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 46

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 46

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Brief Account of Other Railroads

On December 13, 1862, the Western Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated for the purpose of constructing a railroad from San Jose, through the counties of Alameda and San Joaquin, to the city of Sacramento. Its capital stock was $5,400,000. The road was 13712 miles in length, and made the whole length of the Central Pacific 881 miles. This road was not completed until 1870. The fran- chise is said to have passed into the hands of the Central Pacific Railroad Company a year before the date of consolidation. The road did not enter Sacramento City, as it connected with the Sacramento Valley Railroad at Brighton Junction.

The San Joaquin Valley Railroad is now the property of the Southern Pacific and forms a part of the second overland system.

The California and Oregon Railroad leaves the original Central Pacific Railroad at Rose- ville and runs thence through Redding. It was incorporated June 30. 1865, and consolidated with the Central Pacific August 22. 1870.

The California Pacific Railroad Company was for some time a very active competitor for the carrying trade of the state, and at one time it was thought that its owners intended to construct a second line of railroad to con- nect with the Union Pacific. It bought boats and franchises of the California Steam Navi- gation Company, and for some time really con- trolled the rates of freight between Sacra- mento and San Francisco. The company was incorporated January 10. 1865, with a capital stock of $3,500,000. and work was begun in

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Vallejo in 1867. The road was finished to Washington, Yolo County, November 11. 1868, and to Marysville in November, 1869. In June, 1869, the company purchased the Napa Valley Railroad, and the two roads were consolidated in December, 1869, with a capital of $12,000,000.

In 1869 and 1870 the Central Pacific and California Pacific Railroads were at war with each other. The California Pacific wished to come into Sacramento; but as the Central Pa- cific had its track on the levee, it was impos- sible for the California Pacific to cross the river and secure depot and switching facilities without crossing the Central Pacific track. Various attempts were made by the California Pacific to lay the track and form the crossing of the two lines, but they were resisted and it looked for a time as if bloodshed would be the result. Finally, however, the crossing was accomplished and passengers were landed in Sacramento, by the California Pacific, January 29, 1870. A regular ovation awaited the train. Guns were fired, the fire department turned out, and there was intense enthusiasm on all sides.

Commissioners were appointed to assess the damage to the Central Pacific, and reported in June, 1870, that the damages were as follows : for about six acres of land, $40,680; damages for crossing tracks, $70,000; for consequential damages, $250,000, making a total of $360,680. The report was thrown out, however, by the court, on several grounds, the principal one being that it was excessive. The war between the companies continued until August, 1871, during which time freight and passenger rates were very low, greatly curtailing the profits of both companies. The roads were consolidated in August of that year; and thereafter-with the exception of competition by river-the Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific Com- pany, its successor, had the monopoly of the carrying trade of Sacramento until the coming of the new overland road, the Western Pacific, in 1910.

The California Pacific gave the Vallejo route to San Francisco. The trip was made to Vallejo by rail and thence to San Francisco by boat, making a shorter and popular route which for many years monopolized the major- ity of travel between Sacramento and San Francisco, until the building of the route to Benicia and the construction of an immense ferry-boat to carry the trains across Carquinez Straits to Port Costa, whence they continued their journey to San Francisco along the shore of San Pablo and San Francisco Bays to Oakland Mole. The new road was opened December 28, 1879, and the Vallejo line as a route to San Francisco was abandoned, al- though passengers going that way are still

transported across the bay to meet trains on the Benicia route.

The first train over the Western Pacific, as a transcontinental railroad, was operated on August 22, 1910. Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco and other points along the line held celebrations in recognition of the advent of the new road, which came by way of the Feather River route. The Western Pacific afterward strengthened its system by purchase of the Denver & Rio Grande, which gave it important through connections with Denver, Salt Lake and the East. It recently pur- chased the Sacramento Northern, formerly the Northern Electric, thus adding further feeders to its fast-developing system. Trains are now operating over the new line completed from Niles to San Jose. Four additional branch lines are proposed. One of these is to enter Vallejo by building from the Woodland end of the electric line to Vacaville, where the Va- caville-Suisun unit will be picked up. An- other line proposed is to run from Sacramento to Newcastle via Fairoaks, thus reviving an- cient railroad history with respect to a line crossing from Fairoaks through the fruit belt to Newcastle. The third line is to run from Sacramento to Clarksburg, along the Sacra- mento River, and the fourth branch from Lodi to Isleton, a distance of twenty-five miles, tap- ping the rich Delta section of the down-river district.

The Western Pacific maintains its shops at Sacramento, giving employment to 1,500 or more men.

The Sacramento Valley Railroad was the first railroad constructed in California. This road was organized on August 4, 1852, on which date ten per cent of the stock was paid in, amounting to $5,000. The company reor- ganized November 9, 1854, and made immedi- ate preparation for building the road. The first shovelful of dirt was thrown in February, 1855, the first tie came in May, and the first vessel load of material and rolling stock ar- rived from Boston in June. The first work done on a railroad car in California was done on this road, July 4, 1855. The first rail was laid August 9, 1855, and the first train was placed on the track August 14. The road had some little trouble with its finances, but its progress was not materially delayed.

