Stations: Old Felton

The Santa Cruz Mountains town of Felton was not always divided between old and new. Indeed, it was not always even Felton! The origin of the town is found the destruction of Rancho Zayante in the mid-1860s, when Isaac Graham's lawyer, Edward Stanly, began the long process of subdividing the property into parcels that could be used primarily for commercial gain. Large tracts went to the Isaac Davis Henry Cowell, Eben Bennet, George Treat, Thomas Bull, Frederick A. Hihn, and other early entrepreneurs who used it primarily for lime and logging operations. But the area immediately west of the confluence of Zayante Creek into the San Lorenzo River was kept by Stanly for the creation of a formal township, designed and parcelled by county surveyor T. W. Wright.

The area where Felton would develop in Rancho Zayante, as mapped in 1859, showing no parcels and few settlements.

[Bancroft Library]

Felton was only formally called that from 1868 and Stanly named the town after his nephew, John Brooks Felton. The town centered on Baldwin Avenue—named after Stanly's wife, Cornelia Baldwin—and was quite small in its first years. Wright used Bull Creek to the south and Fall Creek to the north as the town boundaries, and the ford across the river to Graham's Grade marked the town center. Before Wright even began, the site already had a small schoolhouse, hotel, and general store—catering to lumber- and quarrymen, and gold miners—but more hotels, a larger schoolhouse, and other commercial and residential structures were quickly erected within the township. The entirety of the town remained on the west bank of the river, with only farms, a few scattered homes, and a fuse factory situated on the east bank.

Stereograph showing the San Lorenzo Valley flume's terminus with the "Santa Cruz" locomotive on the western fork pulling a passenger car. The Santa Cruz & Felton warehouse can be seen at left with the Cremer House in the distance, c. 1876.[California State Library]

By the time that the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad entered the town in late 1875, Felton was already a well-populated area, at least in comparison to other settlements within the mountains. Lumber had become the primary industry in the area and it was lumber that would put Felton on the map. In tandem with the construction of the railroad line from Santa Cruz to Felton, the San Lorenzo Valley Flume & Lumber Company had erected a massive lumber flume network that stretched up the valley for over eight miles to a mill situated north of modern-day Boulder Creek. While originally intended to continue all the way to Santa Cruz, the flume terminated instead at Felton due to a lack of water sources in San Lorenzo Gorge. Thus, just south of downtown, a transfer station was built where lumber would fall off the flume into large piles and then be loaded onto waiting trains. The flume served as the original purpose for railroading in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the town of Felton thrived during these years as lumbermen, carpenters, and engineers came to the town to work at the flume exchange.

The "Santa Cruz" with both passenger cars, c. 1877, parked beside what is
thought to be Old Felton Depot. The reason for the decorations is unknown.
[UC Santa Cruz, Digital Collections]

A depot was eventually built at Felton, although when or where precisely remains unknown. No photographs of the depot or tracks on the west bank of the river survive except for photos of the Holmes limeworks. But Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from a later period show that the tracks forked south of town. A stereograph of the flume terminus proves that trains could park on either side of the flume for loading, so it can be assumed that the forked tracks in later maps are the same as these. The western fork was longer than the eastern and probably catered to the depot directly, in addition to the lumber deposited on that side of the flume. Near the eastern fork, the Union Mill and Lumber Company erected a planing mill to improve the quality of some of the lumber shipped out from Felton.

Felton at the intersection of Baldwin Ave. (State Route 9) and Felton Empire Road, c. 1885. [George Pepper]

For ten years, the flume terminus gave Felton life and a purpose, but the purchase of the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad by the South Pacific Coast Railroad in 1879 signalled impending change. The railroad built a new Felton Station across the river near the fuse factory and rebranded the earlier station "Old" Felton. At the same time, the company was finding the flume to be terribly inefficient, especially since increasing amounts of lumber were being cut at Pacific Mills (future Ben Lomond) and Boulder Creek. To remedy this issue, the Felton & Pescadero Railroad was incorporated in 1883 to replace the flume with a railroad. The company wanted to simply run tracks behind downtown Felton, closely following the route of the flume, but the townspeople protested and even incorporated as a city briefly to block the railroad from doing so. The railroad responded by laying out a new right-of-way across the river that completely bypassed downtown Felton. When the new line opened in 1885, the flume terminus was dismantled and the town began to decline. Lumbermen flocked to Boulder Creek while engineers joined the new railroad or moved away.

Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1895 showing the layout of Felton.
Note the railroad tracks to the right with the abandoned planing mill beside the river.
Also note the two warehouses in the pull-out box across from Maple (Hihn) Street.
[UCSC Digital Collections]

Although never intended to be taken as a judgment, the term "Old" Felton became an appropriate description of the town. After the railroad relocated to the east bank, the town was unincorporated. Soon afterwards, much of downtown burned down in a substantial fire on October 20, 1888. The only building that survives today from before this fire is the Cremer House, which was fortunate to be on the opposite side of the road from where the fire raged. During the rebuilding, Southern Pacific, which acquired the South Pacific Coast in 1887, hinted that they would build a new depot in town, but this never happened. Instead, Felton devolved into a quiet settlement, populated by quarrymen, mountain farmers, and small tourist resorts and ranches. Welch's Big Trees became its primary attraction. In later years, especially after the San Francisco Earthquake and World War I, Felton became a seasonal resort community, with several successful subdivisions popping up south of town along the west bank of the river.

Old Felton Station did not die easily, despite all of these changes. The station point remained on timetables for decades and continued to cater to various interests. The IXL Lime Company used the old Santa Cruz & Felton depot building for storage until October 1893, when it burned down. Meanwhile, the H. T. Holmes Lime Company erected a warehouse along the eastern fork to store lime barrels, at the same time leasing space in the surviving Santa Cruz & Felton warehouse for the same purpose. In 1897, regular passenger service, infrequent as it was, ended permanently and Old Felton disappeared from employee timetables. The Felton Branch became strictly an as-needed line and passengers would have to head over to Felton Station to catch a train.

A section of a 1918 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the Standard Oil warehouse beside the now single track south of downtown Felton. Note the limited growth in the town between 1895 and 1918. [UCSC Digital Collections]

Perhaps surprisingly, the 1906 earthquake and subsequent standard-gauging of the tracks did not signal the end of the station and branch line. Indeed, Southern Pacific upgraded the tracks in town and replaced the southern route to Felton Junction with a much more proximate connection across the river beside the Felton Covered Bridge, converting Old Felton into a stop on the Boulder Creek Branch. The town petitioned the railroad to re-route the Boulder Creek Branch through downtown Felton, clearly seeking to correct the misstep of an earlier generation, but Southern Pacific wasn't interested. In the end, the upgrade was done exclusively on behalf of the Holmes Lime Company, but downtown Felton benefited from it nonetheless. Standard Oil, which dominated the national automotive fuel industry at the time, installed a gasoline and oil station at the site of the old Holmes warehouse. The company used the adjacent Old Felton Branch tracks to bring in tanker cars, when necessary, giving the branch line an additional purpose for a few decades while also providing a needed service to the community.

Standard Oil probably left around 1926, which is when Old Felton Station was officially abandoned by the railroad. Whether or not the tracks to the former station site remained in place after this time is unknown—the Holmes kilns continued to periodically use the tracks further to the south until 1939. By this point, Felton was rebounding and entering its third life as a year-round commuter town. The influx of people after World War II ensured that, while the railroading history of downtown Felton may be forgotten, the town itself would live on.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
Approx. 37.0512N, 122.0730W

The site of Old Felton station is not known with certainty. Since it was intended to be usable by the public, it must have been located on the western side of the tracks near the end of the western fork. This would situate it across from Kirby Street at the modern site of Kathy Nails. The original Santa Cruz & Felton warehouse was further to the south, approximately where the Mountain Community Resources building is today. The flume would have been situated behind this, terminating around the site of the Felton Presbyterian Church. No remnants of this period survive except for the Cremer House.

