Bridges: North Coast Fills

The greatest engineering feat in Santa Cruz County’s history still survives to this day, though most people think little of it if they notice it at all. From October 1905 to June 1907, the quarrelsome Southern Pacific Railroad and Ocean Shore Railway put aside their differences to quickly and efficiently build an 11-mile-long line through the West Side of Santa Cruz to Davenport. To ensure the straightest and most level route possible, the companies approved the construction of at least thirteen trestles, which were afterwards filled with millions of cubic feet of rubble to support three standard-gauge tracks at the crest. These colossal structures remain today as testaments to the durability of early 20th century engineering and to the bold ambitions that motivated Progressive Era capitalists.

Shattuck & Desmond work crews in the process of filling the tall, slightly slumped trestle over Majors Creek, 1906. [Covello & Covello – Colorized using DeOldify]

Although the Southern Pacific’s Coast Line Railway was the first to incorporate in April 1905, it was the Ocean Shore Railway, incorporated a month later, that made the first move toward realizing its goal of connecting San Francisco and Santa Cruz via a coastal route. Grading for the Ocean Shore Railway began along the shoreline at Waddell Creek on June 1, 1905, an action that was intended to steal the march from the Coast Line Railway. The gambit forced Southern Pacific to show its cards. The company give up surveying beyond Agua Puerca Creek and it was revealed in August that Southern Pacific had acquired the exclusive contract to deliver the machinery of the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company to the site of the planned quarry and refinery on San Vicente Creek by January 1, 1906. In addition, the railroad would become the sole rail freight carrier for the plant. But to secure these contracts, Southern Pacific needed to build a railroad to Davenport.

Thus, the race was on. Both railroads obtained most of their rights-of-way to the cement plant site by August 1905, but neither managed to secure an uninterrupted route. Instead, the rights-of-way crisscrossed each other constantly from Wilder’s Ranch to San Vicente Creek. They also crossed the county road at least six times, meaning there would be several grade crossings. None of this was appealing to the railroads or residents. In late June, T. J. Wilson of the Coast Line Railway and L. E. Rankin of the Ocean Shore Railway, both in charge of the rights-of-way of their respective railroads, met in Santa Cruz to discuss the issues with their routes. Meanwhile, Pratchner & Company began grading the Ocean Shore through the West Side of Santa Cruz.

The Wilder's Gulch fill, from "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912.

Earlier, at the end of June, the Ocean Shore was granted permission to bridge Wilder Gulch and Sandy Flat, though it agreed not to fill these two trestles since the Wilder family wished to retain its view of and access to the Pacific Ocean. Once construction began a few weeks later, though, the railroad decided to install a fill Wilder Gulch anyway. In fact, this is the only substantial gulch on the line that did not host a trestle first. After consulting his lawyer, D. D. Wilder went to protest the fill at the company’s office in San Francisco. Despite this, the Ocean Shore continued construction, completing the fill in late November. Probably as part of a settlement with the family, the company committed to constructing a permanent trestle over Sandy Flat, as had been originally agreed.

The start of construction on the Coast Line Railway on the bluff above the Santa Cruz Union Depot yard, late 1905. [Courtesy ebay – colorized using MyHeritage]

Continued feuding and sabotage between the two railroads and unrelated problems elsewhere delayed the start of construction of the Coast Line Railway. While Southern Pacific had blocked the Ocean Shore Railway’s access to the Santa Cruz Beach for its proposed wharf, Ocean Shore in turn had blocked the Coast Line’s ability to cross through the Coast Dairies Company’s property, which was necessary for it to reach the plant site. No further progress could be made by either company and Southern Pacific would soon be forced to renege on its contract with the cement company. After several meetings, the two rivals came to an arrangement where rights-of-way would be exchanged, access at either end would be granted, the Ocean Shore would deliver the machinery for Southern Pacific as a contractor, and the two railroads would run parallel between Lombardi Gulch and the plant site, with Ocean Shore paying two-thirds of the cost since it intended to build two tracks.

The Lombardi Gulch fill, from "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912.

The San Francisco Construction Company was hired to build the joint railroads from the Santa Cruz city limit at Moore Creek to the cement plant, as well as the Ocean Shore’s extension to Scott Creek. It subcontracted Pratchner & Chadwick to construct drainage tunnels and grade the right-of-way, while Shattuck & Desmond of Los Angeles were hired to build the trestle bridges and fill them. Hunter Bros. of Oakland were recruited to construct the Ocean Shore’s extension to Scott Creek. With speed the new priority, the plan shifted to constructing a single line of rail in order to fulfil the cement plant contract as close to the deadline as possible. It was understood that this line would afterwards become the first of the Ocean Shore Railway’s two tracks. Shattuck & Desmond also held the contract for the Coast Line Railway within the city limits, and it got to work in October to connect the line from the Santa Cruz Union Depot yard to the first meeting point of the two railroads just before the fill over Wilder Gulch, where equipment would be transferred between the two railroads once the line was completed to the plant site.

A double-headed Southern Pacific excursion train crossing the company's trestle over Sandy Gulch, ca 1947. [Courtesy Jim Vail – colorized using MyHeritage]

With all agreements made and contracts signed, construction resumed at a breakneck pace. Work began on the Ocean Shore’s 465-foot-long Sandy Flat trestle in mid-October. The wood for all the trestles came from Oregon via ships that deposited pilings and lumber on Parsons and Laguna Beaches. Steam donkeys installed atop the adjacent cliffs hauled the wood to the railroad grade, where other donkey engines moved it to the work site. This allowed bridges to be constructed quickly, though poorly since they were designed to be used only briefly. Unique among the trestles on the Ocean Shore line, the Sandy Flat trestle was designed to support a double track, since the railroad was contractually prohibited from filling the flat. Despite the design, the bridge likely never hosted a second set of rails since the Ocean Shore failed to install its second track. The Sandy Flat trestle was completed before the end of October, by which point construction crews had already shifted to a 300-foot-long trestle over Lombardi Gulch, the first joint bridge with the Coast Line Railway.

