Betabel

Betabel station on the 1915 USGS Map.

Claus Spreckels was the king of the sugar-beet business in the San Juan, Pajaro, and Salinas Valleys at the turn of the twentieth century but he had a problem: many of his fields were nowhere near a local railroad. Enter Betabel Station. When the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division mainline was first constructed through the Pajaro Valley in 1871, it skirted the northern side of the Santa Cruz Mountains before cutting south to Salinas from Pajaro. Unfortunately, this stranded many of Spreckels' fields in between. For many years, nothing was done about this issue and the local farmers just had to regularly cart their goods to Chittenden or Sargent stations along the mainline. Spreckels successfully financed for the lower Pajaro Valley (i.e., the Watsonville area) the Santa Cruz Railroad by 1876 and he constructed in the Salinas area the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad in 1897. This left the San Juan Valley the only major area without railroad service as of that year.

Betabel was the short-term solution to this problem. The station, named after an uncommon Spanish name for a sugar-beet, first entered the scene at some point in 1896. By 1897, it had become the primary shipping hub for all San Juan Valley sugar-beets farmers. The station, inconveniently located on the north bank of the Pajaro River and above the confluence of the San Benito River into the Pajaro meant that a long spur was required that crossed over the confluence via a truss bridge and stopped immediately beside the county road (modern Betabel Road), making delivery of goods especially easy for farmers. While the stop does not appear to have had any offices, it was classified as a class-B station which meant it had a freight platform and, most likely, a holding spur or siding. The 1915 USGS map shows the long spur and the tracks appear thicker in the area between Sargent Creek and the stop, suggesting there was a siding there.

The truss bridge over the Pajaro River at Betabel, c. 1897. (History San José)

The station remained predominately a beet shipping station for the entire first decade of the 1900s. In 1903, a grower's association was founded to negotiate rates for using the Betabel spur, with a threat to discontinue their contract with Spreckels if their demands were not met. Things apparently went well for the next year, rumours abounded that the Southern Pacific planned to abandon both Chittenden and Sargents stations due to the increased importance of Betabel to the line. A month later, the real reason for this was revealed: oil was discovered in the hills above Betabel. According to the Sentinel, the Watsonville Oil Company had constructed an oil refinery at Betabel (although it seems more likely it was at Rialto/Newria slightly to the west). In any case, the plans to abandoned Sargents were made certain that year, but that station remained on timetables for years afterwards suggesting there was at least some local resistance.

By December 1905, news was quickly spreading that the Southern Pacific Company intended to extend a line south to San Juan Bautista to better patronize the farmers in that area. There was already an SP line to Tres Pinos, but it went away from the farmers. Where this proposed line was to branch off from was open to speculation, but one excited reporter in February 1906 called the short spur across the Pajaro River both the "Betabel branch" and the "Betabel line", implying it would be extended into a full SP branch. Further speculation in November 1906 suggested that Betabel would be converted into a formal passenger and freight station acting as the regional hub and the gateway to the Betabel branch line to San Juan Bautista.

The primary purpose of Betabel promptly fell away once the San Juan Pacific Railway came into being in 1907. This line, which linked nearby Chittenden with San Juan Bautista via the western edge of the San Juan Valley, essentially made Betabel's original purpose redundant and ended any desire for the Southern Pacific to extend their own line to San Juan Bautista. The history of Betabel disappears from records after this point, except as the occasional reference point for road construction projects and railroad-related murders. The sugar-beet industry there ended abruptly in 1907 while the oil industry closed shop within a few years due to pollution to the Pajaro River, as discussed in the Newria article. Betabel remained on railroad timetables, a little-used industrial flag-stop, until around 1944. When its spur was removed is not known—the station may have remained in use until the early 1920s as a shipping point for locally-grown fruits, but a truck company offered their services in 1921 which promptly ended this service as well.

