ters and Ukiah, the Woodland, Capay and Clear Lake, the West Side and Mendocino, the Vaca Valley and Clear Lake, the San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada, the Sacramento and Placerville, the Shingle Springs and Placerville, the Amador Branch and the Berkeley Branch rail- roads. The stock was increased to $26,175,000. April 12, 1898, it was consolidated with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California.
The San Pablo and Tulare Railroad Company was incorporated in Sacramento July 19, 1871, and was consolidated with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California May 4, 1888.
The Sonthern Pacific Company of Kentucky was incorporated in that state March 7, 1884. It immediately took over on a lease for ninety-nine years all the roads mentioned, as an operating company, as well as systems in other parts of the state.
On January 1, 1903, the Southern Pacific Company instituted a system of pensions for its superannuated employes who had been in its service continuously for twenty-five years or more. The emploves had previously had a system of insurance among themselves, to which many belonged, and the various brotherhoods of employes also have a life insurance feature in their orders. Under the pension system of the company it has paid to the employes retired on account of age, np to June 30, 1912, the sum of $1,049,250, and on that date there were four hundred and ninety-one pensioners on the list.
SOUTHERN PACIFIC SHOPS
Many old residents who look on the railroad shops of the Southern
13
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Pacific Company today can recall the memory of a far different aspect which the site presented in 1860 and the earlier years of the city's history. As far back as the early '70s, the Central Pacific Railroad Company had made overtures to the city to the effect that if the city would deed the site of Sutter's lake to it, the company would fill it in as a site for a depot, shops, and for other uses. With prophetic vision the founders of the first great overland railroad saw that its growth would be rapid and sure, and that before long it would need a large space for its shops, depot and yards. Sacramento was the birthplace of the road. Its principal offices were here. What more logical place could be found for the center of its activities on this coast? San Francisco had spurned its opportunity and had fought in every way in its power the sturdy group of men who had given their energies and their fortunes to build the way across the continent. Why should they place their shops and spend their money in a hostile city? And be- sides, with the shops a hundred miles inland, the distance to haul dis- abled cars and engines for repairs would be just that much less. There were other good reasons besides, so the shops arose in this city.
But in the early days, Sutter slough, or China slough, as it be- came later known, when Chinatown was located on its banks, covered a much greater area than it did at the close of the last century. Practically, it extended from the levee of the American river to I street, and from Sixth street to the American river, at its old mouth. It was not an ornamental place, and when the project of issuing fifty year bonds for the purpose of filling it up was broached, the citizens who looked at its area and figured on filling in a depression that was forty feet deep in places felt the cold shivers travel along their spines. Then the railroad company stepped to the front with the proposition to fill it, if the site was deeded to it. The offer was accepted tenta- tively, and the company began its work, but it was not fully completed until 1908, a contract having been definitely made between the city and the Southern Pacific in 1904, by which the city reserved a certain site on the north side of I street for a park.
The first beginning was in 1863, when a building, 16x24 feet, was erected by the Central Pacific Railroad Company at the foot of I street for the storage of tools and of sections of locomotives and cars which had been sent around the Horn for the use of the infant rail- road. The locomotives were set up just outside of this shon. In the same year a rough building, 20x150 feet, was constructed at Sixth and II streets and was used as a shop for overhauling cars that needed repairs. Another shop was erected soon after, on the curve leading to I street, and was used for overhauling the locomotives. It was 20x60 feet, and at one end of it was a single forge that constituted the entire blacksmithing department of the company. In 1864, the car shop prov- ing too narrow for convenience, another one, 34x130 feet, was erected at Sixth and E streets, and just west of it a larger shop was erected
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which would hold three locomotives for repairs, and the blacksmithing facilities were also increased. Soon the first boiler shop of the com- pany, 40x50 feet, was erected, but this in turn became too small, and was turned over to the foreman of the lumberyard as a dry-house for seasoning timber.
