Asilomar

Down the track 1.6 miles from Pacific Grove and its relatively large freight yard was the much smaller Asilomar flag-stop, the last passenger station along the line. Unlike all of the other stops along the Pacific Grove Extension of the Monterey Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, Asilomar was a late addition, only added as a stop when the Asilomar Conference Center first opened its doors in 1913.

A group of camp girls at Asilomar, June 1916. Photo by Heidrick Photo Studio. (State Parks)

The inside of the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Social Hall, c. 1920. (State Parks)

In the late 19th century, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) began operating in the Monterey Bay area. In 1897, a group of women representing the Pacific Coast Field Committee of the YWCA decided that it was interested in holding an annual retreat somewhere in the area, choosing  the Hotel Capitola near Santa Cruz for its venue from 1900 to 1911. In 1912, Hotel Capitola burned to the ground and the women were forced to look elsewhere for a conference center. That year, a tent city was erected in Livermore for the conference, but all of that material was later transferred to a property in Pacific Grove. The Pacific Improvement Company, the real estate subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad, donated 30 acres to the women at a field near the beach. They were required to build substantive structures within the first ten years of the lease, and they had to pay all property taxes for the land. Julia Morgan, a female architect from San Francisco, was hired to build the conference center, while Phoebe Apperson Hearst (mother of William Randolph Hearst) provided much of the funding and materials. The name Asilomar was chosen after a contest was held among attendees that first year. It's name means "refuge by the sea". On August 7, 1913, Asilomar was officially dedicated. Ellen Browning Scripps expanded the facility in 1916 by purchasing 20 more acres from the Pacific Improvement Company. It began operating year-round after that, although the summer was always its busiest season when the YWCA ran camps for girls and leadership conferences.

Asilomar Station shelter with luggage trolly, c. 1920. 

Naturally, the railroad came soon afterwards. The Pacific Grove Extension already passed beside the conference center, terminating just 0.1 miles away at Lake Majella and Moss Beach. Asilomar Beach was the name given to the beach next door which sat upon the YWCA land. As early as 1913, the railroad delivered passengers to Asilomar, although the precise date that regular passenger service began is not known to this historian. By the early 1920s, the station functioned as a seasonal passenger stop, although it probably offered flag-service year-round, and an occasional freight stop. The specific nature of the freight at Asilomar is not known, although it likely was related to the business at Lake Majella. Indeed, Asilomar acted as the switch for an 8-car (~400 foot) spur from as early as 1928. This spur was primarily for cars loaded with sand from Moss Beach. A D-class freight platform was also there, although no other services were offered for freight. The siding at Asilomar grew over the years, eventually maxing-out at 30 car-lengths (1,500 feet), although this was likely split between the siding and a spur, the latter of which is visible in some photographs. The spur seems to have been short and removed in the 1940s as the track-length condensed to 27 car-lengths (1,325 feet), which it remained until the line was abandoned.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst Social Hall, built in 1913. (State Parks)

Passenger service was offered via a seasonal passenger agency and telephone office, although the specific nature of this station is not presently known. The Great Depression had an effect on Asilomar and the YWCA, no longer able to pay its debts, was forced to close the facility in January 1934. The Depression, though, meant that nobody wanted to purchase the facility, so the Asilomar Committee continued to maintain the grounds during these years. Passenger service to the stop continued until 1940, but the original station structure, if ever there was one, was replaced with a small generic passenger shelter in the early 1930s. With the closure of Asilomar, the shelter sat abandoned beside the tracks, the station only catering to the random passenger flag and freight. The shelter was dismantled or relocated at some point in time, although somebody has since built a recreation of the original and installed it near the station site. Railroad service past Asilomar continued intermittently until 1978 when the tracks were reduced to Seaside. The right-of-way in this area has since become a public bike trail.

Asilomar Station in 1974 with a pair of sand hoppers parked on the tracks in the distant background.

In 1936, David and Paulsen Visel ran Asilomar as a motel until 1940, after which the National Youth Authority used it as a training came. World War II caused the center to be converted into an overflow motel for visitors to Fort Ord and the Presidio. By 1947, the YWCA had regained enough funds to reopen the conference center, finally making money like it never had before. It has been in continuous operation ever since. In 1956, Asilomar became a California State Park, with its conference center leased to the Pacific Grove Association. In 1969, Pacific Grove transferred its lease to the new Pacific Grove-Asilomar Operating Corporation, a special company specifically established to keep Asilomar operating while protecting its surrounding environment. The property was more than doubled in size to provide a better conservation area around it, and now there is an ongoing program in place to maintain the dune habitat on the beach, which are now called the Asilomar Dune Natural Preserve. In 1987, the original structures at Asilomar were declared National Historic Landmarks.