Official Railroad Information:
Betabel first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books on January 1, 1897. It was listed in 1899 as a class-B station, implying the presence of a freight platform and siding or spur, although no other services were listed there. A 1937 employee timetable reports that it had a 26-car (1,300 feet) siding and telephone services at the stop. It was located 89.0 miles from San Francisco via San José and 11.4 miles from Watsonville Junction. By 1940, the station had no scheduled stops, passenger or freight, although it was available as a flag-stop. The station remained in records until 1944, although it seems to have been out of use for many years by that time.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.897˚N, 121.562˚W

The site of Betabel Station is a marked by a hedgerow located 2,000 feet south of the Betabel RV  Resort near the southern end of Betabel Road. The hedgerow itself is the former spur line. The switch for the spur was on the west bank of the Pajaro River beside the current Union Pacific mainline track which is today marked by a locally-used dirt road. There is no legal access to this site or even this side of the river and trespassing is not advised.

Citations & Credits:

• Southern Pacific Railroad employee timetables and agency books, 1897 to 1940.
• Chino Champion, 08/27/1897.
• Santa Cruz (Morning/Evening) Sentinel, 1903-1917.
• Oakland Tribune, 1921.
• Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.

Newria

At the southernmost tip of Santa Clara County near the junction of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey Counties, and along the northern bank of the Pajaro River midway between Gilroy and Watsonville once sat the minor industrial stop of Newria. It was here, in this remote area east of the tiny hamlet of Chittenden's, that the Standard Oil Company opened up an oil processing center under its subsidiary company, the Rialto Oil & Refining Company of San Francisco.

The endeavour began in April 1904 when the Watsonville Oil Company completed a pipeline to oil wells near Chittenden on the ranch of James P. Sargeant. The Watsonville company had been founded around 1896 and may have been prospecting in the hills around Chittenden since around that time since a lease from the Clara Land & Lumber Company dates to 1901. The original purpose of the wells was to fuel the steam trains and electric streetcars used by the Southern Pacific and the Watsonville Transportation Company in Watsonville and Pajaro. To process the oil, a small refinery was constructed beside the railroad tracks along a four-car spur, presumably in the large meadow on the south side of the mainline tracks at Newria. By July 1904, three oil wells were in operation here producing enough oil to fill three standard-gauged tanker cars per day. More wells were being drilled through to at least the end of the year. The newspapers at this time call the station "Rialto", although Southern Pacific Railroad records call it "Newria" from January 1905. Because of the presence of another Rialto in Southern California, it seams reasonable to assume that this site was named "New Rialto" or "NewRia".

Rumours published in the Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel in June 1904 stated that "it is the intention of the Southern Pacific company to make Rialto a station of importance and that in the near future both Sargent and Chittenden will be abandoned and all the business of the company for that section of the valley be transacted at Rialto." However, this seems very unlikely considering Chittenden was located directly alongside the road and the mainline track. In contrast, Newria was tucked away along a remote stretch of track beside which was only Sargent's farm.

Unfortunately for the Southern Pacific and the Rialto Oil Company, popular discontent intervened. Despite the initial popularity of the oil field and the wealth it was brining to nearby Watsonville, pollution began to seep into the Pajaro River almost immediately. It appears that Little Pescadero Creek, which ran just south of the refinery, was doubling as a wash from the wells up on the hills above Newria, and the runoff was fouling the water near town. In December 1905, the people of Watsonville took the Rialto Oil & Refining Company to court in Santa Cruz, accusing it of pollution and injuring the health of people and grazing stock. While the prosecution had no problem finding witnesses, the defense found virtually none. On January 4, 1906, the Newria refinery closed its doors permanently. Interestingly, the trial may not have dealt the company its death blow, at least not directly. Instead, it appears that the plant may have failed to pay its rents to the Sargent family and was also unable to pay its legal fees for the trial. Regardless, the company closed its doors permanently and Newria became a thing of the past.

During the 1906 earthquake, multiple slides were reported in the Newria area. This was only made worse the next year when terrible late winter storms crippled the mainline in the area. It can be supposed that this double-damage further decreased the likelihood that the facility would resume operations. Newria disappeared from Southern Pacific agency books in January 1908, leaving barely a memory behind of what was supposed to be the central rail hub of Chittenden Pass. It is possible that the Watsonville Oil Company continued to drill wells in the area until 1948, when the company was abandoned, but refining of that oil was done elsewhere and a stop was no longer required in the area.

