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, 1923, Part 45

Author: Reed, G. Walter
Publication date: 1923
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1026

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, 1923 > Part 45

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

28, 1861. The name chosen for the company was the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, and the officers elected were as follows : Leland Stanford, president; C. P. Huntington, vice-president ; Mark Hopkins, treasurer ; Theodore D. Judah, chief engineer ; Leland Stanford, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker. James Bailey, L. A. Booth, D. W. Strong, of Dutch Flat, and Charles Marsh, of Nevada City, directors. The capital stock was $8,500,000 and $148,000 was subscribed, just enough to bring them within the limit as set by the laws of California.

That all but the last two named were citi- zens of Sacramento demonstrates conclusively that to Sacramento and her citizens belongs the honor of inaugurating and carrying to suc- cessful completion the Pacific railroads; for had not Judah spent his time and talents in collecting data, making surveys and proving that such an undertaking was possible, it is an open question if the Pacific railroads would be in existence today. The country from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains was generally known in those days and appeared on the maps as "The Great American Desert." The lofty and inhospitable Rocky Mountain System was on its western border, difficult to surmount. Beyond this lay the valley and table-land of Utah and Nevada, bleak and uninviting, and still beyond, the lofty and rug- ged Sierra Nevadas must be surmounted. The prospect was not inviting to the Eastern in- vestor. The barren and unpromising country to be traversed gave but little prospect of be- ing settled for many a year, and the outlook for financial profit from the construction of a railroad across a scope of such country nearly 2,000 miles in extent was not a brilliant one. nor one calculated to draw the dollars from the pockets of capitalists. Had the railroad not been begun at this end of the line, it is doubt- ful if the line would have been built, even to this day. To the men, then, who threw them- selves into the breach and periled their for- tunes and those of their friends, accrues the honor of being foremost in the work of devel- oping not only the Pacific Coast, but two- thirds of the width of the continent. Mr. Ju- dah's engineering work in constructing the most difficult parts of the road was regarded as the wonder of the age, for he was forced to employ methods not before used in his pro- fession.

His coadjutors in the work, who have all, or nearly all; passed away, deserve full credit for their faith in the enterprise, their indomitable energy and their masterly manner of manag- ing and overcoming the financial difficulties that they encountered during the years that elapsed between the organization of the com- pany and the completion of the road, which

was often sneeringly alluded to by the San Franciscans as "Stanford's Dutch Flat Road." We cannot forget, however, that Mr. Judah had spent all his time and money and energy for three or four years previous to the organi- zation of the company, in collecting data, without which no prudent man would have felt justified in investing a dollar in the undertak- ing that was so generally regarded as chimeri- cal and impracticable.

After the company was organized Mr. Judah was instructed to make a thorough instru- mental survey of the route across the Sierras, which he did. The previous surveys or recon- noissances made had covered three routes, one through Eldorado County via Georgetown. another via Illinoistown and Dutch Flat. and a third via Nevada and Henness Pass. The observations had demonstrated the existence of a route across the Sierras by which the summit could be reached by maximum grades of 105 feet to the mile. The instrumental sur- vey, however, developed a route with lighter grades, less distance and fewer obstacles than the previous observations had shown. The first report of the chief engineer to the officers of the company gave the following as topo- graphical features of the Sierras, which ren- dered railroad-building and operating over them so formidable :

1. "The great elevation to be overcome in crossing its summit, and the want of uniform- ity in its western slope." The average length of the western slope of the Sierras is about seventy miles, and in this distance the altitude increases 7,000 feet, making it necessary to maintain an even grade on the ascent to avoid creating some sections with excessive grades.

2. "From the impracticability of the river crossings." These rivers run through gorges in many places over 1.000 feet deep, with the banks of varying slopes from perpendicular to forty-five degrees. A railroad line, therefore. must avoid crossing these canyons. The line. as established by the surveys of 1861. pursued its course along an unbroken ridge from the base to the summit of the Sierras, the only river crossing in the mountains being the Little Bear, about three miles above Dutch Flat. Another prominent feature of the loca- tion is the fact that it entirely avoids the second summit of the Sierras. The estimated cost per mile of the road from Sacramento to the state line was $88,000 per mile.