Ocean Shore Railway auditor Ted F. Wurm on right with family members standing on a trestle, presumably over Laguna Creek due to the parallel Coast Road to the right, 1906. [Marvin T. Maynard – Colorized using DeOldify]

Two joint trestles over Little Baldwin Creek and Baldwin Creek at Parson’s Beach—measuring 300 feet and 660 feet respectively—came next and were finished in mid-November. By early December, work was already nearing completion on the trestle over Majors Creek. Indeed, on December 9, the Ocean Shore’s construction train could travel nearly 7.5 miles up the coast to work on the deep cut through the Enright and Scaroni properties. Before work on the 1,100-foot-long Laguna Creek trestle was completed in late December, some bridge builders had already moved north to Yellow Bank. However, grading beyond Yellow Bank proved difficult, and the Coast Line Railway was still stuck in the West Side of Santa Cruz. This meant that neither railroad would be able to ship the first cars of machinery to the cement plant site by the first day of the new year. Fortunately for Southern Pacific and its contract, the cement company was also running behind schedule and had only sent six cars to Santa Cruz. The only realistic option was for all three parties to continue working toward their mutual goals and allow the deadline to pass.

An Ocean Shore Railway construction train atop a bridge near Davenport, 1906. [Western Railroader – Colorized using DeOldify]

In January 1906, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that crews were busy boring tunnels through the sandstone bluffs, a necessary step before the trestles could be filled. The Yellow Bank trestle was completed in mid-January allowing crews to move to the last two substantial trestles, over Liddell and San Vicente Creeks. Progress was slowed by heavy rains that hampered construction efforts across the line and caused the trestles at Baldwin and Laguna Creeks to settle. Both were repaired within a week and trackage was extended to the south bank of Liddell Creek by the first week of February. The Liddell trestle was completed in mid-February, even as heavy rains once more incapacitated the now-partially-filled trestles at Baldwin and Laguna Creeks. These rains also delayed completion of the San Vicente Creek trestle, though the track was extended to its southern edge by mid-March. This final trestle was completed the first week of April.

The Baldwin Creek fills at Parson's Beach, from "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912.

As the Ocean Shore Railway was wrapping up construction of the first 11 miles of the route, the Coast Line Railway was finally making progress out of Santa Cruz. Construction of the trestle over Moore’s Creek delayed the company for at least a month, while further effort was required to widen and reinforce the fill at Wilder Gulch to allow the two lines to connect. Both the connection of the lines and the completion of the track to San Vicente were completed in the second week of April. This allowed Southern Pacific to finally haul the cement company’s machinery from a long siding on the Moore Ranch to the plant site beginning around April 15, 1906. Seventy carloads of machinery had accumulated on the siding and at the freight yard by this point. However, several factors slowed the delivery of machinery to the plant site, most notably the relatively low strength of the trestles and the fact that there were no sidings or spurs yet at the plant site. This meant that short trains of only a few cars had to continuously shuttle machinery and empty flatcars between Santa Cruz and the plant site, a tiresome and time-consuming process that further delayed construction of the plant.

The Yellow Bank fills and Coast Road realignment, from "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912.

Simultaneously, Shattuck & Desmond’s crews shifted focus from bridge-building to bridge-filling. The Ocean Shore Railway had always planned to fill its trestles along the coast—it had little choice since it planned to run two parallel tracks with electrical equipment, which was a lot to ask from a trestle. Thus, all the trestles were relatively hastily built since they were never expected to support heavy or regular rail traffic. After its agreement with Southern Pacific, Ocean Shore expanded its plan to run three parallel tracks, with the Ocean Shore’s two tracks on the ocean side and the Coast Line’s track on the inland side. The width of the fills at the top were expected to be between 36 and 47 feet. Three to four steam shovels were eventually used to accomplish the monumental task.

The long fill over San Vicente Creek, from "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912.

The first trestle to be filled was across Baldwin Creek, beginning in early February 1906. At Major’s Creek, an agreement was reached with the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors to incorporate the county road into the fill. Doing so eliminated a dangerous curve on the road and bypassed a grade crossing and short overhead railroad bridge. Similar agreements were made at Enright, where the county road was moved inland to avoid grade crossings, and at Yellow Bank, where the highway was redirected away from the fill. In late March, Shattuck & Desmond relocated its camp to Laguna Creek in order to fill the Laguna Creek and Yellow Bank trestles. Only around a third of the trestles had been filled at the time of the San Francisco Earthquake on April 18, which halted further progress for three and a half months. The Coast Line Railway had lain its rails to the south end of the Lombardi Creek trestle, but could go no further.

An Ocean Shore Railway train on a high fill hauling equipment, presumably for the cement plant, circa 1906. [Western Railroader – Colorized using DeOldify]

As work resumed in August, the Coast Line Railway was finally able to begin grading beyond the Wilder property. Its first task was to widen cuts to make space for a second set of rails. This required heavy use of dynamite in some places, which spread debris across the right-of-way and forced the suspension of all passenger and some freight service on the Ocean Shore line. The blasted rubble was transferred to waiting ballast cars, which took the aggregate to the nearest trestle to serve as fill. Making cuts, transferring rubble, importing additional aggregate from nearby quarries and the ruins of San Francisco, and dumping them to create towering fills took a lot of time and energy, leading to further delays. The largest fill across San Vicente Creek just south of the cement plant was 1,400 feet long and was estimated to contain approximately 1,250,000 cubic feet of material, primarily rock and shale.

An Ocean Shore construction train dumping rocks below the bridge over San Vicente Creek, circa May 1907. [Uncertain provenance – Colorized using DeOldify]

The Coast Line resumed laying rails in November 1906 and installed them whenever a fill or cut was ready, leading to piecemeal sections of track across the line that were gradually connected together. The completion of the San Vicente Creek fill in mid-June 1907, followed shortly afterwards by the installation of the Coast Line rails across it, marked the successful end to the joint construction project between the Ocean Shore Railway and Southern Pacific Railroad. Shattuck & Desmond, working for the Ocean Shore Railway on its longer route, constructed several additional fills to the north across Agua Puerca and Molino Creeks and smaller gulches in May and June 1907 before concluding the Ocean Shore’s first phase of construction in Santa Cruz County.