Asilomar Station on the conference
grounds today.

Official Railroad Information:
Asilomar Station was located 129.9 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, and San José. It was also 0.1 miles from the Lake Majella end-of-track. It was established around 1913 and was operated seasonally. Freight service to the station was in place by 1926 and catered primarily to the Lake Majella/Moss Beach sand quarry. To support this industry, a siding of 1,325 feet was erected, with a shorter 3-car (~175 foot) spur built across from the passenger shelter. Originally, a passenger agency office and telephone were at the shelter. The office closed when passenger service ended around 1940 and the shelter was relocated to within the conference grounds. The station itself remained on timetables, sometimes as a full stop, often as an Additional Station, until 1978 when the line was truncated to Seaside.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.619˚N, 121.933˚W

The site of Asilomar Station is roughly where the bike trail crosses over Sinex Avenue, just outside the main entrance to Asilomar Conference Grounds. The shelter structure has been rebuilt and sits near the site of the original structure with a sign atop its roof.

Citations & Credits:

• "Asilomar State Beach". California Department of Parks and Recreation.
• "Nature & Architecture – A Love Story". Asilomar Conference Grounds.

Pacific Grove

Sanborn map of Pacific Grove, showing the freight yard and station, 1905.

Pacific Grove is the end of the Monterey Peninsula, a jetty of rock battered to pieces by the relentless Pacific Ocean. Its shoreline is rugged, filled with tide pools and seaweed and, with the exception of a few select beaches, is generally inhospitable. However, it is also beautiful. The Native Americans thrived off this point until the Spanish rounded them up and banished them to nearby Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. Few populated the point for the next fifty years until Chinese populations began settling there in the 1850s. They were eventually forced to relocate when white settlers moved to the Pacific Grove area in the 1870s. Until that time, the Pacific Grove interior was mostly used as a large cattle pasture.

The entrance to Pacific Grove, c. 1900. (Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Research Library)

In 1875, a group of Methodist church leaders leased the point from David Jacks on behalf of the newly-formed Pacific Grove Retreat Association. In 1880, Jacks sold the property to the Pacific Improvement Company, the land-owning subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad. This purchase hinted at a new direction for Pacific Grove. The railroad company had just recently purchased, replaced, and expanded the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad right-of-way which ran initially from Salinas and, under SP-control, from Castroville. Although the line ended at Monterey Station, near Fishermen's Wharf, the fact that the railroad had purchased the entirety of the point suggested big things were in store for the future. Thos things included the erection of the Hotel Del Monte, the creation of 17-Mile Drive, which circumnavigated Pacific Grove, and the eventual extension of a railroad line to Carmel, passing directly through Pacific Grove.

The Pacific Grove freight yard with the remains of the Bodfish Dairy at the top right (in 1906,  a baseball diamond). The
depot itself is obscured at the far right. The Loma Prieta Lumber Company piles are in the foreground. (Pat Hathaway)

The latter occurred in 1889, when the line reached Pacific Grove on August 1 of that year, thereby prompting regularly-scheduled passenger and freight service to the point. The line was extended to Lake Majella, just to the south of Pacific Grove, but it never continued to Carmel. Pacific Grove Station was built slightly outside of town along the coast near Lovers Point. The Bodfish Dairy was located immediately beside it and used the station to export cattle and dairy products to the markets of San Francisco. The Loma Prieta Lumber Company, co-owned by Frederick Hihn, operated a large freight yard at the station opposite the depot and this enterprise, as well as the sand quarry at Lake Majella, provided the primary income and impetus for the extension track. To support the busy branch line and the local trains, a small roundhouse was added at Pacific Grove beside a turntable. Bertha G. Fox was hired as the first stationmaster of the depot. In 1892, passenger service became more formalised with regular excursion trains running each weekend year-round and thrice-daily local trains running between Lake Majella and Castroville. The small staff of the railroad mostly lived in homes within walking distance of the station and a second commercial district in Pacific Grove opened on the adjacent streets benefiting from the nearby rail traffic and the tourists enjoying the bathhouse at Lovers Point.

