Curiosities: Coastal Shipping

Santa Cruz County did not always have rail services. Before 1876, travel to the remote northern cove of the Monterey Bay was difficult, with roads sometimes impassible and seas too rough to travel. Ultimately, it was ocean-going vessels and coastal steamers that dominated the early Santa Cruz freight industry, resulting in a series of wharves erected at the ends of Bay Street, Pacific Avenue, and Main Street. But what were the companies that used these structures and when and why did they stop visiting the Santa Cruz waterfront?

The SS Roanoke beside the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf on opening day, December 5, 1914. [University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Santa Cruz had been a seaport long before it became a US state. The Spanish mission used the Santa Cruz Main Beach to receive supplies from Mexico and the produce from the mission and the spring on Beach Hill refuelled ships' supplies. By the early 1840s, people like Isaac Graham used oxen and horse teams to haul lumber to the beach, where it was loaded onto boats and transferred to ships anchored offshore. It was a tedious process and led to only small profits. In 1846, Graham and his business partners built their own ship on the beach, the first of many to be named Santa Cruz. It was followed soon after with a second Santa Cruz and the Zach Taylor. These small ships, though, would hardly be able to compete with the larger vessels that would soon run along the Central Coast.

"Bird's Eye View of Santa Cruz," by Charles B. Gifford, showing steamships and tall ships off Davis & Cowell's wharf and Gharky's wharf, ca 1872. [Bancroft Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

As the lumber and leather industries were gradually supplemented by commercial agricultural products, quicklime, blasting powder, and other types of freight, the need for a reliable means of transferring freight to ships increased. Cowell's wharf, originally built at the end of Bay Street as a simple chute in 1849 by Elihu Anthony and Edward S. Penfield to load ships with potatoes, evolved into Santa Cruz's first industrial wharf. This was followed in 1857 by David Gharky's wharf at the end of Main Street. The Railroad Wharf at the end of Pacific Avenue joined the pair in 1876, connected to Gharky's wharf with a viaduct from 1877 to 1882. Finally, in December 1914, the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf was completed. Other landings and wharves existed at times in the county, too, at Waddell's Beach, Davenport Landing, William's Landing, Soquel Wharf, Aptos Wharf, and Watsonville Landing.

The SS Ancon at the Railroad Wharf, ca 1877. Photo by Romanzo E. Wood. [Chico State University – colorized using MyHeritage]

By the mid-1870s, Santa Cruz was the busiest seaport on the California coast outside of the San Francisco Bay. The three wharves did a bonanza business shipping the redwood timber and quicklime that was rapidly building the nearby metropolis. Explosive powder from the California Powder Works were shipped to the Gold Country for mining, to timber tracts to destroy stumps and other obstacles, to railroads to grade their routes, and to the New Almaden quicksilver mines to bore new tunnels. People were also visiting Santa Cruz, primarily to enjoy the bathing beach beside the outlet of the San Lorenzo River, which was conveniently located directly beside and between the wharves. The Leibbrandts and Liddell families worked hard to attract visitors during the summer months, ever expanding their bathing pavilions and adding amenities. In the mountains, resorts were also opening up at the Welch's Big Trees Grove, Hotel de Redwood, Olive's Sulphur Springs, and elsewhere.

A steamship, possibly the Fannie Gilmore, loading barrels of quicklime at the bottom of Cowell's wharf, ca 1890. [Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using MyHeritage]

In the earliest years, a variety of companies sent ships along the California coastline to call at its ports, most notably the California Steam Navigation Company, which in 1867 became the California, Oregon, and Mexico Steamship Company and in 1869 the North Pacific Transportation Company. These companies mostly ran schooners specially outfitted for coastal shipping, often featuring both steam-powered paddle-wheels and wind-powered rigging. Davis & Jordan purchased a steamship of their own in 1857, yet another Santa Cruz, and used it to transport quicklime to San Francisco. The cost of operating the ship and the loss of business to Gharky's wharf after 1857, though, led them to downgrade to the smaller Fannie Gilmore. By this point, Santa Cruz was undeniably a seaport even if the ships calling were from a broad array of commercial shipping firms.

Cowell's wharf with a steamship docked and the Railroad Wharf in the distance, ca 1900 [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

It was not until 1875 that a major coastal shipping concern began operating out of the port on a regular schedule. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company had been founded in 1848 to handle the delivery of US mail along the Pacific Coast. Its mainline ran from the Panama Isthmus to San Francisco, and it did a bonanza business shortly after its founding as the California Gold Rush took off. It only took a passing interest in intermediate ports for the first 25 years of operation, but by the mid-1870s it was looking to expand and Santa Cruz was a logical destination. Its ships called into port regularly, causing Gharky's wharf to be renamed the Steamship Wharf in local parlance. The company's dominance did not last long, though.