The single surviving Southern Pacific Railroad tracks crossing the San Vicente Creek fill, with the adjacent Ocean Shore line a sandy pathway beside it, circa 1930. Davenport Wharf and a warehouse can be seen in the distance. [Courtesy WorthPoint – colorized using MyHeritage]

The legacy of the joint Ocean Shore–Coast Line construction project to Davenport and beyond is still felt in many places along the North Coast today. For decades, the Southern Pacific Railroad’s wooden trestle over Sandy Flat, built independently sometime in 1906, welcomed picknickers, trainspotters, and photographers before it was finally filled, probably in the 1960s or 1970s. The joint fill at Majors Creek is now shared by Highway 1, while three short Ocean Shore fills north of Davenport have been repurposed for the highway.

The San Vicente Creek drainage tunnel below the former joint Ocean Shore–Coast Line Railway trackage, June 16, 2007, by Jef Poskanzer. [Courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Beneath every single fill, the original tunnels still drain creeks and lagoons, rarely requiring maintenance despite being over a century old. Though mostly out of use since the closure of the cement plant in 2010, the Southern Pacific Railroad’s former right-of-way, now owned by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, officially remains an active line with tentative plans for reactivation in the near future. Much of the adjacent Ocean Shore Railway right-of-way remains intact and is used by local farmers as a makeshift road, though parts will be repurposed for the planned Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network.

Citations & Credits:

• Ocean Shore Railroad, "Plans of Oceanshore RR Co.," 1912, based on survey circa 1906.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, maps and plans, California State Archives.
• Various newspaper articles from the Santa Cruz Morning, Evening, and Weekly Sentinel; The Pajaronian; and the Santa Cruz Surf.

Stations: Yellow Bank

Nine miles north of Santa Cruz, the coastal terrace narrows to such a point that the mountains of the Coast Range nearly fall into the Pacific Ocean. Here there is little room for agricultural fields, yet bold dairy farmers and ranchers saw no obstacle to practicing their trades.

Rancho Arroyo de la Laguna had been pastureland since Mexican times. At some point in the early 1860s, William Elder & Company, a San Francisco dairy business, acquired most of the rancho from James and Squire Williams and soon operated a small dairy alongside Yellow Bank Creek. T. H. Hatch & Company took over the business in May 1866 and continued to run the North Coast dairy among its other operations. Hatch employed several overseers through the years, with William Chalmers in charge of the dairy throughout the 1870s and W. R. Shaw superintendent around 1880. Two Swiss dairy farmers, Jeremiah S. Respini and James Fillipini, likely had worked at Yellow Bank Dairy for several years when, in April 1882, they purchased Shaw’s interest in the company. Over the next decade, Respini gradually acquired the rest of the property.

Men milking cows probably at Yellow Bank Dairy on the Coast Road south of Davenport, ca 1910. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Yellow Bank is a unique name in Santa Cruz County, obviously descriptive in nature but with an uncertain origin. The earliest recorded mention of the name appears in the Santa Cruz Sentinel in September 1873, where it is claimed that the name comes from the sulfurous nature of the creek that turns the banks a bright yellow. A year later, a different Sentinel article asserted that “it is derived from the fact that the earth in the vicinity is of a deep golden cast from the iron pyrites, and that the buildings [of the dairy] are painted yellow.” Modern sources attribute the name to rust iron bands of sedimentary injection deposits in the mudstone cliffs or more generally the yellowish hue of oxidized iron in the cliffs. In addition to the dark yellowish bands, the cliffs and hillsides also show blackish-blue bands indicative of oil-rich sand injections, the largest such outcropping in the world. The State Minerologist asserted in 1900 that some of these bands had been “blown up by heat” creating the yellow color, hence the source of the name. The presence of these bands prompted an ultimately unsuccessful oil speculation frenzy on the property in 1901.

As with all of the dairies along the North Coast, Respini and his predecessors focused on producing cheese and butter, two products that could endure the long journey to market. The property was notable for its two tall milking barns that were built by F. A. Miller in 1874. Construction of these reportedly required Miller to build a small sawmill on nearby Liddell Creek and a planing mill near the construction site. These barns were 160 by 36 feet each in size and were designed to feed and house around 200 dairy cows. A creamery nearby was modern in design, with plumbing installed to help maintain sanitation and a ten-horse engine used to separate the cream from the milk. By 1900, the facility included extensive hay fields and storage facilities, a blacksmith and tool shop, a horse barn, a bunkhouse for up to twenty men, a flower garden, and a ten-room ranch house for the superintendent and his family. Because the dairy was situated directly beside the Coast Road, it also had telephone service. Around 1891, Respini had partnered with his neighbors F. A. Moretti and the Moretti Brothers to manage their properties jointly. Together, they had at any given time 170 milking cows, with 600 more cows grazing in one of fifteen separate fields across a 4,400-acre property.

Earl Stone wearing a boy's brigade uniform while driving a cart for the Seaside Creamery outside the Seaside Creamery store on Pacific Avenue, 1904. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

In April 1901, Respini formally combined his property with those of the Morettis to form a new business, the Coast Dairy and Land Company. This quickly grew to encompass five dairies south of Davenport Landing with a total population of 800 cattle. The dairy products were sold primarily in San Francisco but also throughout the Monterey Bay and Bay Area. In Santa Cruz, the company took over the Hugo Hihn flatiron building at Pacific Avenue and Front Street and turned it into the Seaside Creamery, where butter was churned fresh every day after an early morning delivery of cream and milk. The store also served ice cream and sold buttermilk and varieties of cheese. For fifteen years, the company thrived under Respini’s and Moretti’s leadership. Indeed, most of the modern town of Davenport as well as the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company’s plant were built atop Coast Dairies land. In 1912, the company sold a section to Santa Cruz to provide water for the city (it still provides approximately 20% of its drinking water). Throughout this time, the dairying complex at Yellow Bank served as the heart of the operation, with around a dozen buildings associated with the business along the Coast Road.

The arrival of the Ocean Shore Railway in early 1906 changed everything for Coast Dairies. For the first time, the company’s extensive farms would be on a mainline route to San Francisco. The railroad, however, first had to overcome a major obstacle in its path: Respini Creek and its tidal lagoon. As it did with several other inlets, the railroad constructed a traditional trestle across the lagoon and then, as part of its arrangement with the adjacent Coast Line Railroad, the trestle was filled in and widened to support three sets of rails. A drainage tunnel was built through the adjacent hillside to allow the lagoon to drain. Construction on the bridge over Yellow Bank Beach ran from late December 1905 to early February 1906, and it was in the process of being filled around the time that the Francisco Earthquake struck on April 18. A result of the construction was the rerouting of the Coast Road. The road had previously followed along the top of the cliff before darting inland around the head of the lagoon in a horseshoe bend known as the Yellow Bank Curve, a dangerously sharp turn in the time of the automobile. The railroads’ construction forced the entire road to shift to the east of the tracks, lessening—though not eliminating—the deadly curve.