October 1, 1861, the board of directors of the Central Pacific Railroad Company adopted a resolution as follows :

"Resolved, that Mr. T. D. Judah, the chief engineer of this company, proceed to Wash- ington on the steamer of the 11th of October instant, as the accredited agent of the Central

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

Pacific Railroad Company of California for the purpose of procuring appropriations of land and United States bonds from the gov- ernment, to aid in the construction of this road." Mr. Judah proceeded to the East on his mission; that he accomplished his pur- pose this time is shown by the bill that was passed by congress in July, 1862. This bill granted a free right of way to the roads of 400 feet wide over all government lands on their line. The government also agreed to extin- guish the Indian title to all the land donated to the company either for the right of way or for other purposes.

The lands on either side of the road were to be withdrawn from settlement by preemp- tion or otherwise, for a distance of fifteen miles, until the final location of the road should be made, and the United States surveys had determined the location of the section lines. This map of the route was made by Mr. Judah, filed in the office of the secretary of the interior, and the lands withdrawn in ac- cordance with the terms of the bill. When the bill had passed, Mr. Judah telegraphed to his associates in Sacramento: "We have drawn the elephant. See if we can harness him up."

This bill also provided for the issue to the company of United States thirty-year six per cent bonds, to be issued to the company as each forty-mile section of the road was com- pleted, at the rate of $16,000 per mile for the line west of the western base of the Sierra Nevadas, and at the rate of $48,000 per mile from the western base east to the eastern base of the Sierras, the latter subsidy to be paid on the completion of each twenty-mile section.

To secure the government from loss, and insure the payment of these bonds, they were made a first lien on the road. The state of California also donated $10,000 per mile to the road, by an act approved April 25, 1863. The engineering difficulties were great, and had been considered unsurmountable, but the financial difficulties also were great, and un- doubtedly required more labor and thought than the engineering, though of a different kind. That all these difficulties were sur- mounted, and the originators of the effort still retained the ownership and control of the road. and in addition to the original line have built thousands of miles of road in California and Arizona and elsewhere, proves the ability of the leaders in this movement.

These men were merchants in a city that could not be classed among the large ones of the land, and were consequently not largely known to the financial world; they had never been engaged in the railroad business, and were supposedly ignorant of the magnitude of

the undertaking in which they engaged. Aside from the natural difficulty of the situation, they encountered the opposition of the moneyed men of San Francisco and other places, who gave their enterprise the name of the "Dutch Flat Swindle." C. P. Huntington, vice-president of the company, was next sent to the East, with full power-of-attorney to do any acts he might think for the interest of the company. One of the main objects of this trip was to see that the bill which was then before congress should not oblige the com- pany to pay interest on the bonds received of the government for at least ten years from their date of issue. After the passage of the bill, the books were opened for stock subscrip- tions, to the amount of $8,500,000. Of this amount $600,000 was subscribed at the first rush, but after that, for a long time, the sub- scriptions came in very slowly.

When Huntington attempted to dispose of the bonds of the company in New York, he was informed that they had no marketable value until some part of the road was built. Before he could dispose of them, therefore, he was obliged to give the personal guarantee of himself and his four partners, Hopkins, Stan- ford and the Crockers, for the money, until such times as they could be exchanged for United States bonds.

After spending the summer of 1861 in mak- ing additional surveys of the three routes under consideration, Judah had finally decided on the Dutch Flat route, ascertaining that the maximum grade on that line would be 100 feet to the mile. He thought the line could be kept free from snow by the use of snow-plows and that eighteen tunnels, aggregating 17,100 feet in length, would be sufficient. "Lightning ex- presses" and "limited" trains did not enter into his calculations. He outlined a schedule for trains going east as follows :

Sacramento to Barrimore's, thirty-one miles, one hour. Stop at Barrimore's, half hour.

Barrimore's to Summit, eighty-one miles, four hours. Four stops en route, fifteen min- utes each, one hour. Stop at Summit, quarter- hour.

Summit to Truckee River, eleven miles, three-quarters of an hour.