Heretofore, all the rolling stock had been brought from the east, but as the road grew the company concluded to build its own cars, and in 1866 the first car construction shop was erected, 68x250 feet, and business increased so rapidly that for many months it turned out a dozen cars a day. Still the work expanded, immense amounts of lum- ber being used, and the fine woodwork for the cars demanded atten- tion. So in 1868, the planing mill, cabinet shop, the engine room and the blacksmith shop were erected, also the roundhouse, with a capacity of twenty-nine engines, was constructed. In the same year the larger machine shop, 160x200 feet, was begun, and subsequently 315 feet were added. In an L, the offices of the motive-power and machinery depart- ment were located. In the same year the car shop was extended 230 feet, and a new blacksmith shop was constructed. As scrap iron ac- cumulated, the experiment of setting up a set of rolls in the black- smith shop was tried, and later, in 1881, the present rolling mill was erected. The paint shop, having five L's, was built in 1872, but soon proved too small, so in 1888 an addition to hold eight coaches was built. The transfer table was also constructed in 1872, and in 1873 the present car shop No. 5 was erected. In 1889 the present boiler shop was constructed. Other buildings followed, of substantial brick and iron, under the supervision of the master car builder, Benjamin Welch, and the veterans of the shops call the plant "the city built by Uncle Ben." From a small beginning the plant has increased until it is the finest equipped railroad shop plant west of Chicago. Up to 1896 there had been expended for labor alone in the shops over $31,000,000, this estimate being a very conservative one, while in the same time over $50,000,000 was expended for material, and in the same time 7131 cars had been built in the shops, besides seventy-three engines.
As stated, the plant covers more than twenty acres, and is being enlarged every year. It gives employment to from 2500 to 3000 men, in busy seasons often exceeding the latter number. At present the principal shops are: the machine shop, car repair shop, blacksmith shop, boiler shop, spring shop, brass fonndry, carpenter shop, round- honse, copper shop, locomotive shop, hammer shop, bolt shop, rolling mill, upholstery shop and car machine shop, planing mill, cabinet shop, car shop No. 5, paint shop, wheel foundry, general foundry, pipe shop, shear shop, pattern shop, and a number of smaller shops. These are all equinnel with the finest machinery, much of it of the latest pattern. One who is interested in machinery could spend several days profitably in inspecting the wonders to be seen there. In each of the shops the
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method of carrying on the work of construction is interesting to those not familiar with it.
ELECTRIC ROADS
Sacramento is connected with other cities of the valley at present by three electric roads-the Northern Electric, the Central California Traction and the Sacramento and Woodland electric roads, and the Vallejo and Northern, and Sacramento and Sierra are in course of construction, with one, the Sacramento and Eastern, to run to Folsom by way of Fair Oaks, and another, the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern, to run to San Francisco, incorporated and will probably be under way in a year or two. The West Side railroad is also incorporated, as well as one to run to Folsom on the south side of the American River.
Of these the Northern Electric Railway is the oldest, having been conceived by the late Henry A. Butters, who was impressed with the need of transportation facilities between Chico and Oroville. He associated with himself Messrs. Lonis Sloss, N. D. Rideont, J. Downey Harvey and E. R. Lilienthal, and the Northern Electric Company was formed, with a capitalization of $3,000,000 which was later in- creased to $6,000,000. The initial action was the acquisition of the street railroads of Chico, and the road from Chico to Oroville was completed and the first train rum over it April 25, 1906. The advisa- bility of extending the road to Marysville being apparent, W. P. Ham- mond and E. J. de Sabla joined in the undertaking, Mr. Rideout retiring. On January 31, 1907, the road to Marysville was completed, and the line was completed and the first train to Sacramento was rnn on Angust 1st of that year. On December 2, 1907, the Northern Electric Railway Company was organized, with an authorized bond issne of $25,000,000, taking over the original company.
The Sacramento Terminal Company was formed in 1908, for the purpose of building a belt line in this city from Eighteenth and C streets to the water front, and was immediately leased by the North- ern Electric. Later the Northern Electric entered into an arrange- ment with the Vallejo Northern for full exchange of traffic, and the joint construction of a bridge over the Sacramento river at M street, the counties of Yolo and Sacramento bearing a proportion of the cost. Later the Sacramento and Woodland Railroad Company joined with them, and that road being finished, the first train was run over it July 4, 1912. The Vallejo Northern is rapidly pushing its construc- tion along and expects to have the road in operation by the beginning of 1913.
