Monte Vista

The Loma Prieta Lumber Company established two logging communities above its primary milling site at Loma Prieta. Both were uncreatively named the same: Monte Vista. The first Monte Vista was founded in 1883 five miles above Aptos at the end of the Loma Prieta Railroad. In the three miles that it took to get to the camp from Loma Prieta via Molino Switch, the railroad had to cross Aptos Creek five times. Two of the trestles that crossed the creek were over 200-feet long and one had a sharp bend in the middle. At Monte Vista, over 200,000 board feet of timber were cut and made into lumber at the small sawmill erected on the site. Other lumber was shipped down the grade to the larger mill to process. The first full harvest season began in 1884 and the mill at Monte Vista operated for the next five seasons as both a logging camp for the larger mill to the south and as a stand-alone milling operation.

The lumber train heading to Monte Vista, 1891.  (Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)

Problems arose in the fall of 1886 when logging crews operating out of Monte Vista found their northward path blocked by the imposing hillsides of Aptos Creek. Despite plans to mill the miles of acreage north of the satellite mill, the company could move no further. The skid road required to reach the upper tracts of the timber field found no footing. This is why the Southern Pacific Railroad joined in and annexed the Loma Prieta Railroad, converting it into a branch line: to get to the timber further to the north. The railroad fought the so-called "Hell's Gate"—an especially narrow section of the canyon—and found a way to the land beyond. In March 1888, the route from Monte Vista to the new lumber tracts was opened, and the mill got up and relocated, taking its name with it, thereby founding Monte Vista #2.

Loma Prieta Excursion Train, c. late 1890s. (Paul Johnston Collection, MAH)

This was quite possibly the most rugged and remote sections of the Southern Pacific standard-gauged network and unfortunately few photographs of the area survive. The new camp was two miles to the north of the old one and the track hugged the west bank of the creek almost the entire stretch. The Southern Pacific Railroad included the new location in its agency books and timetables as the end of the line, placing it 120 miles south of San Francisco via Pajaro Junction. It was classified as an A-type station, which meant it had a platform and siding. A small station structure was erected there as well as numerous worker cabins and a small store for employees. Unlike Loma Prieta, this was strictly a work camp and most families lived in the larger village to the south. Monte Vista was a workers' camp, plain and simple. That being said, it was popular with tourists on weekends and, since the mill didn't run then, groups would visit the small community to enjoy the trees and dance under the stars at night. A tavern built at Monte Vista catered to both workers' and tourists' more base desires.

Only one train was assigned to work between Loma Prieta and Monte Vista, but it worked constantly each weekday, shuttling lumber and split stuff to the sidings at Molino or transferring logs to the planing mill. It was forced to backdown the canyon since there was no turntable or wye at Monte Vista, but it always ran at the head of the train to prevent runaway cars. At least two spurs branched off at Monte Vista, as well as a water tower.

Monte Vista #2 suffered terribly from a winter storm in early 1899. Hell's Gate collapsed atop the railroad right-of-way and the costs to rebuild or repair the track were deemed too much. The lumber camp was abandoned and its salvageable parts removed. Loma Prieta, in turn, was also abandoned and the company looked elsewhere for timber. The Southern Pacific Railroad pulled all the useable track between Molino and the slide, leaving the right-of-way behind to return to a state of nature. The Molino Timber Company would later come and reclaim a portion of that right-of-way to the bottom of its incline grade, but Monte Vista was gone forever. A victim of nature. Both Monte Vistas are located within the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, at undesignated locations along Aptos Creek. The later mill site is likely no longer accessible to the public due to its remoteness.

Citations:

• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.

Loma Prieta

A lumber company has to have some excellent connections to be able to convince a massive railroad company to build a dedicated branch line directly to its mill. Yet that is precisely what happened with the Loma Prieta Lumber Company in 1882. Granted three members of the board of directors of the new lumber company were major financiers of the Southern Pacific Railroad, but it still was an unusual feat, especially for Santa Cruz. Previously all railroads in the county had multiple patrons: this would only have one, at least initially. To do things properly, the Loma Prieta Railroad Company was founded first as an independent standard-gauged railroad, and the Southern Pacific took it over in 1887 once more direct funding was required to sustain the mill and track. The track followed Aptos Creek closely until its junction with Bridge Creek. Just south of this junction, the first major section of track terminated at the Loma Prieta Lumber Company's massive planing mill. The mill opened up for business in spring 1884.

The shingle mill at Loma Prieta, located directly behind the mill along a spur, 1888.
(Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)

The mill was able to process 70,000 board feet of lumber per eleven-hour workday. The mill employed 150 men plus 80 contractors, decidedly the largest milling operation in the county at the time. Just above the mill, Aptos Creek was dammed to create an extremely long and meandering log pond. To the south of the mill, a quarter mile of lumber piles flanked three freight spurs. Two dedicated locomotives ferries flatcars between Molino and the mill, passing materials to another locomotive which ran between Molino and the Monte Vista mill sites further to the north.

The town of Loma Prieta with the station at right and the general store at right, c. 1890. (Santa Cruz MAH)

Loma Prieta, however, was not simply a freight stop, it was an entire town. Between the mill and Bridge Creek, and all along both banks of Aptos Creek, the village of Loma Prieta arose, catering specifically to the families of mill workers. A standard Southern Pacific depot building was erected beside the tracks, a structure that included a full-service telegraph office and passenger agency office. The community had its own hotel, general store, and business office, as well as a post office (established in 1885) and a Wells Fargo express station. By the early 1890s, over thirty homes were situated on the hillsides around Loma Prieta. The Loma Prieta School District was founded in September 1885 to cater to the children living near the camp. The railroad station was located 4 miles north of Aptos and 117 miles south of San Francisco via Pajaro Junction.

