Stations: Thompson

In the Rancho Bolsa Nuevo y Moro Cojo alongside the Old Salinas River south of Moss Landing due west of Castroville once sat the little stop for the Thompson family along the Pajaro Valley Railroad. The rancho was first created in 1844 as a merger of Rancho Moro Cojo (created in 1825); Rancho Bolsa Nueva (created 1836); and a small parcel of land owned by Simeon Castro (granted in 1837). By 1844, all the lands were owned by María Antonia Pico de Castro, Simeon's wife, whose grant was patented by the Public Land Commission in 1873.

John immigrated from Kildare, Ireland, around 1853 and worked in Boston until 1855, when he moved to San Francisco. Later that year, John and his wife, Mary Cummings, relocated to Watsonville and John became a superintendent on a ranch near the coast. He became a renter in 1865 and eventually purchased 100 acres in Santa Cruz County. Over the following years, he added adjacent property to his parcel, first 100 acres, then 200 more. He also purchased 150 acres on the Salinas River from Pico de Castro and 200 acres nearby to use as pastureland. By 1892, the family owned nearly five miles of land in Santa Cruz County alone.

The house and gardens of Peter J. Thompson in Watsonville [Harrison]

Over the years, John and his family thrived, building a spectacular ranch house three miles from Watsonville where he spent the rest of his life. Harrison waxes poetically about the house and a rodeo that was held there during his visit to the town. Together, John and Mary had twelve children, most of whom became or married into prominent ranchers and farmers in the Monterey Bay area. Christopher Thompson, born in 1869, eventually inherited the farm from his father and produced three daughters with his wife, Anna Quinn of Monterey. His eldest brother, Peter John Thompson, inherited most of the family lands in Santa Cruz County and became a county leader by the 1890s. These lands were joined to those of his wife, P. J. Kelly, and were known collectively as the Kelly–Thompson ranch.

Lithographs of a rodeo on the Thompson Ranch in Watsonville, c. 1892 [Harrison]

The Thompson family split its duties between farming and stock-raising. Presumably, it was because of his farm in the lower Salinas Valley, which undoubtedly grew sugar beets for some of these years, that John was able to obtain a registered stop on the Pajaro Valley Railroad line when it passed through the area in 1890. The station was located roughly 10.9 miles from Watsonville and 16.3 miles from Spreckels. There is virtually no available information on this stop since Fabing and Hamman do not reference it in their book. However, satellite imagery of the site suggests that it had a siding that ran along the west side of the mainline, directly adjacent to Old Salinas River. At this stop, there would certainly have been either a mechanised or manual beet-loader and beet hoppers probably parked on the siding awaiting pickup during harvest season. No evidence of any of this, however, survives. The 1912 US Geological Survey map does not show a spur or siding at Thompson, suggesting any additional track at the stop was removed prior to that time. The mainline tracks would have remained in place at Thompson, only to be removed by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1930 after the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad was abandoned.

Peter Thompson died on June 3, 1916, of pneumonia. He was survived by his wife and four step-children. The Salinas Valley property remains today an agricultural field.

Thompson site
(Google Maps)

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.784˚N, 121.793˚W

Most traces of Thompson Station are now gone except for an especially wide section of undeveloped land between a large field and Old Salinas River. The original Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad right-of-way still exists, visible from Google Maps satellite view on the east bank of the river beside a private service road for the nearby farm. However, only the space for the former siding remains – there is no physical evidence of the siding itself having ever existed there.

Citations & Credits:

• Guinn, James Miller. History of the State of California and Biographical Record of Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties. Chicago: Chapman Publishing, 1903.
• Harrison, Edward S. History of Santa  Cruz County California. San Francisco: Pacific Press Publishing, 1892.
• Martin, Edward. History of Santa Cruz County California with Biographical Sketches. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911.

Stations: Beach

USGS Map showing the location of Beach Station, 1912.