Pacific Grove station on a moderately busy day, c. 1905. (Pat Hathaway)

In its heyday, around 1905, the station consisted of the mainline and three long sidings, with a crossover between two of them directly across from the depot. The lumber yard sat beside the northern siding, while the depot sat along the southern siding along Briggs Avenue. The immediate yard limits began on the west side of 17th Avenue (now Ocean View Boulevard). The depot structure itself was a single-story, Victorian-style station that was rather unique in style compared to other Southern Pacific structures. While it included the characteristic bay windows and long freight annex like the others, this station had a much higher peaked roof as well as many more windows than was common among SP depots. An impressive two-line station sign also sat above the ticket window's eaves in contrast to the usual single-line sign, like what sat at the end of the depot's roof. A freight platform was installed adjoining the freight warehouse with the closest track running up directly beside it. In later years, the peaked roof lost some of its adornments but remain conspicuously taller than most other single-story stations.

The lightly-used depot on July 14, 1947. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

Passenger service to Pacific Grove began to suffer after World War II, when the incomes of war veterans and their spouses made it easier to purchase automobiles and plane flights. Reflecting this trend, the depot shut its doors on September 16, 1957. Five years later, on July 12, 1962, the last scheduled passenger train departed Pacific Grove on a heading for Castroville. From this point forward, Pacific Grove was a freight-only stop and most of its services ended. The depot structure itself caught on fire in July 1962 while it was being dismantled by the Southern Pacific. The fire formally allowed for the structure to be condemned and the remainder was fired a second time as a part of a fire-prevention training exercise by the Pacific Grove Fire Department. Many of the tracks were pulled at this time, although one was left behind.

The depot after undergoing minor renovations, April 2, 1950. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

In 1962, the Monarch Pines Homeowners Association established a rather large mobile home park atop the majority of the former railroad freight yard. Although a single track remained behind for another 16 years, the stop ceased functioning in any capacity at this time, lacking anything other than a station sign. When the railroad finally left in 1978, the remaining track was paved over and still remains there today beneath the asphalt. Railroad service has never since been extended to Pacific Grove and is unlikely to be extended again in the future. By following the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail to Lovers Point, the unnamed road that continues marks the site of the station yard. The entire area is now a residential community, with the homes between Mermaid Avenue and Briggs Avenue all erected in the years since the stop was removed. The right-of-way is still owned by the Union Pacific Railroad (successor to SP), and the freight yard is now a private development.

Official Railroad Information:

Pacific Grove Depot, April 28, 1940. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

Pacific Grove first became a station in August 1889 when the Pacific Grove Extension of the Monterey Branch was constructed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The station was located 128.3 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Pajaro, Gilroy, and San José. It was also 1.7 miles from the Lake Majella end-of-track. In 1899, the station had full telegraph and telephone services, as well as a passenger and freight agent, a class-A platform, and a stock yard chute for the nearby dairy. The chute was removed in 1908. In 1928, the station featured full freight and passenger services as well as an extensive pair of sidings, one running 26-carlengths (~1,300 feet) and the other 19 (~950 feet). At this time, the station had a bulletin board, official clock, a water tower, fuel for the engines, a turntable, and a phone (BKWFTP). By 1937, oil replaced the more generic fuel at the station. Around 1940, a train order registry replaced the traditional bulletin board. Service to the station declined in the early 1950s to a point where the train order registry was no longer necessary, while the locomotives no longer required on-site fuel services either. Finally, in the early 1960s, everything at the station disappeared from employee timetables except for the telephone. Passenger service formally ended on July 1, 1961. Freight services at the station formally ended in late 1978 after which the line itself was abandoned.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

A train at Pacific Grove station, 1937. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

36.626˚N, 121.920˚W

The site of Pacific Grove Station is everything between Ocean View Boulevard and Del Monte Boulevard along the unnamed residential access road which acts as the trunk of the Monarch Pines Mobile Home Park. The depot site itself is to the left of Briggs Avenue on the south side as it crosses this road. All the area is now private residences and trespassing is prohibited, although the streets can be freely accessed.

Citations & Credits:

• Beebe, Lucius. The Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads.
• Seavey, Kent. Images of America: Pacific Grove. 

Forest Avenue

1917 Automobile Blue Book showing the Monterey area, with Forest
Avenue visible at left acting as the trunk of 17 Mile Drive.