Official Railroad Information:
Newria first appeared in Southern Pacific Coast Division agency books on January 1, 1905, as a private freight stop. It only remained on timetables for a scant three years, disappearing in the January 1908 agency book. It is not clear to this historian if Newria ever appeared in employee or public timetables, but considering the nature of the stop, this seems unlikely.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.898˚N, 121.575˚W

The site of Newria is on the north bank of the Pajaro River just west of Sargent Creek and east of Pescadero Creek. The site is only accessible by following the railroad tracks from Chittenden to the west, which is both highly dangerous and illegal. The station site is at the foot of a grassy hill and beside a large meadow created by a sharp bend in the adjacent river. Chittenden Road (CA 129) is directly across the river on the south bank.

Citations & Credits:

• Santa Cruz Weekly, Morning, and Evening Sentinels, 1904-1907.

Lyda

For around twenty years, there sat on the east side of Elkhorn Slough along the mainline of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division a station that went by the simple name Lyda. Despite appearing on railroad timetables, albeit without any regularly-scheduled stops or associated facilities, literally nothing is known specifically about this stop except where it was located. Even the name is a bit of a mystery. It first appeared in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books in July 1916 and it disappeared from records between 1937 and 1940.

Speculation is really all that can be said about this station. The name may derive from a local property owner or from the actress, Lyda Borelli, who was very popular in the mid-1910s. The purpose of the station, being located on solid land and surrounded by Elkhorn Slough, was probably as a duck-hunting lodge much like the Miller's Gun Club located further to the south. Remnants of a nearby pier have been discovered, although this specific pier appears to be more recent than the 1930s, but it does suggest that boating also occurred in the area, probably related to the gun club. That being said, the stop may have just as easily catered to the farm located on the east side of the tracks, although there does not appear to be much evidence for an industrial stop there and any industrial stop on the mainline would have had a spur or siding, neither of which Lyda had. The fact that the railroad had been built over forty years before the stop first appeared discounts the option that it was simply a private flag-stop for the local property owner—that arrangement would have existed since the installation of the tracks. One last option is that Lyda was involved in some capacity as a nitrate shipping site for material mined out of the nearby Azevedo Pond, although this seems unlikely for the 1910s.

Unfortunately, as has been the case with several stops in and around Santa Cruz County, this station remains a bit of a mystery and will likely remain that way until Monterey newspapers are made more easily available (i.e., outside of microfilm collections in public libraries) or somebody comes forward with new information.

Official Railroad Information: 
Of the official railroad information accessible to this historian, Lyda only appears in one agency book and on one timetable. The agency book shows it first appearing in July 1916 at 104 miles south of San Francisco along the mainline. The timetable lists it in March 1937. It does not appear in the 1940 timetable. On the 1937 timetable, the station is shown to be 103.6 miles south of San Francisco via Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, and San José. Its nearest stations are Watsonville Junction to the north and Elkhorn to the south. No services or facilities are noted at the station nor was there a siding or a spur.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.85˚N, 121.76˚W

The site of Lyda Station is located along Elkhorn Slough, opposite a privately-owned field on Elkhorn Road. The right-of-way through this area is still in regular use by the Union Pacific Railroad but there are trails that follow alongside the tracks for those wishing to visit the site. Access is made most easily from Kirby Park to the south, at which point one follows the tracks northward alongside the slough for almost exactly one mile. The tracks will bank to the right once and then straighten out. When it does this a second time you are at the approximate location of Lyda. All of the land on the west side of the tracks are a part of the Elkhorn Slough Preserve. From Google Maps satellite view, it appears that nothing remains of the stop except, perhaps, a tiny clearing immediately to the east of the tracks and a small mound on the west side where a station shelter may have sat.

Citations & Credits:

• Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.
• Southern Pacific Railroad documents.

Miller's Gun Club

Location of the Miller property beside the tracks near
Moro Cojo Slough, 1922 assessor map. (UC Santa Cruz)

In the early 1870s when the Southern Pacific Railroad first passed into the region of the lower Salinas Valley, it passed through Bolsa Nueva y Moro Cojo Ranch and over Moro Cojo Slough via a short bridge and fill with no stations or stops of note. This rancho had been founded in 1844 from the merger of three smaller land grands and was created for María Antonia Pico de Castro. The name means "new pocket and lame moor", which is a reference to the marshlands and the little pockets of solid land mixed throughout. Even after the railroad passed through the land, the situation remained unchanged and no stations were established between Elkhorn and Castroville.