Beach Station is perhaps the most obscure railroad stop along the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad, as well as the most difficult to research due to the simplistic nature of its name. The stop was located roughly 6.2 miles from Watsonville Depot and 21.0 miles from Spreckels, immediately adjacent to the outlet of the Pajaro River. The river mouth has moved significantly in recent decades, but a 1912 US Geological Survey map shows that the stop was originally located beside a sand embankment that protected the track from the river. This embankment and the presence of a nearby structure may also give a hint as to the purpose of this stop.

A Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad locomotive with crew posing for a photograph, c. 1900. [Adi Zehner]

The sometimes wet winters and constantly misty weather conditions in the Pajaro and Salinas valleys would have certainly made sand for traction essential for smooth operations of a railroad. The large sand embankment located immediately beside the tracks at this location may have made sand quarrying quite an easy task for railroad personnel. The station sported a relatively long northward-exiting spur, visible on the USGS map. The exit direction suggests that it was built prior to the sugar beet refinery's transfer from Watsonville to Spreckels in 1898. However, no other similar stop along the beach appears after that date, which, after also considering the continued existence of the spur on a 1914 USGS map, suggests that Beach continued to be used by the railroad for its original purpose possibly as late as 1929, when the railroad ended operations. Local farmers may have also used the stop, but information on such usage is not forthcoming and there are few farms noted in the immediate area. The beach may have served as a flag stop for beachgoers and it has been popular with fishermen for over a century, but it seems more likely that the main beach at Moss Landing served this purpose for the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad. The stop was definitively abandoned in 1930 when the tracks of the railroad were removed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. It seems likely that the current severe erosion of the beach may be due to this early mining effort.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.847˚N, 121.805˚W

The location of Beach Station is publicly visible from the northern curve on the gravel portion of Giberson Road at the outlet of the Pajaro River. Indeed, Giverson Road follows the right-of-way of the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad for its entire length as it runs alongside the beach. The station site sits just beyond the northern end of Zmudowski State Beach, but no trace of the site remains. A field now occupies the location of the spur while the mainline right-of-way is now a private access road for farmers.

Citations & Credits:

• Fabing, Horace W., and Rick Hamman. Steinbeck Country Narrow Gauge. Pruett, 1985.

Stations: Jensen

Location of Jensen Siding, 1912. [US Geological Survey]

The history of the stop known simply as Jensen along the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad line is quite mysterious. Undoubtedly named after one of the numerous Danish Jensens that moved to the Pajaro Valley in the 1880s, it is unclear precisely which Jensen occupied this parcel located near the mouth of the Pajaro River in 1890, when the railroad tracks were first installed along the southeast bank of the river. The most likely candidate is a mysterious Dane named Chris (or Christ or Christian) Peter Jensen. Jensen was an unimposing man who first enters records in Watsonville in 1885. He became a US citizen in 1892 and is active in property sales throughout the region a few years afterwards. Although he is never explicitly linked to any property in northern Monterey County, Jensen was the owner of at least one ranch in Corralitos and was closely associated with numerous farm owners from the north Monterey region, suggesting that he may have owned property there. Jensen was also an active member of a number of local societies, including a founding member of the local branch of the National Master Horse-Shoers' Protective Association. As some final evidence of his probable association with Spreckels and the railroad, Jensen is also the inventor of a sugar beet cultivator filed with the patent office in June 1899, alongside James H. Rowe. This places him solidly in the sugar beet industry and suggests that he owned a parcel that produced sugar beets for sale to the Western Sugar Beets factories in Watsonville and, later, Spreckels.

Patent image for sugar beet cultivator invented by C.P. Jensen and J.H. Rowe, 1899.

Little information is known of the stop itself. Satellite views of the site as well as USGS information shows that the stop was located in a sink between two sandy bluffs at a location intersected by the southern border of Rancho Bolsa de San Cayetano. The station was located 21.6 miles from Spreckels and 5.6 miles from Watsonville Depot. The station, the structure for which consisted of a small building beside the tracks, supported a 23-car length siding that ran along the southeastern side of the mainline tracks. These tracks were installed in early 1890 and remained in place until the line was demolished by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1930. While the stop was undoubtedly used in the early years, it is unclear how long Jensen owned the property and if later owners continued to grow beets there and ship said beets over the rail line.