A steamship heading docking at the Railroad Wharf, ca 1900. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

In early 1876, around the time that the Railroad Wharf was completed, Goodall, Nelson and Perkins began running its own steamships along the Central Coast, mostly using older ships acquired in 1875 from the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. They initially called at the Railroad Wharf since their business was primarily transporting the lumber brought in from the San Lorenzo Valley flume. However, they also had a well-regarded passenger service with modern ships that outpaced those of their rival. Ratcheting up the competition, on October 17, 1876, the company reorganized itself as the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, a name meant to put fear in the hearts of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's board of directors. The firm established a local office at the end of Pacific Avenue near the base of the Railroad Wharf and across from the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad's main office.

Painting of the SS Senator, 1848, by James Bard. [Mariners' Museum and Park, Newport News, VA]

While the two firms fought over routes to the Pacific Northwest, they mostly cooperated in shipping freight from Santa Cruz. In 1877, to increase efficiency and the safety of shipping blasting powder, the Railroad Wharf and Gharky's wharf were connected by a viaduct with railroad tracks. This meant that steamships of either company, or other firms, could dock at either wharf and receive the same level of service. The opening of the Santa Cruz Railroad in 1876 seems to have had little impact on shipping since it was still cheaper to ship most freight out of Santa Cruz via steamship than rail. Passenger service, though, may have begun to decline from this time as passengers generally preferred the gentle ride of a railroad compared to the rolling and longer voyage of a coastal steamship.

Lumber being loaded onto a tall ship docked at the Railroad Wharf, ca 1900. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The beginning of the end came early. In May 1880, the South Pacific Coast Railroad opened between Santa Cruz and Alameda. This route made shipping by rail substantially cheaper and provided even more incentives for passengers to take the train. For a short time, many industries used both methods of transport, especially after the Southern Pacific Railroad took over the South Pacific Coast in 1887, immediately increasing prices. However, the end was inevitable. In 1880, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company abandoned all attempts to compete with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company and shifted its focus to Central America and trans-Pacific shipping. This left the latter company with a virtual monopoly over freight and passenger services out of Santa Cruz. Its only competitor was Davis & Cowell, who used their own ships and reluctantly began using the railroad as well.

Barrels being hoisted onto the SS Margaret at either the Railroad Wharf or the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, date undetermined. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Southern Pacific finally stabilized its rates around 1890s, successfully undercutting shipping rates while still charging more than was probably necessary for its services. The California Powder Works would continue to ship powder out from the Railroad Wharf until around 1900, but most other firms shifted to one of the rail lines out of the county. The widespread expansion of rail networks across the Central Coast in the 1880s and 1890s led to the collapse of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company in the Panic of 1893. The company was revived under new owners in 1897 but its focus shifted further and further north, especially during the Klondike Gold. Within a decade, almost all regular coastal passenger service was ended with the company focusing instead on long-distance travel between key Pacific ports, among which Santa Cruz was no longer counted.

The Railroad Wharf with a steamship docked beside it and the pleasure ship Balboa anchored in the Monterey Bay, ca 1907. Photo by James E. Boynton. [Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using MyHeritage]

The decline of commercial steamship service was felt quickly in Santa Cruz after the expansion of the railroads. In 1882, the Steamship Wharf was demolished, as was its connection to the Railroad Wharf. There was simply not enough traffic to justify three commercial wharves at the waterfront. Cowell's wharf thrived for another 25 years, but when a winter storm damaged it in 1907, the Henry Cowell Lime & Cement Company changed its policy and began using the railroad more heavily. Once the line through the mountains was reopened in 1909, it completely abandoned its old wharf and the commercial shipping service it had run for over 50 years. The Railroad Wharf, meanwhile, had been largely taken over by Italian fishing families by 1910, though it was briefly cleared of shacks around the time that the Municipal Wharf was erected beside it in 1914. However, with the new wharf available for steamship service, the Railroad Wharf became a fishing hub with a cannery and other facilities installed.