On November 10, 1855, an excursion train was run to Patterson's, ten miles from Sacra- mento, the fare being one dollar for the round trip. By January 1, 1856, the road was com- pleted to Alder Creek, and on February 22 was finished to Folsom, the length of the road be- ing twenty-two and a half miles. Its cost was $1,568,500. The capital stock was $800,000, of which $792,000 was issued. The road was a very profitable one from the time of its com-

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

pletion, its effect being to move the terminus of the freight aud stage lines running to the northern mines from Sacramento to Folsom and to build up quite a town there. At one time twenty-one stage lines ran from Folsom to other places: all leaving shortly after the arrival of the train from Sacramento.

The Central Pacific Company purchased the Sacramento Valley road in August, 1865, the purchase being made by George F. Bragg (on behalf of himself and others) of the entire stock held by L. L. Robinson and Pioche and Bayerque. The price paid for this stock was $800,000. Soon after coming into possession Bragg transferred the stock to the owners of the Central Pacific. The latter company had been forced to do this in order to secure the whole of the Washoe trade, which at this time was very great, amounting to several million dollars per annum. The short line of the Sac- ramento Valley road alone declared an annual profit of nearly half a million dollars the year previous to its purchase, most of which came from the freight going to Washoe and other mining districts.

In the spring of 1857 a company was formed in Marysville to build a railroad from that city to the terminus of the Sacramento Valley Railroad at Folsom. Col. C. L. Wilson, who was one of the contractors for the Sacramento Valley road, was sent East to procure funds for building the road. He effected this and the construction commenced immediately. The road, however, was never finished to Marysville by the original company. By 1861 the track had been laid as far as Lincoln. The original name, the California Central Railroad. was subsequently changed to the California and Oregon Division of the Southern Pacific. Shortly after the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad to Roseville, that company purchased the California Central Railroad : that portion of the road between Roseville and Folsom was abandoned and the bridge across the American River at Folsom was con- condemned and sold in 1868.

During 1862 the Sacramento, Placer and Nevada Railroad was built from Folsom to a point near Newcastle. The road had been or- ganized 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 Sacra- mento Valley Railroad, and were largely inter- ested 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, intend- ing 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 contributed to build it. The courts were appealed to and resort was also made to force. On account of the violence en- gendered, 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 work- men who removed the rails, including Robin- son, 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 con- structed as far as Latrobe in 1864 and 1865, and hung fire there for several. years, finally being carried on to Shingle Springs. In 1887- 1888 the work was taken up again and the road completed to Placerville, under the name of the Shingle Springs and Placerville Rail- road. 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 chief industries in former days were min- ing and stock-raising, but at the present day the capability of the foothills for producing fine fruit and grapes has been proved, and Eldora- do County is fast becoming the home of the orchardist and vineyardist.

The Amador branch, running from Galt in this county, to Ione in Amador County, a dis- tance 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 Frce- port 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 Sacramento Valley road, and was purchased with it by the Central Pacific and the track taken up.

In the ensuing quarter of a century a num- ber of roads were incorporated, some part of whose lines would touch the county of Sacra- mento, but none of them proceeded to con- struction.

In 1909 and 1910, the Southern Pacific con- structed the Sacramento Southern Railroad, a branch line extending into the rich down-river district to Walnut Grove, where trains oper- ate daily. Del Rio, Freeport and Hood are served by the branch, which extends twenty- five miles distant from Sacramento.

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California was incorporated 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 Rail- road Company of California August 19, 1873.

The Northern Railway Company was in- corporated in Sacramento July 19, 1871. On May 15, 1888, it acquired by consolidation the Winters 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 Plac- erville, the Shingle Springs and Placerville, the Amador Branch and the Berkeley Branch Railroads. 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 Com- pany was incorporated in Sacramento July 19, 1871, and was consolidated with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California May 4, 1888.

The Southern 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 oper- ating 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 employees who had been in its service continuously for twenty-five years or more. The employees had previously had a system of insurance among themselves, to which many belonged, and the various broth- erhoods of employees also have a life-insurance feature in their orders. Under the system of pensions, the company has paid out over $2,- 500,000 and the list closely approaches the 1,000 mark.

Southern Pacific Shops

The Southern Pacific shops at Sacramento are the largest in the West, and more than fifty acres are taken up by their buildings and yards. Here there are over 3,000 men em- ployed and the annual pay-roll, exclusive of train employees, is $8,000,000 at Sacramento alone. The wages of train crews permanently established at this division point bring the aggregate up to $10,500,000 yearly. The com- pany at the present time is erecting new build- ings, shops, steel furnaces, rolling mills, frog- shops, and other additions and improvements to its mammoth industrial plant here, at an additional expenditure of over $12,000,000.