Total for 123 miles, seven and one-half hours, including stops aggregating an hour and three-quarters.

He estimated the cost of construction from Sacramento to the state line, 140 miles, at $12,380,000, an average of $88,428 a mile.

The bill as passed gave the company two years to complete the first fifty miles, none of their land grant or government bonds being available until they had finished the first forty. This latter provision nearly doomed them to

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

failure, as it turned out. The first fifty miles. as reported by the engineers, were described as a line from "Sacramento to Grider's (Rose- ville), eighteen miles; thence California Cen- tral Railroad to the Auburn Railroad, oppo- site Folsom, nine miles ; thence Auburn Rail- road to Auburn, fifteen miles: thence eight miles to Clipper Gap." Evidently it was the intention to use the two roads named, but that intention was abandoned later.

For the purpose of providing means for commencing work, the seven principal stock- holders formed a partnership, each one con- tributing $34,000 in gold ; the amount thus re- ceived, $238,000, was thought to be sufficient to build at least to Newcastle. Everything being ready to begin, they decided to have a celebration and it was held at Front and K Streets in this city, January 8, 1863. The ground was very muddy, and hay was scat- tered over it to make better footing. At 12 m. Charles Crocker introduced Governor Stan- ford, who spoke briefly as to his gratification at being chosen to cast the first dirt on what was to be to the West what the Erie Canal was to the Eastern and Central States, "the tie that binds." He assured those assembled that the work would go on without cessation or interruption. Rev. J. A. Benton, at the close of Stanford's remarks, offered a petition that the Divine blessing might rest on the enterprise, and that the road here inaugurated in His name, might go forward to speedy com- pletion and prove a highway for the people that would make the wilderness and the soli- tary places blossom like a rose. Then two wagons decorated with red, white and blue and filled with dirt were driven in front of the speakers' stand and Governor Stanford shov- eled their contents onto the ground, while the "Sacramento Union Brass Band" played the national airs, and closed with "Wait for the Wagon." Presiding officers of the legislature and others made remarks, Mr. Crocker wind- ing up with the statement that even while he was speaking the contractor was hauling piles to the American River, for the bridge across it ; that the road was going through, and that all he had was devoted to the section he had undertaken to build.

The Central Pacific issued a statement that they had ordered eight first-class locomotives . from Norris & Company, of Phalidelphia, two of them being of the heaviest class used by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on its moun- tain grades, capable of hauling thirty loaded cars or 360 tons over the heaviest grades that would be on the Central Pacific. Eight pas- senger coaches were also ordered, four com- bined mail and baggage cars, thirty box-cars, thirty platform cars, and six hand-cars, and 16

these were on their way round the Horn. The charges for transportation on all this cumber- some equipment were excessive, and totaled many thousands of dollars.

The shipment of these engines was delayed by an army officer who appeared at the loco- motive works when they were about ready and took possession of them and of all others that were on hand, for use of the army, in the name of the government. Protest was made by the company ; and the authorities at Wash- ington, when they learned that the engines seized were for the use of the Central Pacific, ordered them released, on the ground that no military necessity was more important than the completion of the Pacific Railroad. Thev were partially paid for by a fund of $1,250,000 raised by the directors, five of them becoming responsible for the loan by endorsing the com- pany's notes.

None of the government's subsidy aid had as yet been received. Subscriptions by indi- viduals for stock amounted to $600,000. Bonds had been received from Sacramento County for $300,000 and from Placer County for $250,- 000, railroad bonds being given in exchange for them. The city of San Francisco had by a large majority voted a $600,000 subsidy, but it was being held up temporarily by officials hostile to the road. Engineer Judah reported that the company would have to abandon the original plan of using the California Central and Sacramento, Placer and Nevada roads, as they were not laid with American iron, as specified in the bill, and that no existing roads could count for the Central Pacific, under the bill. He reported also that the road was being laid of redwood ties, 68,000 of them being con- tracted for, and that 6,000 tons of iron had been purchased. He estimated the cost of the first fifty miles at $3,221,496.