Ocean Shore Railroad, “Plans of the Oceanshore RR Co.” 1912, showing the location of Yellow Bank, the fill over Respini Creek, the Coast Line (Southern Pacific) tracks, and the old and new route of the county (Coast) road. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz]

The earliest timetables for the Ocean Shore Railway do not mention Yellow Bank as a station, though all employee timetables for the first several years have been lost. The Santa Cruz Evening News first names it as a flag stop in December 1907 alongside four others between Santa Cruz and Davenport. However, unlike most of the other flag stops, Yellow Bank did not feature a passenger shelter or siding, though there was likely a freight platform beside the mainline. This meant that dairy and agricultural products had to be loaded directly onto passing trains. In addition to freight traffic for the dairy, the station also likely catered to beachgoers wishing to dip their toes in the waters at Yellow Bank Beach. This beach no longer goes by that name—beachgoers in the 1950s discovered that a rock at the beach resembled a dark wildcat. Thus, the locale was rechristened Panther Beach. Since the beach sat directly below the tracks, it became one of the more popular picnic and surf swimming spots along the line.

An artichoke field on the Coast Road near Yellow Bank, ca 1930. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

By the time the First World War broke out in 1914, Respini had already died and the other Swissmen of Coast Dairies were in trouble. Switzerland forbade its citizens from fighting in a war and the United States was considering conscription. As a result, in 1915, Luigi Moretti, his brother-in-law G. Marotti, and his nephew S. Respini returned to Switzerland. They never permanently returned, though the Moretti family remained the primary owners of Coast Dairies. Daily management of the dairy fell to Leonard T. Winterhalder and Frank Bowell, whose families managed the property until 1924. At the same time, the property was changing. In March 1914, the Coast Road was shifted east of the main dairy complex, reducing the severity and grade of the Yellow Bank Curve, though not entirely eliminating the danger. In 1919, part of the Coast Dairies property was repurposed for planting artichokes and other vegetables, a trial that would change the fortunes of the company in the long term.

Aerial photograph of Yellow Bank dairy shortly after the demolition of the Ocean Shore Railroad line, 1928. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz]

In October 1920, the Ocean Shore Railroad ceased operations. It seems likely that the San Vicente Lumber Company, which continued to operate the line for another three years, offered its services to the Coast Dairy and Land Company during this time. Southern Pacific, in contrast, had never established a stop at Yellow Bank and there is no evidence that it ever catered to the dairy there until after San Vicente ended its operation in 1923. In November 1924, Yellow Bank appears for the first time in a Southern Pacific employee timetable as a flag-stop. This suggests that the dairy at least entertained the idea of shipping via Southern Pacific after Ocean Shore Railroad had been abandoned. Yet likely higher freight fees and less frequent service made this option unappealing. In response, the dairy company shifted to shipping out goods via truck and Southern Pacific abandoned its station sometime in the mid-1930s. Despite these setbacks, the company continued to thrive throughout the 1920s, possibly buoyed by bootlegging and black-market smuggling along the remote North Coast. At the same time, the company continued to expand its shift to agriculture by leasing a large section of the property to the Grossi family for artichoke growing.

Crews working to demolish the two large barns at Yellow Bank Dairy, February 1955. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The Great Depression led to more pronounced changes for Coast Dairies. Stricter health code laws passed in the 1920s and 1930s made it much more difficult to produce dairy products on the difficult-to-access North Coast. Federal regulations mandated that dairy cattle be tested for tuberculosis, while state laws increased the frequency and standards of sanitary inspections. These made it increasingly difficult to turn a profit. Meanwhile, the company was still owned by the original Swiss families who remained in Switzerland, making leadership distant and abstract. In December 1934, stockholders in the company revolted and ejected Luigi Moretti from leadership, though he retained ownership of the firm. Management was taken over by John R. Wilson of the Anglo–California National Bank of San Francisco, with Fred Pfyffer appointed secretary and general manager.

Portrait of Fred Pfyffer, published in the Santa Cruz Evening News, May 31, 1935.

Pfyffer had first arrived in Davenport in 1928 and was soon employed by Coast Dairies. In June 1931, he incorporated Davenport Artichoke Growers’ and Shippers’ Association and began collectivizing most of the artichoke and brussels sprout operators leasing land from Coast Dairies to assist them in packing and shipping their vegetables across the United States. At the same time, he oversaw the conversion of most of Coast Dairies’ land from dairying to agriculture and beef cattle raising. The last corporate dairying operation ended in 1940, which also marked Pfyffer’s removal to a new facility in Santa Cruz on Mission Street, where he built a larger plant beside the Southern Pacific tracks. The last vestige of the old dairy ended in February 1955 when the two old barns at Yellow Bank were demolished leaving only concrete foundation blocks.

Advertisement for Davenport Artichoke Growers and Shippers Association, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel September 17, 1939.

Coast Dairies was dissolved in 1996 and its property was purchased by Bryan Sweeney of the Nevada and Pacific Coast Land Company. However, Sweeney did not realize the difficulties he would face in trying to turn a profit from this property. His plan to subdivide the land into 139 parcels went public in 1997, and soon several conservation organizations joined together to purchase the entire property. The transaction was concluded in October 1998 and the 400 acres west of State Route 1 were transferred to the state in 2006 to create Coast Dairies State Park, a unique seaside park that runs uninterrupted from Red White and Blue Beach to Davenport Beach. The Bureau of Land Management acquired the remainder of the property in 2014, most of which has since become the Cotoni–Coast Dairies unit of the California Coastal National Monument.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.9928, -122.1685
8.9 miles north of Santa Cruz from both the Ocean Shore and Santa Cruz Union depots

The site of Yellow Bank Dairy is to the east of State Route 1 at Panther Beach. A long parking area is directly to the south on the west side of the highway. The dairy property itself is leased by the Federal Bureau of Land Management—no trespassing is allowed. Likewise, the surviving Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line grade is owned by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and trespassing is not allowed. However, Panther Beach itself is publicly accessible as part of Coast Dairies State Park. The site of the former railroad station at the southern end of the fill across Yellow Bank Creek, which may explain the raised parking area there.