The locomotive works are the largest of any railroad company in the world, and the engines

turned out here are claimed by the Southern Pacific officials and other authorities to be superior to those made at either the Baldwin Locomotive Works or the American Locomo- tive Works. With its facilities it is possible, and not uncommon, to complete one of the monster six-wheel compounds for the fast overland limited passenger and mail trains of the Ogden System in the small space of thirty days. This includes the making of everything in the local shops, even to the steel, which is produced by the new electric furnace, the larg- est on the Pacific Coast. A large open-hearth furnace also is being built here by the com- pany.

The car shops here, in which a great num- ber of freight cars, refrigerator cars, and pas- senger cars are built, help to supply the need for increased facilities on the Coast lines of the company.

A movement is on foot for the erection of a new passenger station to cost nearly $1,000,- 000, as a fitting memorial to the builders of the Central Pacific, and also in keeping with the importance of Sacramento as the capital of California.

Many old residents who look on the rail- road shops of the Southern Pacific Company today can recall the far different aspect which the site presented in 1860 and the earlier years of the city's history. As far back as the early seventies, the Central Pacific Railroad Com- pany 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 be- fore 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 oppor- tunity 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 besides, 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 became 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 1 Street, and from Sixth Street to the American River,

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

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 propo- sition to fill it, if the site was deeded to it. The offer was accepted tentatively, 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, 16 by 24 feet, was erected by the Central Pacific Railroad Company at the foot of I Street for the storage of tools and of sec- tions of locomotives and cars which had been sent around the Horn for the use of the infant railroad. The locomotives were set up just outside of this shop. In the same year a rough building, 20 by 150 feet, was construct- ed at Sixth and H 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 20 by 60 feet, and at one end of it was a single forge that constituted the entire blacksmithing de- partment of the company. In 1864, the car shop proving too narrow for convenience, an- other one, 34 by 130 feet, was erected at Sixth and E Streets, and just west of it a larger shop was erected which would hold three loco- motives for repairs, and the blacksmithing facilities were also increased. Soon the first boiler shop of the company, 40 by 50 feet, was erected, but this in turn became too small, and was turned over to the foreman of the lumber- yard 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, 68 by 250 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 lumber being used, and the fine woodwork for the cars demanded at- tention. So in 1868, the planing mill, cabi- net shop, the engine room and the blacksmith shop were erected; also the roundhouse, with a capacity of twenty-nine engines, was con- structed. In the same year the larger machine shop, 160 by 200 feet, was begun, and later a 315-foot addition was made. In an ell, the offices of the motive-power and machinery de- partment were located. In the same year the car shop was extended 230 feet, and a new

blacksmith shop was constructed. As scrap- iron accumulated, the experiment of setting up a set of rolls in the blacksmith shop was tried. and later, in 1881, the present rolling mill was erected. The paint shop, having five ells, 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 super- vision 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 best-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 con- servative one, while in the same time over $50,000,000 was expended for material, and 7.131 cars had been built in the shops, besides seventy-three engines.

Electric Railroads

Sacramento has a network of electric rail- roads and interurban lines, embracing three distinct systems, from Chico and Marysville on the north to Oakland and San Francisco to the south. These are the Sacramento North- ern (formerly the Northern Electric), the Cen- tral California Traction Company's line, and the San Francisco - Sacramento Short Line (formerly the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern).

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 him- self Messrs. Louis Sloss. N. D. Rideout, J. Downey Harvey and E. R. Lilienthal, and the Northern Electric Company was formed, with a capitalization of $3.000,000, which was later increased 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 run over it April 25. 1906. The advisability of extending the road to Marysville being apparent, W. P. Hammond and E. J. de Sabla joined in the undertaking, Mr. Rideout retiring. On Janu- ary 31, 1907, the road to Marysville was com- pleted, and the line was completed and the first train to Sacramento was run on August 1 of that year. On December 2, 1907, the North- ern Electric Railway Company was organized. with an authorized bond issue 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

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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY

Streets to the water front; this was immedi- ately leased by the Northern Electric. Later the Northern Electric entered into an arrange- ment with the Vallejo Northern for full ex- change 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 finished its construction and had 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.

The Great Railroad Strike

The great railroad strike of 1894, which as far as California was concerned was a purely sympathetic strike, was the cause of loss and damage to this state, from which it took years to recover. Having its inception in a dispute between the Pullman Car Company and its employees over a reduction in wages, it was far-reaching in its effects, involving business of all kinds and parties who had nothing to do with the dispute and became sufferers through events with which they were not even remotely connected. The strike occurred at the time when the heaviest shipments of fruit from California to the East were being made, and in one day the business of the fruit grow- ers was paralyzed and hundreds of carloads of fruit were left to rot in the boxes because they could not be forwarded on account of the strike. The fruit was ripening fast dur- ing the hot weather, and the total stoppage of traffic made the crops ripening at that time of year almost a total loss to the growers. A large percentage of them were ruined, and it was several years before others recovered from the blow and reestablished themselves in their business. One singular thing in the circum- stances was that a number of them, and of others in other branches of business who were also sufferers from the stagnation that re- sulted, were in sympathy with the strikers and aided them. Much of this feeling was prob- ably only the open expression of the hatred many people bore for the Southern Pacific Company, engendered by its connection with state politics, and by personal causes.

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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 46

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