Then, in 1906, on a site just to the north of the slough on the southeast side of Dolan Road, settled the Watsonville Rod & Gun Club. This establishment had been founded two years earlier along Elkhorn slough but it was able to lease 800 acres from the Miller and Griffin families, among others, beside the less popular Moro Cojo Slough. The group renamed itself "Miller's Gun Club" with Miller acting as president. They erected in the area a 18' by 28' clubhouse and sleep-out where up to twelve hunters could rest for the night. A six-horse barn was also build beside the clubhouse. The group met most Wednesdays and Sundays during duck-hunting season and was affiliated with the Santa Cruz Gun Club which leased the property immediately next door.

The history of the gun club becomes rather muddled after 1906, although it is known to have existed into the 1920s. When precisely Miller's Gun Club arose as a railroad stop is also sketchy. It was never a formalized stop, instead functioning as a private flag-stop for the club members. As such, it was located roughly 0.2 miles south of what would become the Moss Landing spur; however the two never coexisted. It was more properly located 2.3 miles south of Elkhorn, which was also primarily a gun club stop, albeit one with official station status from the railroad. Because of the scarcity of sources that mention the stop, it seems likely that it only appeared on select passenger timetable lists and was never published in Agency Books or employee timetables. In any event, the station disappeared by the end of the 1920s if not earlier. It likely had no platform, station structure, or even sign due to its private status.

A new Watsonville Rod & Gun Club still exists today, although its relationship with the former club is not presently known.

Official Railroad Information:
None presently known. Information derived from a working survey of the stations and stops compiled by Jim Fergusson.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.796˚N, 121.753˚W

The site of Miller's Gun Club stop is located on the southeast corner of Dolan Road where it crosses over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Access to the tracks themselves is illegal and the access road running beside the tracks are privately owned. However, the site of the stop can be seen from the bridge as a small farm equipment lot beside a dirt road.

Citations & Credits:

• Fergusson, Jim. "California Railroads (1) – SL 181: Passenger Stations & Stops". www.railwaystationlists.co.uk. [PDF]
• Hall, Frank. They Came to Shoot: A History of CA Duck Clubs and Wetland Conservation.
• Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence and on-site exploration.
• Woolfolk, Andrea. Elkhorn Slough Reserve. Personal correspondence (via Nanney).

Lake Majella

The Lake Majella "V" that straddled the small collection yard for the quarry.
Source: Southern Pacific Railroad assessor's map, noting stations and tracks.

At the lonely end of the Pacific Grove Extension which lengthened the Southern Pacific Railroad's Monterey Branch sat Lake Majella Station. The purpose of the extension was always to reach the rich glass sands of Lake Majella, although the railroad advertised that it intended to connect Carmel to its railroad network. This latter feat was never accomplished and so the tracks ended in the bogs and 400-foot-high sand dunes of the tidal swamp that sat beside Moss Bay.

The main industry at Lake Majella was high-grade glass-quality quartz crystals, i.e., beach sand. This part of the Monterey Peninsula was blessed with sand dunes and those dunes located immediately around the tidal lake were composed entirely of this valuable product. Sand was processed at an on-site quarry where it was washed, dried, and bagged. The bags were then loaded into waiting freight cars that parked upon the two spurs, both of which acted as the end-of-track. The tracks extended deep into the area to an unrecorded terminus. In later years, bulldozers pushed the sand into hoppers which fed conveyor belts which then sent the sand to the processing plant. It was an efficient system where Southern Pacific boxcars waited beside the main processing center to export fully-processed product. Over the years, the sand was exported for sanding the railroad tracks, for use in glass for reconstructing San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, for ceramics used in electrical devices, for roofing paper, for soap, and even to refill beaches elsewhere. In other words, it was a very popular commodity, which is probably why the operation continued until 1978.

The Del Monte sand processing center at Lake Majella, c. 1945. An SP boxcar sits in front of the facility, awaiting its load of sand bags for shipment out. Photograph by Julian P. Graham. (Pebble Beach Company – Lagorio Archives)

Railroad service to Lake Majella was opened around the start of 1890 and some form of sand quarrying would continue at the end-of-track until the truncation of the line to Seaside in 1978. Unsurprisingly, the primary purpose of the stop was for freight, and passenger service was limited to select local passenger trains that  first year. The stop never featured on the Del Monte line or any other seasonal excursion services. Whether there was a passenger shelter at Lake Majella in those first two decades is unknown. The Pacific Improvement Company, a Southern Pacific subsidiary, appears to have operated the sand quarry until around 1906 for use with its railroad grading and track maintenance, but following the San Francisco Earthquake, the quarry was spun-off as a subsidiary, the Del Monte Sand Company.