The SS Roanoke docked at the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf on opening day, December 5, 1914. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The Municipal Wharf, meanwhile, had been designed with steamships in mind. It was long enough to reach deepwater, and the curve at the end was to allow ships to dock in accordance with the prevailing tide. On opening day, December 5, 1914, the SS Roanoke docked as part of the celebration, having just passed through the newly-opened Panama Canal. To the people of Santa Cruz, who had paid for the wharf after Southern Pacific declined to make needed improvements to the Railroad Wharf, it seemed like a return to the coastal shipping days of old. But it was only a dream. After nearly two decades of trial and error, the city failed to attract a regular flow of steamships. The Great Depression put the final nail in the coffin when Southern Pacific successfully removed its tracks from the wharf in 1931, signalling a defeat for the city. By this point, several Italian fishing families had relocated to the Municipal Wharf from the Railroad Wharf, which had been demolished in 1922. The wharf gradually evolved from a commercial shipping destination to an Italian fishing station to a tourist destination. So ended Santa Cruz's dream to regain its status as a Central Coast seaport.

The SS William H. Murphy docked at the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf with boxcars of cargo and a smaller steamship docked beside the warehouse, ca 1916. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Ships of the Lines:

The most prominent companies ran several ships along the Central Coast, but Ernest Otto, a late Santa Cruz Sentinel writer who wrote extensively about his memories of the 1870s and 1880, recalls the names of several of the ships that called at Santa Cruz. These included:

• Senator – Launched in 1848 from the shipyard of William H. Brown, New York City. A 219-foot-long two-masted steam-powered paddlewheel schooner with a capacity of 190 passengers and 300 tons of cargo. Operated 1848–1849 by James C. Cunningham; 1849–1851 by Charles Minturn; 1851–1854 by People's Line; 1854–1867 by the California Steam Navigation Company; 1867–1872 by the California, Oregon, and Mexico Steamship Company / North Pacific Transportation Company; 1872–1875 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 1875–1882 by Goodall, Nelson & Perkins / the Pacific Coast Steamship Company; 1884–1906 by the Kamo Coal Company (New Zealand) / Northern Steamship Company as a stationary barge; and 1906–1912 by the Devonport Steam Ferry Company. Scrapped in New Zealand, ca 1912.
• Pacific – Launched in 1850 from the shipyard of William. H. Brown, New York City. A 223-foot-long three-masted steam-powered paddlewheel schooner with a capacity of 546 passengers. Operated 1850–1851 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 1851–1858 by Cornelius Vanderbilt; 1858–1859 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 1859–1867 by the California Steam Navigation Company; 1867–1872 by the California, Oregon and Mexico Steamship Company / North Pacific Transportation Company; 1872–1875 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; and 1875 by Goodall, Nelson & Perkins. Wrecked in Washington, November 4, 1875.
• Los Angeles – Launched 1863 from the shipyards of J. T. Fardy & Bros, Baltimore. A 130-foot-long two-masted Pawtuxet-class steam cutter with an unknown passenger capacity. Operated 1863–1873 by the United States Revenue Cutter Service as the Wayanda; and 1873–1894 by Goodall, Nelson & Perkins / Pacific Coast Steamship Company as the Los Angeles. Wrecked off Point Sur, April 22, 1894.
• Ancon – Launched in 1867 from Hunter's Point, San Francisco, for use as a ferry in Panama for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. A 226-foot-long two-masted schooner with a capacity of 268 passengers. Operated 1867–1872 by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; and 1875–1889 by Goodall, Nelson & Perkins / Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Wrecked in Alaska, August 28, 1889.
• Gipsy – Launched in 1868 from the shipyard of Middlemas & Boole, San Francisco. 102-foot-long two-masted steam-powered schooner. Operated 1868–1905 by Goodall, Nelson & Perkins / Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Wrecked at Monterey, September 27, 1905.
• City of Chester – Launched 1873 from the shipyard of John Roach & Sons, Chester, Pennsylvania. A 202-foot-long two-masted steamship with a capacity of 214 passengers. Operated by 1876–ca 1879 by the Oregon Steamship Company / Oregon Steam Navigation Company; and ca 1879–1888 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Wrecked in San Francisco Bay, August 22, 1888.
• State of California – Launched in 1878 from the shipyard of William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia. A 306-foot-long two-masted steamship. Operated 1878–1913 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Wrecked in Alaska, August 17, 1913.
• Pomona – Launched 1888 from the shipyards of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco. A 225-foot-long two-masted steamship with a capacity of 200 passengers and 300 tons of cargo. Operated 1888–1897 by the Oregon Improvement Company; 1897–1908 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Wrecked near Eureka, March 17, 1908.

Other ships that called periodically at Santa Cruz of which less information is known include the Adriana, Monterey, Eureka, San Vicente, Salinas, and William H. Murphy.