The Loma Prieta Hotel and the General Store, c. 1890. (Santa Cruz MAH)

A disastrous storm in early 1899 utterly destroyed the Monte Vista mill, forcing the Loma Prieta Lumber Company to abandon its facilities along Aptos Creek. The Loma Prieta town was abandoned and the mill dismantled. The post office closed in October 1901. In 1908, the company returned to the old mill site and constructed a new facility in the place of the old one. Three years later, the Molino Timber Company took over the mill and used it to process the timber harvested on China Ridge until 1918. In that year, the Loma Prieta Company once again took control, using the mill to process lumber harvested from high up Bridge Creek until late 1920. During all of this time, Loma Prieta was only considered a freight stop. The town had long since disappeared, taking with it the post office, general store, hotel, and many other amenities. Aptos became the new go-to town for employees needing a weekend break.

The log pond and the tracks to Monte Vista above the Loma Prieta mill (in the distance). (Santa Cruz MAH)

The site of the town of Loma Prieta today is marked with a plaque in the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. It is north of the last parking lot along the Aptos Creek Fire Road on the east side of the creek. There is a nearby path that crosses over the creek via a bridge; this roughly marks the southern end of the lumber yard.

Citations:

• Clark, Donald. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2007.
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.

Molino

Molino was originally an unremarkable point along the Southern Pacific Railroad's Loma Prieta Branch north of Aptos. In 1910, the Loma Prieta Lumber Company decided that it wanted to harvest the timber tracts on Hinkley and China Ridges, which had hitherto been unaccessible. Thus a group of investors related to the company founded the Molino Timber Company to reach these tracts. At a point which they named "Molino" about three miles north of Aptos, the new milling company built a 30-inch-gauged railroad up along the former Monte Vista mill line to the bottom of an incline cable track that acted to ferry lumber between five miles of track up atop the ridge. The mill at Loma Prieta was reopened to process the timber coming down from the ridge.

Molino switch with Aptos Creek at the right and the main grade at left, c.1890s. (Santa Cruz Public Libraries)

The Molino switch was located at the spot where the spur line to Loma Prieta split with the mainline to Monte Vista. The track to Monte Vista had been pulled before 1900, but the track to Loma Prieta remained. Thus what Molino became was a rebirth of the old switch between the two mills. Indeed, the name may date back to the 1890s but it did not appear in official Southern Pacific records as such.  It only appeared in July 1914 in railroad agency books at 115 miles from San Francisco via Pajaro Junction, though the company had begun operations the previous year. The switch included a basic freight-loading platform which may have catered to small lumber operations or a nearby shingle mill. A gas-powered locomotive would come down the west bank of Aptos Creek and at Molino take the lumber back up the opposite bank to the mill. The cars were 30-inch gauged, requiring a triple-railed track, but the engine was standard-gauged. All lumber was offloaded beside the tracks at Molino and then transferred via standard-gauged flatcars to the mill or out for shipment.

The gas-powered locomotive used to ferry cars between the incline and the mill via Molino switch, c. 1915.
(Santa Cruz Public Libraries)

The Molino Timber Company worked the line until 1917 and then the Loma Prieta Lumber Company once again moved in to use a segment of the rebuilt line to reach Bridge Creek and Big Tree Gulch. Molino remained in use in its previous capacity for another four years until this operation, too, shut down in 1921. The Molino station point survived until the end of the branch line in 1928. The site of the switch today is north of the northernmost parking lot in the Forest of Nisene Marks on the Aptos Creek Fire Road, which was originally the right-of-way. The site is marked by a trail that turns to the northwest, while the fire road continues to the northeast.

Citations:

• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways (Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002).

Ready

The Loma Prieta Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad north of Aptos had gone through highs and lows by the 1910s when it was once again in use as a full-time lumber right-of-way. The communities around the Loma Prieta Mill had long since disappeared but the tracks remained behind and the Loma Prieta Lumber Company reactivated the abandoned mill and resumed logging operations in the area in 1917.

Quite a ways south of these operations and about 1.8 miles above Aptos, a new spur was installed that went by the name "Ready" since it sat on lands owned by Ruth Ready, daughter of Tessie Hihn Hall, and a granddaughter of Frederick A. Hihn. Some records alternatively title the spot "Hihn Spur", though that name has been used elsewhere along the line. The spur was used by the Loma Prieta Lumber Company, which the Hihn Company partially owned, to access a new mill built on the east side of the tracks. Unlike other operations in the area, the primary purpose of this small mill was to cut split stuff, railroad ties, and small-scale lumber.

Ready first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books in January 1918 at 114 miles from San Francisco via Watsonville Junction. It was recorded as having a class-B freight station, though it did not have a loading platform. This was probably because the loading was all done directly at the adjacent mill so no platform was required. The class-B, therefore, implies simply that there is a spur at the site. It remained unchanged in agency books until the branch was abandoned in 1928. Unfortunately, its history in timetables, if there were any, is not available to this historian at this time.

The operations at Ready were relatively short-lived. The Loma Prieta Company abandoned its Aptos Creek operations after the 1920 logging season. Ready and its mill may have continued in use for part of the next year due to it being the closest stop to Aptos and having a small-scale mill on site. However, by 1921, the site was definitively closed and it was no longer mentioned in timetables or agency books.

The site of Ready today is just before the first crossing over Aptos Creek along the Aptos Creek Fire Road, which also serves as the entry road in to the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. A pull-out on the east side of the road still marks the site of the spur and the mill, with the road itself marking the site of the Southern Pacific right-of-way through the area.

Citations:

• Donald Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary (Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2007).
• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways (Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002).