Citations & Credits:

• Barboza, Tony Barboza. “Stretch of Northern California coast to be permanently protected.” Los Angeles Times. April 14, 2012.
• Bender, Henry E., Jr. “Ocean Shore Railroad”. 2017.
• Comelli, Ivano Franco. La Nostra Costa (Our Coast): A Family’s Journey to and From the North Coast of Santa Cruz, California (1923–1983). Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006.
• Environmental Science Associates, for The Trust for Public Land, "Coast Dairies Long-Term Resource Protection and Use Plan: Existing Conditions Report for the Coast Dairies Property." 2001.
• Griggs, Gary. "Our Ocean Backyard: Yellow Bank Beach," Santa Cruz Sentinel. September 11, 2018.
• Majors, Thomas Earl. “The Majors Family and Santa Cruz County Dairying: An Interview Conducted by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano”. Santa Cruz, CA: University of California, 1965.
• Neely, Christopher. “Parking battle leaves Santa Cruz County’s lone national monument gated from the public.” Lookout Santa Cruz. May 30, 2023.
• Ocean Shore Railroad Company. “Plans of the Oceanshore RR Co.” 1912.
• Orlando, Alverda, Sally Iverson, and Ed Dickie. Images of America: Davenport. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2020.
• Piccione, Gavin. "Panther Beach, an Extraordinary Geologic Feature in Santa Cruz." Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. April 3, 2025.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz Evening News, and Santa Cruz Surf, various articles, 1866–1960.
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Coast Division Employee Timetable No. 121 (November 1, 1924).
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Coast Division Employee Timetable No. 143 (February 16, 1936).

Stations: Swanton

Santa Cruz County has many towns and villages that found their footing once the railroad arrived. Most of the communities along the North Coast, though, existed in some form by the time the Ocean Shore Railway graded its ambitious route to San Francisco. The only exception was a tiny hamlet on the south bank of Scott Creek about one mile inland from the coast. Swanton, as it was known at the time, was not even on the route of the railroad until circumstances and a commercial opportunity convinced the company’s directors to extend a track from the end of the Folger wye to the community in 1908.

Ocean Shore Railroad workers posing on the station platform at Swanton with the Laurel Grove Inn in the background, circa 1918. [Roy D. Graves Collection, Bancroft Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

In its earlier days, Swanton was known as Laurel Grove after a scenic grove of laurel trees that drew the attention of travelers from the 1860s. Located two and a half hours north of Santa Cruz by stage coach, the grove was directly on the route of the Coast Road, a rugged trail that connected Santa Cruz with its one-time northernmost communities of New Year’s Point and Pescadero. By the 1870s, Laurel Grove had grown into a popular rest stop and attracted seasonal picnic parties, as well. People camped along Scott Creek and its tributaries, Little Creek and Big Creek, where they fished for trout and hunted wild game. The Santa Cruz Sentinel in 1880 gushed that Laurel Grove “is a very pretty place. The thick foliage and the delightful aroma emanating from laurel trees; the pure and sparkling waters of a little stream that flows through the grove; the bright plumaged birds with their rich musical notes, all tend to make this spot a favorite resort for persons seeking a few days’ rest from the busy toil of urban life. It is a favorite resort for Santa Cruz campers also, especially those who have a relish for fine speckled trout and healthy mountain quail.”

Gianone Hill north of Swanton, circa 1930. Photo by Harry A. Kay. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Despite its popularity with travelers, Laurel Grove and the Scott Creek valley were only sparsely settled. The land had originally begun as Rancho El Jarro, granted by the Mexican government to Hilario Buelna in 1839. El Jarro was likely the Spanish name for Scott Creek. Buelna lost possession of the property in 1843 and it passed to Ramón Rodriguez and Francisco Alviso under the name Rancho Agua Puerca y las Trancas. This name references the southern and northern boundaries of the property: Agua Puerca Creek just north of Davenport and Arroyo las Trancas, immediately south of Waddell Creek. Most of the population of the former rancho settled around Davenport Landing and on the coastal terraces, but the Coast Road followed the south bank of Scott Creek for several miles before crossing and ascending Gianone Hill, thereby returning to the coast. In 1867, James Archibald purchased the rancho from the Rodriguez family and set up his ranch at the bottom of Archibald Creek. He invited Ambrogio Gianone, a Swiss cheesemaker, to settle on his land around 1870 and the two turned the valley into a dairy farm. Gianone leased a large portion of the rancho into the 1890s, eventually purchased the northern third, while Archibald’s widow sold the property in 1883 to Joseph Bloom.

A large nutmeg tree in Swanton, 1955. [Santa Cruz Sentinel – colorized using MyHeritage]

Laurel Grove was included within the El Jarro School District in 1865, the only school for which was on a coastal terrace near Waddell Creek. This is where David Post established the area’s first post office, called Seaside, in 1873. Two years later, El Jarro School was renamed Seaside School. The post office shut down on June 24, 1881 and around the same time the school moved to the top of Gianone Hill, likely to make it easier for children from the Scott Creek valley to travel to school.

Big Creek Electric Power & Water Company powerhouse in Swanton, circa 1896. [The Street Railway Review – colorized using MyHeritage]

Meanwhile on Big Creek, big things were happening. Fred Swanton, who would found the Boardwalk a decade later, decided to focus his entrepreneurial efforts toward bringing electricity to Santa Cruz. He selected Big Creek as an out-of-the-way, underutilized waterway with sufficient flow to power a voltage-producing waterwheel and founded the Big Creek Electric Power & Water Company to achieve his goal. Construction began in early 1896 and a full current first ran to Santa Cruz on April 9, 1897. In its first years, electricity would be used primarily to operate sewer pumps, provide electrical street lighting, and supplement the power needed for the Santa Cruz Electric Railway, partially owned by Swanton.