The Central California Traction is operating from Sacramento to Stockton, and is also working under a traffic agreement with the Santa Fe railroad, which will probably absorb it in the course of time, thus adding another transcontinental line to those running through this city and as it is announced that the Great Northern has a traffic agree-
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ment with the Northern Electric, there is a strong probability that in a few years Sacramento will have four transcontinental lines carrying produce to the east.
CHAPTER XXV NAVIGATION
At the door of Sacramento flows a magnificent river of the same name, and which, in fact, gave its name to the city in its early his- tory. Its influence on both city and county has been a most important factor in their development. For the city it was, prior to the con- struction of the railroad lines, the sole medium of transportation that provided the interior with supplies for the settler and miner, and as an outlet for conveying the products of the interior to the bay city and the east and foreign countries. Even when the railroads came, they served as an outlet for only a small portion of the territory drained by and contiguous to the river, and millions of bushels of grain, hay and other products continued to be transported by the river route, and even today an immense amount of traffic and pro- ducts are carried on the steamers and barges, as well as by sailing vessels. The amount of fruit carried to this city and the bay city has for many years been enormous.
Any section of a country which has a waterway connecting it with tidewater is fortunate indeed, and no section could be more fortunate in that respect than the Sacramento valley. The Sacramento river flows through the whole extent of the valley, from Shasta county on the north, to Solano county on the south, a distance of about three hundred miles. The twelve counties embraced in this area have a combined acreage of 11,456,528 acres, and an aggregate population of about a quarter of a million, the area of the valley being seventeen thousand, eight hundred and fifteen square miles. The distance to Red Bluff, the head of navigation, is two hundred and one miles from Sacramento, and to the mouth of the river, near Collinsville, is about sixty-five miles. The debris from hydraulic mining has filled the river-which in the early days afforded plenty of water for ocean going steamers and vessels to come to this city-so that navigation became difficult for vessels drawing over about four feet of water, during the late summer and fall, but the government, by the use of a snagboat and the erection of wing dams, has deepened the channel so that even the large steamers put on by the Southern Pacific Com- pany during the past year or two very rarely have trouble, and there is a prospect that in the near future, the channel will be deep- ened by the government and state to nine feet, as far as this city.
Undoubtedly the Russians were the first to navigate the river, as they had posts at Fort Ross and Bodega, and were engaged in trade in tallow, hides, furs, etc., and were in this region prior to 1840, trading
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in the interior up to the time they sold out to Captain Sutter. At that time, also, there was in this section an agency of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1841 the Russians sold out to Sutter, including a small schooner of forty tons burden. The first record we have of its appearance up the river was in August of that year, although it had probably made voyages on the river prior to that. After the purchase, by the terms of which Sutter was to furnish a certain amount of grain each year to the Russian settlements, this schooner, manned by Sutter's Indians, made regular trips. She was taken down to San Francisco in 1848, to carry thither the news of the discovery of gold, and continued to be the largest schooner on the river until the trade to the mines began. At that time the voyage from New Helvetia, as this city was then called, to San Francisco and back took from two to four weeks.
In the spring of 1848 the rush for gold set in, and the San Fran- cisco Star of May 20th sarcastically alluded to it as follows: "Fleet of launches left this place on Sunday and Monday last, bound 'up the Sacramento river,' closely stowed with human beings led by the love of filthy Incre to the perennial-yielding gold mines of the north, where 'a man can find upward of two ounces a day' and 'two thousand men can find their hands full'-of hard work." May 27th, the Star said : "Launches have plied without cessation between this place and New Helvetia, during this time (from the discovery of gold). The Sacra- mento, a first-class craft, left here Thursday last, thronged with pas- sengers for the gold mines-a motley assemblage, composed of law- yers, merchants, grocers, carpenters, cartmen and cooks, all possessed with the desire of becoming suddenly rich." At the same time it stated that over three hundred men were engaged in washing out gold, and parties from all over the country were constantly arriving. On account of the departure of her principal citizens for the gold mines, San Francisco soon assumed a desolate appearance. A quar- ter of a million in gold was taken to that city in the first eight weeks, and during the second eight weeks, $600,000 worth. By September six thousand persons were at the diggings, and the editor of the Star exclaimed : "An export at last, and it is gold."