In 1862 the company was granted the right of way into the city of Sacramento and was also granted the Slough or Sutter Lake. The contract for building the road from Sacra- mento to Grider's on the California Central Railroad was let December 22, 1862, to C. Crocker & Company, who sublet the contract to different parties. Twenty miles of road each year were completed in 1863, 1864 and 1865, thirty miles in 1866, forty-six miles in 1867, 364 miles in 1868, 19012 miles in 1869; making 69012 miles from Sacramento to Promontory, where the roads met, May 10, 1869.

The difficulties were many and great. All of the materials except the cross-ties, and a large proportion of the men employed. were brought from the East via Cape Horn. Toward the latter part of the great enterprise several thousand Chinamen were put at work.

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Besides this, it was war times, and marine in- surance was very high; iron and railroad ma- terials were held at tremendous figures and the price of the subsidy bonds was very low. All of these conditions combined to make the building of the road very costly.

The state of California agreed to pay the interest on $1,500,000 of the bonds for thirty years, and in return the company gave to the state a very valuable stone quarry. A number of the counties along the road bonded them- selves in exchange for stock. Sacramento County gave her bonds to the amount of $300,- 000. These bonds were exchanged for money and the work was pushed forward. Then there was delay in obtaining the subsidy, and the money ran short. When Mr. Huntington returned from New York he found the treas- ury almost destitute of coin, and it became evident that there was a necessity for raising more funds or stopping the work. "Hunting- ton and Hopkins can, out of their own means, pay 500 men for a year ; how many can each of you keep on the line," was the characteris- tic declaration with which he met the emer- gency. Before the meeting adjourned these five men had resolved that they would main- tain 800 men on the road during the year out of their own private resources.

Mr. Judah had sold out his interest in the company about this time (1863) and gone East. On the way he was stricken with Pan- ama fever, dying from it shortly after his ar- rival in New York, in 1863, at the age of only thirty-seven years. Dr. Strong of Dutch Flat, although a sincere and earnest believer in the enterprise, was not able to furnish what was considered his share of the expenses necessary to be advanced, and retired from the board of directors. Messrs. Bailey, Booth and Marsh were compelled, like Judah, to sell out after the enterprise was well under way, though it is known that they were all earnest workers for its success at the commencement.

Mr. Judah was succeeded by S. S. Montague as chief engineer of the road. The location surveys were made under his directions. The road to Colfax, or Lower Illinoistown Gap, was located on the line run by Mr. Judah in 1861 ; from Colfax to Long Ravine the line was changed materially; from Long Ravine to Alta the line ran on Mr. Judah's survey and from Alta to the Summit on an entirely new line, located by L. M. Clement, engineer in charge of the second division from Colfax to the Summit. This final location gave better grade line, and one more free from snow in winter, two very desirable objects. The value of these changes is plainly shown by the report of George E. Gray, formerly chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad. Mr. Gray was requested by Leland Stanford, in a letter

dated July 10, 1865, to inspect the line of road and surveys then made, and report to the board of directors of the company his opinion as to the quality of the work and the economi- cal location of that portion not then built. Mr. Gray, in his report, gave as his opinion that the road already constructed would compare favorably with any road in the United States. Of that portion of the road not constructed, he reported that Mr. Judah's line had been altered materially, saving in distance nearly 5,000 feet and also reducing the aggregate length of the tunnels nearly 5,000 feet, a saving in cost of construction of at least $400,000. Some very skilful engineering was done on this Colfax division. The road-bed ran around the prom- ontory at Cape Horn, over 1,200 feet above the bottom of a nearly perpendicular canyon, the banks of which were so steep that the China- men during the work had to be let down in baskets over the face of the cliff in order to construct the grade.

President Lincoln made a decision of great moment to the company during the summer of 1863. in regard to the mountain section. By the terms of the bill, the company was to re- ceive bonds to the amount of $16,000 per mile for its line west of the Sierras, and $48,000 per mile for the section through the moun- tains. The trouble was to decide where the two sections joined each other.