The Pacific Grove Extension of the Monterey Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division had hardly been in operation for two years when the small Forest Avenue stop closed its doors. Eponymously named after the nearby Forest Avenue, the station was established probably in 1889 to cater to the local tourist industry and the nearby residences. It appears to have failed in both regards, however, as the stop was removed from timetables in 1891.

The Pacific Grove Retreat Association, which founded Pacific Grove in 1875, used the beach for many of its functions. The Methodist association already drew people from all over the state, and the extension railroad made it much easier for them to access the area. Placing a passenger flag-stop at Forest Avenue directly adjacent to the beach was a natural decision. The Del Monte Hotel accessed the area, too, since Forest Avenue formed a part of the loop that created 17 Mile Drive.

A freight train passing beside Forest Avenue (not visible at right) toward Monterey, 1937. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

In 1893, just two years after the closure of the station, the PGRA erected a small bathhouse and a short wharf at the beach. Although the railroad station did not last, in all likelihood due to the extremely close proximity to the Pacific Grove depot (it was less than 0.1 miles to the northwest), the location remained popular. William Robson built in 1892 a large commercial building across the street. It later became a grocery store with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and a law office operating on the top floor. The point itself, originally called Point Aulon (Point Abalone in Spanish), remains a popular tourist destination today, even without many of the structures that long littered its rocky terrain.

Lovers' Point Beach and surroundings, c. 1902. (Photo by Clara Sheldon Smith – Viki Sonstegard)

Official Railroad Information:

Excerpt from a panoramic image of Pacific Grove, 1906. The railroad is
at right, with the bath house behind the beach slightly.
(Photo by George Lawrence – Caption by Peter Nurske)

Forest Avenue first appeared on public timetables as an Additional Station in June 1890, although the stop itself likely dated to the opening of the Pacific Grove Extension in late 1889. The stop was located midway between Pacific Grove and Cypress Park, roughly 127.5 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Pajaro, Gilroy, and San José. It was among the first new stations to be removed from the timetables, disappearing by June 1891.



Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

High waves hitting the Lovers' Point bath house, c. 1900. (93950.com)

36.625˚N, 121.916˚W

The site of Forest Avenue station is at the end of Forest Avenue in Pacific Grove, along the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. A parking lot on the south side of the tracks likely marks the station site since a cliff is immediately opposite the lot. It is unlikely that any station structure or platform was present at the site considering how short-lived it was, and certainly nothing survives today if there was anything.

Citations & Credits:

• Nurske, Peter. "George Lawrence's 1906 Panoramas of Pacific Grove, California". 2011.
• Southern Pacific Public Timetables: Monterey Branch, 1889; Pacific Grove Extension, 1890-1891.

Cypress Park

Guide to Monterey and Vicinity, c. 1890.

Located roughly 0.8 miles northwest of Hoffman Avenue inside the limits of Pacific Grove sat for a brief time the Cypress Park railroad stop, which catered to the adjacent Cypress Park residential community. The Southern Pacific Railroad erected this top along its new Pacific Grove Extension in late 1889, probably with the intent that it would attract businesses and residential subdivisions to the area. The stop was located along a small point midway between Point Alones (Point Cabrillo) and Point Aulon (Lovers' Point). For the first year of its existence, the stop offered a full schedule of passenger services, however by 1891 all scheduled stops were removed. The purpose of the stop appears to have been to attract prospective homebuyers to the area, but for whatever reason, the stop failed early on, perhaps due to its proximity to the much larger Pacific Grove depot. The station was completely gone from Southern Pacific records by 1899. Because of its short lifespan, it seems unlikely that the station offered any facilities or services other than, perhaps, a short passenger platform. In any case, nothing survives of the station today except a small grove of cypress trees along the right-of-way beside Berwick Park (city ordinance 218 renamed the park from Cypress Park).

A passenger train along the coast near Cypress Park, 1947. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

Official Railroad Information:
Cypress Park first appeared on public timetables in late 1889 as a regular passenger stop with service offered on all local passenger trains. Whether it appeared in employee timetables or agency books at this time is not known to this historian. The station was listed in 1891 but no passenger services were listed. The stop disappeared from all company records before 1899.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.62˚N, 121.91˚W

The site of Cypress Park is located along the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail at the end of Monterey Avenue. Berwick Park, which sites beside the former right-of-way today, was previously Cypress Park, and the trees standing along the trail gave it that name in the late 1880s. No remnant of the actual station facilities survive, although none probably existed in the first place. The coastal trail and the park is open to the public.

Citations & Credits:

• Southern Pacific Railroad documents.