Some workers posing outside the Coast Counties Gas & Electric Company powerhouse shortly after it was bought by Billing and Packard, circa 1903. [Images of America: Davenport – colorized using MyHeritage]

The activity on Big Creek led to a sudden increase in population along Scott Creek. A local stage coach driver, Pasquale Sonognini, decided it was time for the area to have a post office again and applied to create Trancas Post Office. The Post Office Department, in its usual bureaucratic indifference, accepted the proposal but rejected the name. When it approved the new office on May 28, 1897, the name attached to the branch was Swanton, after the power company’s chief promotor. The post office was situated within a new grocery store Sonognini opened beside a campground that took advantage of the eponymous laurel grove. Within the grove, he erected a large dance floor and other amenities to entertain guests in the summer months. By the summer of 1899, there was also a public hall nearby for indoor events. Swanton divested himself of the power plant in February 1900 and sold it to F. W. Billing and John Q. Packard, two wealthy Utah miners. This ended Swanton’s involvement with the community named after him three years earlier. This likely led to a drop in enrolments at Seaside School, which closed at the end of the school year.

Pasquale Sonognini, circa 1890. [Find A Grave – colorized using MyHeritage]

Swanton, still called Laurel Grove by most locals and in advertising, remained a popular tourist destination despite the drop in population. Sonognini’s campground continued to expand and attract travelers each year, prompting him to erect a small boarding house no later than summer 1904. It seems likely that this house was in fact Sonognini’s home and grocery store, expanded with the addition of guest rooms and an enlarged kitchen. This theory is further reinforced by the fact that Riccardo Mattei was granted a liquor license to operate a saloon from Sonognini’s building in Swanton in June 1905, suggesting that the structure was being used for more than just a grocery store and was Sonognini’s only building in the hamlet. Sonognini himself died while fighting a fire up Big Creek on September 6, 1904, leaving ownership of his property to his three young children and his widow, Theresa DaVico, also of Switzerland. On January 29, 1906, Mattei married the widowed Theresa.

Ocean Shore Railroad No. 4 at Swanton, circa 1918. [Images of America: Davenport – colorized using MyHeritage]

The promise of the Ocean Shore Railway, incorporated in 1905, revigorated interest in the Scott Creek valley. Company surveyors were sent along the coast searching for the best route north to Pescadero and San Francisco. Yet, the railroad did not initially venture far into the valley. In 1907, crews reached the mouth of Scott Creek and turned up it, but only far enough to reach the first large meadow, which had been subdivided and named Folger, after the coffee magnate who was also an investor in the railroad. On this field the company installed a wye to allow trains to turn around and return to Santa Cruz. The actual passenger and freight station for the valley was further south at today’s Swanton Berry Farm, where the Ocean Shore Railway intersected the Coast Road on its way up Scott Creek. Another stop near the creek mouth, Scott Junction, was where the railroad planned to continue north, though that would never happen in reality. Thus, Swanton was within reach of a railroad, but still had no direct service.

Seaside schoolhouse in Swanton, Feb 29, 1952. Photo by Paul L. Henchey. [UC Davis – colorized using MyHeritage]

In the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake, the Loma Prieta Lumber Company found itself unable to properly harvest timber in its Hinckley Gulch property outside Soquel. In response, it bought stumpage rights to 1,000 acres along Mill Creek, a tributary of Scott Creek located just north of Swanton. The company hoped to use the Ocean Shore Railway once a spur was extended to Swanton, but for its first two seasons, that did not happen. As a result, lumber was hauled out of Swanton to Scott or Davenport, where it was then loaded onto flatcars for shipment to the yards in Santa Cruz, Capitola, and Watsonville. This increase in activity in Swanton from mid-1907 led to the reopening of Seaside School the following year, with the schoolhouse moved for a second and final time to Schoolhouse Gulch.

An Ocean Shore Railroad train outside the Mattei's boarding house in Swanton, circa 1918. [Sandy Lydon – colorized using MyHeritage]

Everything changed in 1908 when the San Vicente Lumber Company announced its plans to harvest the massive untapped timber tracts along the headwaters of Little, Big, Archibald, and San Vicente Creeks. A cash-strapped Ocean Shore Railway could not help but support the scheme and by the end of the year, it was actively extending its track from Folger into Swanton, with a short spur to support the Loma Prieta Lumber Company’s mill and a branch railroad called the Scott Creek Railway extended up Little Creek to the site of the first San Vicente lumber camp. Between Little Creek and Archibald Creek, a small freight yard was built with several sidings to hold flatcars for the various operations in the area. Meanwhile, the Sonognini–Mattei family’s boarding house became the de facto passenger station for the railroad in Swanton, with the tracks running directly beside it.

James Gray poses with his auto buses at the Swanton House in Pescadero, circa 1918. [Mattei family collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

The history of Swanton during the Ocean Shore years is very poorly recorded. Riccardo—commonly known as Richard or Dick—served as the local official in charge of capturing fish for the Brookdale Fish Hatchery from 1907. He served in this role until around 1924. He proved less proficient as a saloonkeeper when he had his license revoked in September 1909 for keeping a disorderly house. This led to Theresa taking a more active role in management of the hospitality business. Little was said of Swanton for the next five years. By the summer 1914 season, the boarding house was known as the Laurel Grove Inn, with Theresa as proprietor. Meanwhile, Riccardo took an interest in automobiles and bought a Ford touring car in July 1914. This passion was shared with his step-son-in-law, James W. Gray, who was vice president of the Ocean Shore Auto Company and who had just begun running Stanley Steamer passenger coaches between Swanton and Tunitas to fill the 26-mile gap in the Ocean Shore Railroad’s route. Gray and Elvezia M. Sonognini married on November 30, 1914.

Map of Rancho Agua Puerca y las Trancas shortly before the San Vicente Lumber Company left Swanton, March 1922. [Santa Cruz GIS]

The closure of the Ocean Shore Railroad in October 1920 and the end of logging above Swanton in 1923 led to the quick decline of the community as a population center. Industrial workers moved away and took their children with them. Automobiles, meanwhile, passed through the town but did not linger. For a shore while, Gray managed to continue his passenger service and expanded into freight following the collapse of the Ocean Shore Railroad. The last mention of the Laurel Grove Inn in newspapers is in July 1924, though the Matteis continued to host events on their property for at least a decade afterwards. The family ran the post office until December 31, 1930. Riccardo died at his home on May 11, 1932. Theresa died nine years later on September 21, 1941 at her home in Santa Cruz.