The Interior Department showed a disposi- tion to place the dividing line at the end of the first section of fifty miles. The matter being brought to the President's attention, he de- cided that it should be seven and eighteen- hundredths miles east of Sacramento, saying that "this was a case where Abraham's faith had moved mountains." This meant a differ- ence of over a million dollars to the company. The tracks reached Grider's, or Roseville, on April 26, 1864, and the company commenced the operation of that much of the road.

Another factor was about to come to the aid of the financiers, whose funds were exhausted, but whose courage was not daunted. The Union Pacific Company had been unable to raise funds to prosecute its construction, oper- ating, as it did, under the same law as the Cen- tral. It therefore made another appeal to con- gress, and an act granting more liberal terms was passed in April, 1864. By its terms the land grant was doubled, the government bonds were made a second mortgage instead of the first, and the companies were authorized to issue their own first mortgage bonds to the same amount as the government bonds. Two- thirds of these were made available when evi- dence was presented to the secretary of the treasury that the necessary grading for the road bed had been done. The sections on which bonds were to be issued were also reduced

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

from forty to twenty miles. These provisions applied equally to the Central Pacific road. The right of the road was also confirmed to lay track 150 miles east of the state boundary.

These things effected a great change in the financial status of the company. Heretofore they had borrowed money in currency in the East. and paid it out in gold in the West, at a heavy discount. Their first-mortgage bonds now sold almost at par and the government bonds were available immediately on complet- ing the grading. Their credit was further aided by the operation of the road to Roseville, which brought in $103,557 from April 26 to December 31, 1864 ; from passengers, $63,403; from freight, $38,667; and from express, $1,487. It gave them a standing at home that they had heretofore lacked.

The road progressed slowly at first, but along toward the last it progressed more rap- idly, until, on the 10th day of May, 1869, the last spike was down, completing the railroad connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A large party gathered at Prom- ontory Point to witness the ceremony. Tele- graph wires had been connected with the large cities of the Union, so that the exact moment of driving the last spike could be made known to all at the same time. At the hour desig- nated, Leland Stanford, president of the Cen- tral Pacific, and other officers, came forward. T. C. Durant, president of the Union Pacific, accompanied by General Dodge and others of the same company, met them at the end of the rail, where they paused, while Rev. Dr. Todd. of Massachusetts, made a short prayer. The last tie, made of California laurel, with silver plates bearing suitable inscriptions, was put in place, and the last connecting rails were laid by persons from each company. The last spikes were made, one of gold from Cali- fornia, one of silver from Nevada, and one of gold and silver, from Arizona. President Stanford then took the hammer of solid silver, to the handle of which was attached the tele- graph wires, by which, at the first tap on the head of the gold spike, at 12 m., the news of the event was flashed all over the American continent.

Then a locomotive of the Central Pacific Railroad Company and another of the Union Pacific Railroad Company approached from each way, and rubbed their pilots together, while bottles of champagne were passed from one to the other.

During the building of this road the track- laying force of the Central Pacific laid ten miles and 200 feet in one day, completing their work at seven p. in. The date when this Her- culean task was performed was the 20th of April. 1869, when only fourteen miles of track

remained to be laid to connect with the Union Pacific.

By mutual agreement between the roads, Ogden was made the terminus for each; by this agreement the Union Pacific sold fifty- three miles of its road to the Central Pacific, making the length of road owned by the Cen- tral Pacific proper 74312 miles, from Sacra- mento to Ogden. August 22, 1870, the West- ern Pacific, San Joaquin Valley, California & Oregon, and San Francisco, Oakland & Ala- meda Railroads, which had been built in the meantime, were all consolidated under the name of the Central Pacific Railroad.

The death of Mrs. Clara W. Prentice, Sep- tember 14, 1912, at the age of eighty-eight years, recalled the interesting fact that the first inception of the Central Pacific road took place at the home of Edwin D. Prentice, her husband, on K Street, between Ninth and Tenth. At this meeting there were present, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, T. D. Ju- dah, W. H. Stoddard and Mr. Prentice. Mr. Prentice took part in the early history of the road, but died in 1862.

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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, 1923, Part 45

Author: Reed, G. Walter Publication date: 1923 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Reed, G. Walter
Publication date: 1923
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1026