Citations:

• Clark, Donald Thomas. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Freight Stops: Holmes Lime Company

The town of Felton initially had two businesses that spurred its growth and the advent of the railroad in the San Lorenzo Valley. The first and most famous was the lumber industry, which dates back to the 1820s or earlier. But the second is the lime industry, the remnants of which still are scattered across the Santa Cruz Mountains. Felton was a hotbed of lime quarrying in the 1860s and 1870s, initiated by the efforts of Eben Bennett, who also ran and helped finance the toll road between Felton and Santa Cruz in order to bring his lime products to port more economically. Eben and Stanley Bennett owned a mill on what became Bennett Creek, while another early quarrier, Thomas Bull, built a kiln nearby on Bull Creek. Around 1869, a San Francisco investor named Henry Thomas Holmes entered the scene and began buying up tracts of land above Felton from Edward Stanly and other local landowners. Holmes incorporated  H. T. Holmes & Company in 1871 and quickly bought out or entered into partnerships with all the smaller local lime interests except the IXL Company, which operated along Fall Creek. Bull eventually left the industry in 1876 and the Bennetts left in 1879, after Eben died.

View of the H. T. Holmes lime kilns with a South Pacific Coast Railroad locomotive behind the main warehouse, c. 1900.
[Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History]

Holmes Lime Company grounds on a Sanborn Fire
Insurance Company map, 1908. [UC Santa Cruz Digital Collections]

The coming of the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad in 1875 did not have an immediate impact on the lime industry. There is only inconsistent evidence that the railroad hauled any lime at all during this period and no documentary evidence shows the precise railroad layout of the downtown Felton area. More importantly, Holmes was still using the Bennett kilns for most of his operations until 1885. Reincorporating as the H. T. Holmes Lime Company around 1880, Holmes gave day-to-day operations to William Russell, a local store owner. Production was increased with improved facilities erected throughout the early 1880s, and by 1885 up to 65,000 barrels of quicklime could be produced per year and the kilns were employing 65 men in kiln operations, lumber-cutting, and coopering. The numbers reached a peak around 1890 at 110,000 barrels per year. By this point, rail transportation was essential and the South Pacific Coast Railroad upgraded and maintained its track into Felton from the south in order to support the increased load. A warehouse was erected beside the old Santa Cruz & Felton depot to store outgoing lime barrels, while the old depot became a storage space for empty barrels. Both of these were located across from Maple (Hihn) Street. Whether filled lime barrels were sent to the Railroad Wharf in Santa Cruz or over the mountains to San Jose is unknown, but much of it went to building San Francisco in the years prior to the great earthquake.

Expansion of the railroad lines into the Holmes property probably occurred around 1895. A 1908 map, depicting the site immediately before its upgrading to standard-gauge later that year, shows a spur splitting on either side of the storage warehouse, mill, and cooperage, with the western track running between these buildings and the kilns and the eastern track passing beside a second warehouse. Various storage facilities are scattered across the area, some with easy rail access, others not. Photographs of this operation show boxcars parked on these tracks, indicating the type of rolling stock used to export the lime from the refinery. When the tracks were upgraded, it seems likely that the same configuration was retained within the facility, although the tracks in Felton itself were redirected over the San Lorenzo River beside the Felton Covered Bridge so that the mile-long branch line south of town could be abandoned. Indeed, the Holmes company was the only justification for tracks on the west bank of the San Lorenzo River in Felton at all, revealing the importance and profitability of this business.

Holmes Lime Company main refinery, with kilns at left and bricks and barrels in foreground, 1908. Photo by Ravnos. [Margaret Koch – Santa Cruz MAH]

The San Francisco Earthquake negatively impacted the Holmes Lime Company. Henry Holmes himself died in 1902 and his company began a long series of transfers and mergers. Meanwhile, lime was quickly being replaced with Portland cement as the best construction material, leading to declining sales. In 1914, the company rebranded itself as the Holmes Lime & Cement Company, reflecting new acquisitions elsewhere in the state and new investment in Portland cement. Operations continued in Felton sporadically for the next twenty years, although the site was used primarily for quarrying rock rather than kiln work during this time. In 1936, the facility finally shut down, at least partially due to competition from the Granite Construction Company, which operated a large sand and rock quarry high on the hills overhead. Indeed, Granite Construction actually purchased the former refinery under a subsidiary, Pacific Limestone Products, but whatever they intended to do there did not succeed and they closed the operation in 1938. The facility was dismantled in July 1939 and the tracks to Old Felton and the Holmes kiln, including the bridge over the river, were pulled in October. The area was soon parcelled into housing blocks and the Holmes kilns faded into memory.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
37.0486N, 122.0773W

The site of the original Holmes warehouse is now occupied by Felton Chinese Food and the Felton Center on State Route 9. The site of the kilns is now a small housing area up Hihn Street, just beyond the southwest turn in the road. Significant remains of the kilns can be viewed behind the homes on the hill side of the street. The long steep driveway at the Hihn Street turn marks the site of the dump tramway, while the road itself closely matches the route of the railroad spur into and through the Holmes Company refinery.