Swanton historical marker at site of Laurel Grove Inn, Jan 3, 2013. Photo by Barry Swackhamer.

In 1938, the Poletti and Morelli families had purchased much of the lower Scott Creek valley, and the United States entry into World War II three years later led to the further depopulation of the area. Farms shut down and local industry shifted to artichokes and Brussels sprouts, with cattle ranching on the side. Bereft of students, Seaside School shut down for the last time after the 1960 school year. Students afterwards were sent to Pacific School in Davenport. Albert B. Smith, a former Southern Pacific Railroad employee, bought the property that comprised much of the former hamlet in 1978 and donated it as Swanton Pacific Ranch to California Polytechnic State University, San Luís Obispo, upon his death in 1993.

Citations & Credits:

• Donald Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Museum of Art & History, 2002).
• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Otter B Books, 2007).
• Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene and Ethel Grace Rensch, and William N. Abeloe, Historic Spots in California, 3rd edition (Stanford: University Press, 1966).
• Charles S. McCaleb, Surf, Sand and Streetcars: A Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Museum of Art & History, 2005).
• Ronald G. Powell, The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part 3 of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation (Santa Cruz: Zayante Publishing, 2022).
• Jeanine Marie Scaramozzino, “Una Legua Cuadrada: Exploring the History of Swanton Pacific Ranch and Environs,” thesis submitted toward an MA in History, California Polytechnic State University, San Luís Obispo (December 2015).
• Al Smith, “The History of Swanton” (July 1990).
• Various articles from the Evening News, Sentinel, and Surf.

Railroads: San Vicente Lumber Company Railroad

Far up Santa Cruz County’s north coast, Scott Creek winds inland from the Pacific Ocean along a gradually climbing path up to its source near Little Basin. Less than two miles from the coast is a tributary, Little Creek, a comparatively shorter stream than its neighbor, Big Creek. Passing through a narrow canyon, Little Creek runs 2.8 miles to the northeast in the direction of Bonny Doon. And it was atop this strange mountain plateau created by the headwaters of Little Creek, Big Creek, and San Vicente Creek that the San Vicente Lumber Company focused its effort to harvest over 615,000,000 board feet of timber beginning in the summer of 1908.

One of the San Vicente Lumber Company's shay locomotives with crews loading logs onto flatcars above Swanton, with a large steam donkey at left, 1909-1922. [Margaret Koch Collection, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using MyHeritage]

The San Vicente Lumber Company was incorporated on May 8, 1908, and immediately contracted with the Ocean Shore Railroad to extend a track along Scott Creek between Folger near the coast and Swanton 1.4 miles inland. The Pratchner Company was hired to install the tracks and, according to the Santa Cruz Evening News, had a crew composed of a dozen teams to build the line. On June 19, a new railroad company, the Scott Creek Railway, was founded as an Ocean Shore subsidiary to extend the new line from San Vicente Junction south of Swanton 2.5 miles up Little Creek to the site of Camp No. 2. At the junction, several spurs and sidings were installed to park flatcars for use on the line up Little Creek.

A hand-drawn survey map based on observations and GPS recordings by George Pepper and Rick Hamman.

Construction of the Scott Creek Railway finished sometime before mid-March 1909. Camp No. 1 was established a mile east of Swanton at the confluence of Little Creek and its largest tributary, Chandler Creek. Here ox teams and steam donkeys hauled cut timber from along Chandler Gulch to the railroad grade. Camp No. 2, the site of the worker village, required a switchback to climb up roughly 500 feet in elevation to Stoney Point and then a further mile east to a flat clearing, where timber from upper Little Creek and the headwaters of Berry Creek could be pulled over the ridge via steam donkey. The extension of the line beyond Camp No. 2 was a task done by the lumber company rather than the railroad company. The mill itself was erected in Moore’s Gulch at the western limits of Santa Cruz and was completed around March 22, 1909. Yard tracks were not installed at the facility until the weeks before it opened, and no logs were shipped over the route until March 23.

The main San Vicente Lumber Company forest crew, ca 1912. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The company employed around 225 men annually, over half of whom worked in the forest and lived in the camps. They were an eclectic mix of Italians, Greeks, Irish, Swedes, and other people of mostly European descent. In its first year, Camp No. 2 hosted around 50 cottages, which supported both workers and their families. Famed California reporter Josephine Clifford McCrackin visited Camp No. 1 in late September 1909. She reported that “the company has built very pretty cottage for its employees… At the general store goods are sold at Santa Cruz prices; and at the market meats and vegetables can be bought just as in Santa Cruz.” In addition, the camp featured a boarding house for visitors, a cookhouse, and a bunkhouse for single men. The anticipated influx of children led to Seaside School moving from Gianone Hill to Swanton. Swanton, too, grew when it became the northern terminus of the Southern Division of the Ocean Shore Railway. Its hotel became the transfer point for Ocean Shore-sponsored buses heading to the southern end of the Northern Division at Tunitas, and a few commercial businesses may have arisen around the old Laurel Grove Hotel.

One of the San Vicente Lumber Company's shay locomotives running up a grade above Swanton, ca 1915. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The San Vicente Lumber Company’s railroad used two Shay locomotives for its logging operations, although Ocean Shore Railway trains ran irregularly to Camp No. 2 to provide passenger and switching services. 36-foot-long flatcars with air brakes were used to haul full logs from the hills to the mill. Several spurs were kept at Camp No. 2 for yarding and storage, and photographs show that several boxcars were converted into makeshift buildings for the company. Beyond Camp No. 2, bridges were built as needed using available resources—namely felled pine trees—and some of these bridges rose up to 90 feet in height. Because the area was prone to slides and heavy rainfall, bridges and half-trestles were preferred over fills, and both switchbacks and tight curving trestles were used to achieve quick increases the gradient in confined spaces. Nonetheless, gradients of up to 8% were not unknown on this railroad.

A section of the original Scott Creek Railway trackage between Swanton and Camp No. 2, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

Logging was continuous but probably did not move into the San Vicente Creek watershed until 1912. The first major extension of the railroad took it up Little Creek and over it in a tight loop in order to gain elevation. It then switch-backed and continued to the headwaters, where another switchback allowed the route to finally exit the Little Creek watershed and climb atop the plateau at the top of the grade. From there, the track swung to the south and curved around a hill, on the other side of which Camp No. 3 was established. The camp was placed here since it intersected with a rugged county road between Davenport and Bonny Doon, the southern part of which is today’s Warrenella Truck Trail. Camp No. 3 was established to gather timber from the West and East Forks of San Vicente Creek.