Lake Majella tracks, showing an otherwise unlisted spur at right beside a hopper, 1949. Photo by Art Lloyd.

1898 Hotel Del Monte map. (Monterey Public Library)

The passenger shelter that was eventually constructed at Lake Majella was of the same style as that at Asilomar, suggesting that both were installed around 1913. Passenger service beyond Pacific Grove was always informal, but the presence of a shelter suggests that there was at least limited use there, probably by the quarry employees and the few locals who lived near there. The shelter was located along the eastern spur near Sunset Drive. It was a + -shaped ("Greek Cross") structure with a square peaked roof upon which the station sign was affixed. Identical shelters in the area were at Asilomar, Brackney, and Newell Junction.

The sand dunes at Moss Beach beside Lake Majella.

Despite the industrial nature of the Lake Majella area, the dunes themselves were considered by many to be quite picturesque and became a popular place for picknickers and artists otherwise spending their days at nearby Asilomar Conference Center. Boating and fishing in Spanish Bay were popular in early years, especially since the scenic Point Piños lighthouse was within sight.  The area was also heavily wooded with pines and cyprus trees originally, although most of that was later logged out. In later years, these dunes would become a rallying call for conservationists critical of the Lake Majella quarry. Their preservation was one of the chief reasons why the sand quarrying operation at Lake Majella finally ended.

Lake Majella before heavy industry and development drained the lake and cleared the forests.

From the 1940s, the Hayward Lumber Company, which still exists at the site of Lake Majella Station, received loads of lumber freight via the railroad. They were the last customers that used the Pacific Grove Extension, receiving goods into early 1979. The abandonment of this section of track was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission on December 29, 1978. Within a few months, most of the tracks to Seaside were pulled, although some were buried. Lake Majella only briefly was returned to nature. Not long after the closure of the sand quarry, The Inn at Spanish Bay, a part of the Pebble Beach Resorts consortium, was opened as a luxury resort and golf complex. Some of the dunes still sit uncomfortably around Spanish Bay, mostly between the resort and the Asilomar Conference grounds.

Official Railroad Information:

Lake Majella first appeared on Southern Pacific timetables in 1890 at the end of the Pacific Grove Extension.  The station was located 130.0 miles from San Francisco via Castroville, Pajaro Junction, Gilroy, and San José, and it was also 0.1 miles from Asilomar. Agency books at the turn of the century listed the station as having a class-A freight platform, which means it also included a spur, but no other services were listed. This situation never changed. The spur was listed initially in the 1920 as a 51-car-length (~2,550 feet) stretch of track, however this listing disappeared in later years, possibly because the switch was more closely located at Asilomar, being just to the south of that stop. Passenger service to the stop continued until around 1940, when the stop became strictly for freight. The stop remained in frequent use until 1978 when the line was truncated to Seaside.

The sand quarry at Lake Majella, c. 1960. Photo by Pat Hathaway. (Fine Art America)

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.616˚N, 121.934˚W

The site of Asilomar Station is now Hayward Lumber off of Sunset Drive. Lake Majella itself is now the Inn and Links at Spanish Bay resort, with the core hub of activity located roughly within the residential subdivision on the east side of that complex. The western spur of the track paralleled Crocker Road to the east and is now visible, albeit somewhat overgrown. The eastern spur ran through the east side of Hayward Lumber. Both tracks crossed Sunset Drive with their present right-of-ways flanking the Pacific Grove Self-Storage facility and the adjacent shopping center. Both spurs undoubtedly continued directly to the Lake Majella quarry, but unfortunately the Gold Links at Spanish Bay has developed over any remaining trace of those right-of-ways.

Citations & Credits:

• The Board and Batten of the Pacific Grove Heritage Society. February/March 2004.
• Rice, Walter, and Emiliano Echiverria. Images of Rail: Rails of California's Central Coast. Arcadia, 2008.
• Seavey, Kent. Images of America: Pacific Grove. Arcadia, 2005.
• "The Monterey Branch". Abandoned Rails.