Citations:

• Perry, Frank Perry, et al.,"Introduction." Lime Kiln Legacies. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum of Art & History, 2007.
• Piwarzyk, Robert W. "The Laguna Limekilns: Bonny Doon." Santa Cruz, CA: Santa Cruz Public Libraries, 1996.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Stations: Fahihn

Only one new station ever appeared along the Old Felton Branch that ran along the west bank of the San Lorenzo River after the South Pacific Coast Railroad purchased the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad in 1879. This little-known locale was called Fahihn, created out of the initials and surname of Frederick Augustus Hihn, who operated a lumber mill along Boulder Brook from 1895 to approximately 1901.

Lumbermen posing beside a felled redwood tree along Gold Gulch, c. 1895. [History San Jose]

Hihn's operations in Santa Cruz County are legendary, spanning from Laurel near the Summit to Valencia Creek near Aptos to King's Creek north of Boulder Creek. But the mill south of Felton was perhaps the most interesting of his operations. The Valencia Creek mill had shuttered in 1894 after operating for over a decade. Hihn owned or otherwise obtained vast tracts of land in the Soquel Creek basin, purchased from the Martina Castro estate, but these were still quite difficult to access and the property magnate wanted something easier. He turned his gaze upon the Gold Gulch watershed, a relatively minor tributary of the San Lorenzo River that had briefly been the source of a local gold rush in the 1850s that indirectly marked the initial population of the Felton township. Hihn had been one of the earlier profiteers from the gold rush and had maintained a proprietary interest in the area. He also gained a good portion of local land around 1868 from Edward Stanly, who served as the executor for Isaac Graham, the original owner of Rancho Zayante.

An oxen team hauling logs in Gold Gulch, 1898. [History San Jose]

With the closure of the Valencia Creek mill in 1894, the F. A. Hihn Company began the process of relocating to a small clearing beside Boulder Brooke, up Gold Gulch. The narrow-gauge railroad tracks ran over Gold Gulch about a half mile from the site, and Hihn quickly installed a spur up the creek to his new mill. Most of the machinery from Valencia Creek was installed in this new mill. Above the mill, an unusually small mill pond was installed to store logs waiting to be cut. Above the mill, a brick kiln was built that was capable of producing 100,000 bricks per year, mining the ingredients from nearby hillsides. During the 1895 season, 40 men were hired to work the mill, but this increased to 200 by the 1899 season, when a large gang of Japanese were hired. Most milling was done by mule or donkey engine teams and skid roads, with the train tracks only running to the mill due to adjacent steep hillsides.

Poor quality property map showing the railroad right-off-way from Fahihn to the Hihn mill, c, 1900. [Randall Brown]

The stop at Fahihn was little more than a switch for the spur. While there was certainly a station sign there, no evidence suggests there was a siding, platform, or station structure. Hihn had his own small saddleback locomotive, the Betsy Jane, which shuttled flatcars between the mill and the branch line tracks, where passing South Pacific Coast trains would pick up waiting cars.

Gold Gulch proved to be a rather poor investment for Hihn. While the operation made money, there were simply not enough trees in the region to make the mill profitable for more than a few seasons. In 1898, the mill was forced to close early "for want of timber to cut." The next year proved to be the mill's last when crews finished harvesting the remaining strands in the area and work crews were cut to a minimum. In 1900, the only people left working were Japanese gulchers, whose job was to basically seek out anything left behind by the lumber crews that could turn a profit. By this point, Hihn had moved most of his operations to Upper Soquel Creek where he built a mill near Laurel. The tracks to the mill were probably removed in 1901 to be used on the cable tramway at Laurel. Fahihn station itself remained in Southern Pacific Railroad agency books until 1909, when the line south of Felton was removed.

Original property sign for Forest Lakes. [Howard Rugg]

The F. A. Hihn Company began leasing property almost immediately after operations ceased in the area. Various mining concerns attempted to strike it rich over the subsequent three decades following rumours and legends as much as any successful prospecting. Meanwhile, a number of people began moving onto parcels in the area, especially around the mouth of Gold Gulch, where a small residential subdivision soon developed. The company also leased logging rights to various private companies, such as C. H. Jewitt, who both mined and cut lumber along the creek in the 1910s.