Chris Jensen was seriously injured at Port Watsonville in 1906 when a riptide dashed him against one of the piles of the pier there, although he apparently recovered. His ultimate date of death is not known. The patent filing shows as a witness Julius C. Jensen, a man also referenced in the early 1900s as a Watsonville resident and a likely relative of Chris.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.855˚N, 121.804˚W

The site of Jensen station is now occupied by an open field that sits alongside the Pajaro River beyond the end of Jensen Road. The right-of-way in this area has mostly eroded into the river itself, although traces of it remain and can be seen from Google Maps satellite imagery. Nothing survives of the stop itself and the property is currently privately owned.

Citations & Credits:

• Fabing, Horace W., and Rick Hamman. Steinbeck Country Narrow Gauge. Pruett, 1985.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel (Morning and Weekly), 1885-1930.

Stations: Gravel Pit No. 1

A mule cart at the Logan quarry, c. 1905, demonstrating the likely gravel
quarrying operation at Gravel Pit No. 1 around the same time. [Graniterock]

The route of the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad was punctuated by two stops simply named "Gravel Pit No. 1" and "Gravel Pit No. 2" on its main line. The northernmost of these pits, located along the Pajaro River near its outlet into the Monterey Bay, was in fact a small gravel quarry located on Trafton Road near its junction with Bluff Road. Along the railroad route, it was located 5.4 miles from the Watsonville Depot and 21.8 miles from Spreckels, near Salinas. Because of the heavy industrial nature of this site, a long 32-car spur was built that ran parallel to the main track and originally existed to the north. This spur hosted at various times hopper cars that would be filled with gravel obtained at the quarry. A second portable spur split from the track at the stop and went northeast into the quarry itself, with its route shifted periodically to access new gravel sites. Since gravel was not a necessary resource used in sugar beet refining, it can be assumed that this quarry provided much of the ballast used along the right-of-way when it was built between the Watsonville beet sugar refinery and the Spreckels refinery in the 1890s. It may also have been used when the railroad was extended from Spreckels to Alisal Canyon in 1902. Quarrying here was likely done using small horse- or mule-driven hoppers that then transferred the gravel via a dump chute into a waiting railroad hopper, such as depicted in the image above from the nearby Logan quarry.

Gravel Pit No. 1 probably went out of use when Gravel Pit No. 2 was built south of Spreckels in 1905. With this new source of gravel directly on the path of a new branch line, the need for an older, possibly depleted pit over 20 miles away to the north seems unlikely. This second gravel pit would have been responsible for the ballast needed to create the short Salinas Branch in 1908 and for later ballast replacement processes used until the line was demolished in 1930. The United States Geological Survey map for 1912 shows no spur, siding, or quarry at the site of Gravel Pit No. 1, suggesting it had gone out of use at that time and the railroad machinery there had been removed and relocated to Gravel Pit No. 2. Since it was only an industrial stop, it never appeared on railroad passenger timetables or promotional maps of the route. Unsurprisingly, no images of the pit seem to have survived.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.860˚N, 121.799˚W

The site of Gravel Pit No. 1 is along Trafton Road just before its end at Bluff Road. The site is clearly visible on satellite maps as a large undeveloped, overgrown quarry straddled by two large agricultural plots, its southern neighbor being Far West Fungi. The former Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad right-of-way terminates at the quarry stop, which is currently occupied by a single small home accessible via an access road that passes through the old quarry. The site is private property. Trespassing is discouraged.

Citations & Credits:

• Fabing, Horace W., and Rick Hamman. Steinbeck Country Narrow Gauge. Pruett, 1985.
• Hilton, George Woodman. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford: University Press, 1990.
• Martin, Edward. History of Santa Cruz County, California, with Biographical Sketches. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911.