Vega & Eaton

USGS Map from 1915 showing Vega Station and Rancho Vega.

Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro ("Meadow along the River of the Bird") stretched from the foothills outside of the town of Pajaro and the foothills west of Aromas, with the Pajaro River to the north and more hills to the south. On April 17, 1820, Antonio María Castro was granted the rancho by the Spanish government as one of its last land grants in the area. It was confirmed in June 1833 by José Figueroa. Castro, thus, was one of the earliest settlers in the Pajaro Valley. Like many other early settlers, Castro had been a military officer who retired to the area in 1809, after which he rose in prominence in the region as a alternate elector for Alta California.

Following the American annexation of California, Juan Miguel Anzar attempted to claim the grant on behalf of his wife, María Antonia Castro, although he died before the grant was approved. His widow died in 1855 and her second husband, Frederick A. McDougal, and her four children by Anzar fought to gain the 4,310 acres, which was finally rewarded to them in January 1864.

Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro land grant map, c. 1850. (Bancroft Library)

When the Southern Pacific Railroad passed through the Coast Range and its foothills between Gilroy and the town of Pajaro in 1871, it passed directly through the center of the Vega Ranch. McDougal and his step-children were able to negotiate as part of the right-of-way agreement a freight and passenger flag-stop on their property which was listed under the name "Vega". The area around Vega and in the hills to the southwest evolved slowly into a small settlement of mostly farmers that used the freight platform at Vega station to ship out their goods. Vega School was located to the northeast of the railroad station along the county road that later became San Juan Road (G11).

The stop was never large and the platform likely disappeared in the early 1900s. A freight spur was installed at the station at around this time measuring approximately 650 feet. Whether there was ever a physical station structure at Vega is unknown, though it seems unlikely considering the flag-stop nature of the stop. A shelter may have existed there. The name Vega stuck around into the 1940s when it suddenly and inexplicably became "Eaton", though the nature of the stop did not change. The new name may have been a reference to Orrin O. Eaton, a local landowner who held a favorable reputation in Monterey County for helping to introduce lettuce to the county in 1917. He also may have owned part of Rancho Vega in the 1950s. Eaton station remained on Southern Pacific timetables as an "Additional Stop" into the 1980s and perhaps as late as 1996, when the railroad company was merged into the Union Pacific.

At the station site today, double tracks still pass in front of the station site and a small assembly area for the local farms still occupies the site of the spur and platform. Railroads no longer stop at Vega and the local community is now considered a ghost town by Monterey County. The school closed its doors in 1950, leaving the schoolhouse, designed by William Henry Weeks, abandoned.

Official Railroad Information:
Vega was registered as a industrial and passenger flag-stop and spur, 97.1 miles from San Francisco via Gilroy and San José. The station sat on the double-track between Watsonville Junction and Logan. Sometime around World War II, the station was renamed Eaton. The spur was still listed in 1951 as capable of holding 13 cars, giving it an estimated length of 650 feet. As with Vega, Eaton was not listed in timetables but rather sat as an additional stop in a separate table.

Agency books list Vega as a class-A freight stop with a platform located on the right side of the tracks, as oriented from San Francisco. No other services were listed and no depot structure was noted.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36˚N 53' 51.506", 121˚W 41' 26.905"

Vega's station was located on the west side of San Miguel Canyon Road. The actual Vega community was slightly to the south along Vega Road in a short hilly section of land.

Citations & Credits:

• "Diseño del Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro: Calif". Berkeley, CA: Bancroft Library Digital Collection.
• Hoover, Mildred Brooke, et al. Historic Spots in California, 3rd ed. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.

Aromas

USGS Map showing Aromas and Sand Cut (at left), 1914.

Near the meeting point of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Benito, and Monterey Counties, the small unincorporated community of Aromas sits, literally bisected by Monterey and San Benito Counties along Carpenteria Road. The community began its life in October 1835 as the Mexican Rancho Aromitas y Agua Caliente (translated from Spanish as Little Odors & Warm Water Ranch). The name may have been a reference to the nearby Soda Lake and its sulphur spring, which later became the focus of a short-lived resort. With the American annexation of California in 1846, the rancho became Rancho Las Aromas, a name which stuck thereafter. Despite numerous reports stating that the town descended from an earlier town of Vega, Vega was, in fact, located further to the west, about midway between Aromas and Pajaro.

Rancho Aromitas y Agua Caliente. [Bancroft Library]

The community really came to life in 1871 when the Southern Pacific Railroad built its railroad through Pajaro Gap and Chittenden Pass, following the south bank of the Pajaro River. To get through to Pajaro to the west, a short tunnel was constructed just to the west of Aromas. It seems that the tunnel was either never fully completed or collapsed soon after construction, as it was noted as "Sand Cut" from as early as the 1880s. The site of the cut today is precisely that: a deep cut, overgrown with trees and shrubs on the cut's walls. To the east, meanwhile, vast reserves of aggregate material discovered during excavation of the railroad right-of-way immediately became a quarry for use by the railroad. It would be this quarry that gave new life to the Aromas community, converting it within twenty years into the town as it is known today. A post office under the name Aromas opened in 1894, and the railroad set up a stop on the fringe of the community center probably around the same time. Most of the residents of the town worked at or were related to people who worked at the Logan quarry for Granite Rock. The remainder were educators, shop keepers, and the independent farmers working the surrounding fields.

Crews loading apricot pits onto boxcars at Aromas, c 1920. [Monterey County Libraries]

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake devastated Aromas, which sat near the fault line, and the original station structure was levelled in the temblor. Boxcars full of fruits and vegetables fell of buckled tracks. The station was quickly rebuilt according to the standard model of the time and life moved on.

The newly rebuilt Aromas Station in 1907.
[Monterey County Library, Aromas Branch]

The railroad's presence at Aromas was restricted to the north end of town, with its two-story station located on the northeast corner of Carpenteria Road at its junction with Quarry Road. A pair of tracks ran beside the station, following a double-track that linked Logan to Watsonville Junction. A much larger railroad station replaced the 1907 prefabricated structure at some point in the 1910s. It included a tall freight storage room with loading ramp and a two-story agency office with the private residence of the agent above a standard freight and passenger office. The office included telegraph services. At least one spur and one passing siding sat across from the station beside the double-tracks, with a siding running alongside the freight platform. The siding length was approximately 1,400 feet long, or the length of 35 trains cars.

Aromas Station, October 20, 1946, as photographed by Wilbur C. Whittaker.

By 1940, Aromas had already become merely a flag-stop, with no permanent agency staff on site. Indeed, only one train was scheduled to stop at the site during that year, although all of them were allowed to stop if flagged. The structure, shown above, was probably converted into a private residence by the time this photograph was taken. The spur and siding appear to have been removed no later than 1951 as neither are noted in timetables after that date. When precisely the station went out of use completely is not presently known by this historian. The town still exists with a population of roughly 2,500 residents. The town supports three schools, a library, and numerous businesses.

Official Railroad Information:
Aromas was located 90.7 miles from San Francisco via Gilroy and San José, and 25.9 miles from Santa Cruz.

Aromas Station from a different angle, October 20, 1946. [Wilbur C. Whittaker]

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36˚N 53' 31.181", 121˚W 38' 36.214"

The site of Aromas Station is publicly accessible and quite easily viewed along Aromas/Quarry Road, but there is absolutely nothing there to see except tracks passing over Carpenteria Road. All trace of the station structure has been erased and bulldozed over.

Citations & Credits:

• Margaret Clovis, Images of America: Monterey County's North Coast and Coastal Valleys. Arcadia Publishing, 2006. 
• Erwin Gustav Gudde, California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names