In January 1924, news broke that Fred O. and Jeffie Hihn were subdividing 845 acres along Gold Gulch Creek for use by the Seminary Avenue Land Company, which planned to create a residential and vacation rental subdivision among the rapidly regenerating redwood, fir, and oak trees. The named this new area Forest Lakes, which reflected the series of small terraced ponds that cascaded down from the former Hihn mill pond through a swimming hole and then down the creek to the boundary of the property. George H. Hoyt and J. A. Martenstein were the initial real estate brokers. To support the subdivision, a mutual water company was founded to control and manage well water and the various tributaries of Gold Gulch, including Edelweis Gulch, Tunnie Gulch, and Boulder Brook. Other amenities included a picnic area and barbecue pits at the site of the former brick kilns, and changing rooms and showers beside the swimming hole.

The area continues to grow in population and remains both a part of and separate from the rest of Felton due to its isolated water district. Former sheriff's deputy and Tanglewood store owner Len Ashley eventually became the property manager of the area in the 1930s and continued advertising new and available properties. While many of the vaunted amenities have since disappeared, the water hole built at the site of Hihn's mill survives and remains of some of the terraces can still be seen in the creek below Lakeview Drive.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
37.0385N, 122.0699W

The site of Fahihn is roughly the intersection of Lakeview Drive and Gulch Road in the Forest Lakes residential subdivision south of Felton. From this point, Lakeview Drive more or less becomes the former spur's right-off-way until the road reaches the Forest Lakes community pool, which marks the site of the old mill. The current dam was installed in the 1920s – the original mill pond is located where the parking lot is today. The mill itself was situated at the northern end of the pool, where large old-growth redwood posts still sit in the water. On the hillside above the mill site, a very overgrown pile of sawdust still sits.

Citations & Credits:

• Report of the State Mineralogist, vol 17. Sacramento, CA: California State Mining Bureau, 1921.
• Clark, Donald Thomas. Santa Cruz Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Harrison, Edward Sanford. History of Santa Cruz County, California. 1892.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Maps: Felton Area

Postcard of downtown Felton, c. 1890. [George Pepper]

The town of Felton historically covered less than 2.5 square miles yet some of the most extensive railroading that occurred in Santa Cruz County happened here along the mainline track through the Santa Cruz Mountains and two branch lines. Often considered by local historians as the "Felton Loop," the railroad branches in Felton only actually formed a loop between 1908 and 1909, and the trains along one end were incapable of accessing the other due to differences in gauges.

Map of the railroad trackage of the Felton Area, depicting all eras of railroading. [Derek R.Whaley]

The original Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad followed the west bank of the San Lorenzo River, terminating just south of downtown Felton near where the Saint Lawrence Orthodox Church is today. At Felton, trains received cut lumber sent from above Boulder Creek along the San Lorenzo Valley Flume, which operated to Felton from 1875 to approximately 1885.

Kilnsmen atop and around a South Pacific Coast locomotive at the Holmes Limeworks outside Felton, c. 1890s.
[Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History]

When the South Pacific Coast Railroad built its route through the mountains in 1880, the former trackage between Felton and Felton Junction, south of Big Trees, was renamed the Felton Branch. Two private spurs broke from this branch, one that catered to the H. T. Holmes Lime Company kilns on what would later become Hihn Street, the other south of town supporting an F. A. Hihn Company lumber mill along Gold Gulch. This branch was renamed the Old Felton Branch in 1887 when the Felton & Pescadero Railroad was rebranded as the Felton Branch (later, Boulder Creek Branch).

Passengers waiting for a train at Big Trees Station, with a car parked
on the spur at right, c. 1890s. [Ken Lorenzen]

Along the east bank of the San Lorenzo River, the South Pacific Coast Railroad built its mainline north from Felton Junction until it met with what the railroad called Felton Station, located a mile to the east of downtown Felton (the old station became "Old Felton"). This short stretch of trackage catered to Big Trees and later to the Santa Cruz Lumber Company's planing mill and lumber yard.