In April, 1849, the schooner Providence, one hundred tons, Hinck- ley, master, came up the river, and the Eliodora, purchased by Sam Brannan and loaded with goods, started up the river. The Joven Guipuzcoana, a Peruvian vessel, and other large sailing vessels of first class dimensions followed. At that time there were about a dozen stores and tenements here. On the success of the Joven Guip- uzcoana were founded the plans of the first steam navigation com- panies, and the MeKim and the Senator soon followed. In May the crowning success with sailing vessels came with the trip of the bark Whiton, Gelston, master, in seventy-two hours from San Francisco. She was of two hundred forty-one tons burden, and came with her
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royal yards crossed, without any detention, although she drew nine and one-half feet of water.
The first steamboat that plowed the waters of either the bay or river was one that arrived in San Francisco, October 14, 1847, owned by Captain Leidesdorff and packed on a Russian bark from Sitka. Leidesdorff had for seven years carried on trade with the Russians, and hearing that they had a small steamboat, he sent up and pur- chased it for his hide and tallow commerce on the small streams run- ning into the bay. It did not exceed forty tons burden, was put together under the lee of Yerba Buena island, and was named the Little Sitka. She was cranky, and the weight of a person on her guards would throw one wheel out of order. Her second trip for business was to Sacramento, where she remained for a month, her proprietor insisting in answer to the jibes launched at him, that he would soon make the smoke fly on the bay, and hand the name of his first steamboat "down to dexterity" as he pronounced it. She was swamped by a norther in San Francisco bay in February, 1848, was raised and the engine taken out, and was transformed into a sailing vessel. A steamer brought around the Horn and put together at Benicia, made a trip to this city August 17, 1849, and another one from Philadelphia began on August 25th, to ply on the river, accom- modating about thirty passengers and steaming "about seven knots an hour."
About the first boat advertising for regular runs on the river appears to have been the Sacramento, in September, 1849, commanded by Captain Van Pelt, and carrying one hundred passengers, besides freight. She was built opposite the city, where Washington now stands, and Van Pelt made regular trips down to "New York of the Pacific," where passengers and freight had to be transferred. About the same time a little steam dredge, brought out by the Yerba com- pany, was set up on a scow, and started on a trip up the Feather river, carrying a number of bricks, at one dollar apiece, for freight, and lumber at $150 per thousand. Two months after her arrival she was sold for $40,000 at auction. The next boat was the Mint, also a small one, and really the first boat to make successful regular trips with passengers and freight to and from San Francisco, beginning in October, 1849.
A little steamer named the Washington was the first to ascend the river as far as Vernon, at the mouth of the Feather river, and she afterwards made regular trips to that point. In 1850 the Aetna, another small steamer, ascended the American as far as Norristown, the first time a steamer had ever reached that point. Mav 8, 1850, the Jack Hays reached Redding, at the headwaters of the Sacra- mento river, within forty-five miles of the Trinity Diggings. The little steamboat Linde was among the first to take a place between here and Yuba City, in the fall of 1849.
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The steamer New World was built in New York in the fall of 1849 and spring of 1850, purposely for a trip to California. She was 320 feet long, and of 530 tons burden. William H. Brown was the pro- prietor, and as he became financially embarrassed, he was forced to take the sheriff into silent partnership. The latter placed deputies on board to remain during the launching, and to make things sure, went on board himself, being unknown to Ed Wakeman, the captain. The vessel was held in the port of New York, the launching being ostensibly for the purpose of getting the boat into the water only, but steam was raised previous to the launching. When the sheriff asked what it meant, he was informed that it was "to wear the rust off the bearings and see that the engine worked well." But after steaming around the harbor for awhile, the captain put to sea, against the protests of the sheriff. As the captain and crew were more numerous than the sheriff and his deputies, they put the latter on shore in rowboats, and came to California around Cape Horn, making a fine voyage, and arriving in San Francisco July 11, 1850. The New World and the Senator made alternate trips to Sacramento for a long time. Afterwards, the New World was employed in the coast- ing and ocean trade and later was overhauled and put into service at San Francisco as a magnificent ferryboat, and used as such for many years. The Senator was an ocean steamer and arrived in Sac- ramento November 6, 1849, with a load of passengers and freight. She was 755 tons measurement, and drew nine and a half feet of water. The steamer Miner brought passengers and freight in De- cember, and afterwards continned her trips to Mecklenberg, now Marysville, on the Feather river.
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