Two women standing beside the San Vicente Lumber Company's tracks, probably between Camp Nos. 1 and 2, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

Tracks were slowly extended beyond Camp No. 3, probably between late 1912 and 1913. On one of the tightest curves on the railroad, known as the Bear Trap, the track crossed the West Fork of San Vicente Creek and then headed south until stopping just before the creek’s fork with its other branches. Here a switchback brought the track alongside the Middle Fork. As before, crews used donkey engines here to pull out logs from the surrounding forest, loading them onto flatcars and sending them down the line.

The impressive series of trestles spanning the Bear Trap above the West Fork of San Vicente Creek, ca 1912. [UC Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

When the West and Middle Forks were harvested, the railroad moved again, this time north around the headwaters of the West Fork to Camp No. 4, known as White House Camp because of the presence of an abandoned whitewashed house at the site. This move likely happened in 1914 and was perhaps the shortest-lived camp. It focused on harvesting the headwaters of the West and Middle Forks, and may have also pulled down material from atop the ridge that separated the San Vicente Creek and Big Creek watersheds.

A high lead and gin pole above the San Vicente Lumber Company's tracks above Swanton, ca late 1910s. [Fritz–Metcalf Collection, UC Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

Around 1915 or 1916, the track was extended to the east between the Middle and East Forks of San Vicente Creek, with a substantial curve and switchback in the middle of the route to lower the grade and avoid a hill. The track then continued south, bringing it directly opposite the main settlement area of Bonny Doon. Camp No. 5 was, therefore, appropriately named Bonny Doon Camp. This camp was responsible for harvesting all of the timber within Rancho San Vicente from the East Branch of the creek—the property boundary—and the Middle Fork. These operations likely wrapped around 1918, perhaps delayed by World War I and the influenza pandemic that followed.

Three women standing on a steam donkey platform probably near Camp No. 6 during the final phase of harvesting, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

Following the war, the company pursued its final drive to harvest timber to the northwest along the headwaters of Big Creek. A new switchback was built near the headwaters of Little Creek with the tracks heading to the west around several short hills and gulches. It finally reached a pond in a high clearing, where Camp No. 6 was established just above Big Creek. The main track wrapped around the camp from the south and descended to the creek via a single switchback. It then continued along the creek through Deadman Gulch and up the East Branch of Big Creek before terminating near its headwaters. Presumably San Vicente Lumber only had rights to harvest timber east of Big Creek’s main course, and it spent its last four years harvesting this dense forestland from above and below.

Members of the Mattei family and friends posing beside a cottage, probably at Camp No. 2, with converted train car cottages and permanent cottages in the background, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

It is not entirely clear whether Camp No. 2 remained the main camp for families or if the entire camp relocated every few years. Logically, it makes sense if the camp remained in place throughout this time. Camp No. 2 marked the end of the Scott Creek Railway and Ocean Shore trains could still reach it to shuttle children between the camp and the school in Swanton. It would also be directly connected with southbound trains so people and camp businesses could easily resupply. Rick Hamman, however, states that the camp moved each time, with the cabins loaded onto flatcars and then placed on the ground at each new location. This seems a rather large burden to do every two years, though, and there is no evidence that this was in fact done. What was done, though, is the removal and reinstallation of track as the line moved. Whenever a section was cleared of usable timber, the rails and ties would be pulled and reused, when possible, to build the next extension. The downside of this is that a new section of track could not be built while an old section was still being used.

An Ocean Shore Railroad passenger car separated from its wheel truck by presumably a runaway flatcar that crashed into it, ca 1920. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

Because of the steep grades, sharp turns, and switchbacks, the railroad was prone to many incidents. The number one issue was runaway rolling stock. Both of the Shay locomotives escaped the engineers’ control on several occasions, and flatcars escaped constantly. Fortunately, most incidents at worst resulted in the stock in question crashing into a hillside at the end of a switchback or tearing of the ties after derailing. Many of the switchbacks, however, we designed in such a way that they rose up near the end to decelerate runaways without damaging the stock. Most of the time, operations along the railroad ran remarkably smoothly considering all the compromises that had to be made. The same cannot be said of the workers, who were frequently injured on the job resulting in several maimings and a few deaths.

Four women posing beside a section of cut forest with the San Vicente Lumber Company's railroad tracks heading into the distance, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage] 

The San Vicente Lumber Company’s railroad outlasted the Ocean Shore Railroad, that had helped build and support it. Around the end of 1920, the company bought the Southern Division of the Ocean Shore, which had effectively gone defunct in October following a worker strike. As part of the deal, they acquired Ocean Shore engine no. 4, which they used as their primary locomotive to transport logs to the mill. The railroad continued to haul logs until the end of the 1922 season, at which point the company began wrapping up its operations. In January 1923, the mill was shut down and crews began dismantling the railroad and workers’ village. Henry G. Stoddard of the Nibley–Studdard Lumber Company continued to run the company’s lumber yard for about eight months, but all other operations at the mill ended in February and the large plant was partially dismantled with usable parts destined for a new mill at Cromberg, California.

A woman shyly posing beside a San Vicente Lumber Company locomotive crew at Swanton, July 1918. [Mattei Family Collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

Much of the former rights-of-way survived in the mountains, with a few repurposed as private access roads or county park trails. Others have degraded into nearly unrecognizable paths, with the August 2020 fires destroying some of the last artifacts from the age of logging in the area. Prior to the fires, George Pepper and Chuck Ryder carefully hiked the hills with a GPS recorder to identify the former railroad grades, making several corrections to Hamman’s map. The entire area remains private property, but the Santa Cruz Land Trust is working on creating a trail network within the area, called San Vicente Redwoods, some of which trails will closely follow the rights-of-way of the former San Vicente Lumber Company’s railroad.

Citations & Credits:

• Articles of incorporation for the Scott Creek Railway Company. Courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• Pepper, George, and Chuck Ryder. Personal correspondence.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel, Surf, and Evening News, 1908-1923.