Double-header refueling at Felton Depot, c. 1930s. [Derek R. Whaley]

Beginning in 1884, the Felton & Pescadero Railroad (a South Pacific Coast subsidiary) was built from Felton Station to Boulder Creek to replace the increasingly inefficient flume. Eventually, a seasonal station known initially as River Station and eventually Riverside was erected in 1903 near modern-day Covered Bridge Park to cater to picnickers and people desirous of detraining within a short walk of downtown Felton. However, the branch remained on the east bank of the San Lorenzo River.

The future site of Felton Grove set up for a Red Cross group picnic with the railroad tracks in the background,
25 May 1918. [Carol Harrington]

The standard-gauging of the various routes in the San Lorenzo Valley following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake prompted Southern Pacific Railroad to abandon the Old Felton Branch, but not entirely. The railroad upgraded the trackage south of downtown, only abandoning the route south of today's Monty's Log Cabin.

Sepia image of an unknown switch in the Felton area with wood piled up beside the tracks, 1905. [Carol Harrington]

To reach this upgraded track and bypass the mile-long branch to the south, the railroad constructed a spur that crossed the San Lorenzo beside the Felton Covered Bridge and then turned south, merging with the former Old Felton Branch trackage near today's Quik Stop. The removal of tracks to the south allowed various communities including Tanglewood, Forest Lakes, Sequoia/Cotillion Gardens, Smithwoods, and others to grow south of downtown. The Boulder Creek Branch was later removed in early 1934, but the spur to Old Felton remained in place until October 1939, when the lime operations outside of town finally shut down permanently.

Roaring Camp Station with a caboose, 1970s. [Roaring Camp Railroads]

The standard-gauge tracks on the east bank remain intact today, although some of the sidings and spurs have been removed or reduced. Roaring Camp Railroads added extensive narrow-gauge trackage to the top of Bear Mountain in the 1960s, and later purchased the remaining Southern Pacific trackage as well.

Citations & Credits:

• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Bridges: Zayante Creek

The route of the South Pacific Coast Railroad down Zayante Creek to Felton had very few natural obstacles. Only one solid granite outcropping required tunnelling and early bridges along the eastern ridge above Zayante Creek were quickly filled and the seasonal streams culverted after the initial track was installed in 1880. By the time the Southern Pacific Railroad took over the route in 1887, there were a total of three railroad bridges that crossed Zayante Creek, two along the mainline and one on the Boulder Creek Branch. Smaller structures undoubtedly existed to bridge the countless minor tributaries above Zayante Creek, but no evidence of these has survived to the present.

The northernmost bridge over Zayante Creek as it stands today, 2013.
[Derek R. Whaley]

About a mile north of Felton along the mainline, the most northernly of the Zayante Creek bridges is colloquially named the Jackass Flats bridge, after a the adjacent property. It is unclear what the original narrow-gauge structure looked like, but it was probably built entirely out of redwood beams. It is unclear when the standard-gauge bridge replaced the original structure, but it likely predates the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake since the foundation aggregate material appears to have a heavier concentration of lime than the other piers and abutments in the area, which all date to after 1906, when the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company undoubtedly provided the cement for construction. 

The current structure is a 245-foot-long standard-gauge bridge with three cement supports, one in the creek and two on either end. A driveway to the Jackass Flats property passes under the bridge on the south end, while the former East Zayante Road passed under the northern end, although it is heavily overgrown with poison oak now. The center of the bridge is supported by an open-deck steel Warren truss span that bridges the creek. Remains of access ladders hang beneath the truss on both ends. On the northern side, a redwood open-deck girder connects the abutment to the truss. On the southern side, a shorter open-deck steel girder links connects a redwood open-deck span to the truss by crossing over a concrete pier installed beside the Jackass Flats driveway. The southern abutment has been repaired extensively over the years to counter its slow cracking and decay. This bridge also has endured significant stress caused by sixty years of sand trains passing over it almost daily.

The northernmost bridge over Zayante Creek, as viewed from the north looking south, 2013. [Derek R. Whaley]

Today, the bridge is in an advanced state of decay. While owned by Roaring Camp Railroads since 1985, it is very rarely used and, when used, only the lightest service equipment pass over the bridge. Many of the ties are rotten and the tracks themselves are rusting. In recent years, Roaring Camp has expressed interest in restoring the bridge for full use, but little has been done yet to accomplish this goal. The primary reason it remains intact is so that Roaring Camp can retain property rights to property north of the crossing.

Postcard showing the bridge over Zayante Creek near Mount Hermon, c. 1908. [Mount Hermon Association]

Just south of Mount Hermon, the railroad crosses over Zayante Creek a second time. Like most of the early bridges in the area, it is unclear precisely what the original narrow-gauge structure looked like, although it was very likely a redwood-frame truss bridge of some sort, much like the structure that replaced it around 1907. This second structure is composed of a 335-foot-long steel open-deck truss bridge with short redwood timber trestlework on either side. The truss is mounted atop two concrete piers with redwood abutments on either side to return the track to the grade.

A group of picnickers passing over the bridge heading toward Felton Depot, c. 1910s. [Mount Hermon Association]

Due to the presence of Mount Hermon just to the north of this bridge, the original structure was designed with pedestrian walkways on either side of the track and wooden railings. Photographic evidence shows that this bridge was heavily trafficked in its early years by campers and vacationers staying at Mount Hermon. 

The bridge over Zayante Creek near Mount Hermon as it appears today, 2012. [Derek R. Whaley]

Unlike the more northernly Zayante Creek bridge, this bridge remains in regular use by Roaring Camp. During the summer, special excursions of the Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific Railroad crosses the bridge to pick up campers at Redwood Camp and take them to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. As such, the bridge has been continuously maintained since it was first erected. At some point, the wood railings were replaced with metal wire and the wood decks with metal grates, but otherwise the structure remains the same.

Photo of Southern Pacific Railroad locomotive 2088 crossing over the trestle at the eastern end of the lower Zayante Creek bridge, c. 1908. [Aram Family – SLV Museum]

A woman standing on the new Graham Hill Road Bridge around

1930. The bridge is clearly visible behind her with telephone

wires spanning overhead. [San Lorenzo Valley Museum]

The southernmost bridge over Zayante Creek was not located on the mainline but rather on the Boulder Creek Branch (originally Felton & Pescadero Railroad and, subsequently, Felton Branch). Of the three, it is the only bridge that does not survive, although its pier and western abutment still can be found alongside Graham Hill Road. When the Felton & Pescadero Railroad was first constructed between 1884 and 1885 from Felton Depot to Boulder Creek, it crossed over Zayante Creek just west of the depot, near the southern end of (East) Zayante Road. Like the other bridges over the creek, the original narrow-gauge structure was unknown. However, it must have been designed to a standard-gauge scale since it was not actually replaced until 1917, despite the tracks themselves being broadened in 1907.

The reason for the replacement was likely due to the increased weight the bridge had to sustain as boxcars carrying loads of processed lime began crossing over this bridge in 1909 when the former Old Felton Branch was closed and a new route was built over the San Lorenzo River beside the Felton Covered Bridge. After eight years of regular heavy traffic, the old structure likely required upgrading.

The second structure, measuring 285 feet, was a steel open-deck bridge over the creek supplemented with a long redwood trestle that ran east until meeting grade level. Although the Boulder Creek branch closed in 1934, the track between Felton Depot and the Holmes Lime Kiln remained intact until October 1939, when the tracks were finally dismantled and the bridge demolished.

A water conduit running through the western abutment and over the concrete center pier of the lower Zayante Creek bridge, 2012. [Derek R. Whaley]

The western abutment with the date "1917" printed on both sides,
2012. [Derek R. Whaley]

The concrete abutment and pier remain today. The San Lorenzo Valley Water District repurposed these at some point for the valley's water system. A pipe now runs through the abutment and atop the pier before going underground on the east bank of the creek. These features can be easily viewed from the Graham Hill Road bridge over Zayante Creek or by parking at Felton Bible Church and walking to the creek. Date stamps for when the abutment was installed can be found clearly defined on either side of it. On the eastern embankment, there are  some remnants of posts hiding in the foliage and the redwood abutment that ended the trestle sits just beside the dirt driveway that leads into San Lorenzo Home & Garden Center (which was once the former Boulder Creek Branch right-of-way).

The eastern abutment of the lower Zayante Creek bridge, partially buried and overgrown across the street from Mount Hermon's physical plant, 2012. [Derek R. Whaley]

Citations & Credits:

• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.