Citations & Credits:

• Gibson, Ross. "Ships and wharves of old Santa Cruz." Santa Cruz Sentinel, 01/18/2009.
• Otto, Ernest F. Our Old Santa Cruz... Volumes 1 and 2. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, 2023-2024. [Amazon link]
• Whaley, Derek R. SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, 2024. [Amazon link]
• Various newspaper articles and other sources summarizing the histories and fates of individual ships.

Curiosities: The Ocean Shore Railway's 26-Mile Gap

The Ocean Shore Railway—a project over thirty years in the making—began with a bang and then died a slow and painful death as natural disasters, financial crises, bankruptcy, and mismanagement doomed the most optimistic railroad in the history of the Central Coast of California. On top of all the drama and failure, though, the most remarkably fact about the Ocean Shore Railway is how close it came to succeeding in a task that had dogged so many companies before it. The Ocean Shore's story is truly that of the Little Engine That Could, pushing on despite everything to finish its visionary route from San Francisco to Santa Cruz along the windswept margins of San Mateo County's foggy coastline.

An Ocean Shore Railway construction train atop a bridge near Davenport, 1907. [Western Railroader – Colorized using DeOldify]

Of course, the Ocean Shore Railway had not intended to fail. Indeed, right up until its declaration of bankruptcy in 1911, the company was working feverishly to achieve its primary goal. The Ocean Shore Railway Company had been incorporated in May 1905 to build two parallel eighty-mile-long standard-gauge electric railroad tracks down the coastline from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, where it would have linked up with other subsidiary networks and ultimately meet the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad at the Nevada state line. A branch line was planned for the hills above Pescadero with a possible extension to Big Basin and Boulder Creek. Other branches, most temporary for logging purposes, would likely have followed. Several town development projects were planned along the coast, most notably at Montara and El Granada north of Half Moon Bay.

An Ocean Shore construction train pouring fill below the bridge over San Vicente Creek south of Davenport, 1907. [Uncertain provenance – Colorized using DeOldify]

One immediate problem for the Ocean Shore Railway was the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Octopus controlled most land transportation on the West Coast and was not going to let an upstart railroad get in its way. Indeed, Southern Pacific preempted the Ocean Shore's incorporation by a month when it established its own Coast Line Railroad in April 1905 with almost identical goals as its rival, sans double tracks and electrification. Yet the Ocean Shore knew that Southern Pacific only really wanted the lucrative cement plant contract in Davenport, while the Ocean Shore hoped that the timber in the Pescadero and Butano basins would more than justify the loss of the plant's patronage. Nonetheless, Southern Pacific was certainly duplicitous in some of its dealings with the Ocean Shore Railway.

Ocean Shore Railway's depot in Santa Cruz overlooking the Southern Pacific yard, 1907. [Louis L. Stein, Jr. – Colorized using DeOldify]

In Santa Cruz, Southern Pacific leased land from the Cowell Lime Company at the beach and built a short spur for loading lime, conveniently blocking the Ocean Shore's access to land it had purchased to erect a deep-water pier. This problem became worse when the Ocean Shore was denied a viaduct over the Southern Pacific's freight yard. This viaduct was essential for accessing the company's proposed central depot in downtown Santa Cruz. Together, these two actions effectively stranded the Ocean Shore in West Santa Cruz with no outlet south, thereby imperilling its plans for a route across the county and beyond.

Meanwhile, the two railroads actually hired the same contractor to build both of its tracks north. Since the Ocean Shore had more ready cash and planned to build a double track, one of its tracks was built first. This benefited the Ocean Shore immensely in 1906. The earthquake delayed construction of a second track (Southern Pacific's) by a year, meaning that the Ocean Shore was able to profit off the cement plant's initial output during that time. However, once Southern Pacific did reach Davenport in 1907, it conveniently installed its wye in such a way to deny the Ocean Shore any further access to the cement plant. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, the completion of the Bay Shore Cut-off and the Mayfield Cut-off reduced travel time between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. This drastically reduced the competitiveness of the Ocean Shore regarding passenger traffic between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, although the potential view along the picturesque coastal trackage was unquestioned.

Work crews in the process of filling the tall trestle bridge over Panther Beach beside the Yellowbank Dairy, with the Coast Road visible through the bridge, 1906. [Covello and Covello – Colorized using DeOldify]

Construction of the Ocean Shore in Santa Cruz County began in mid-1905 and continued apace through to the earthquake on April 18, 1906. Although constructed using the same contractors as the Coast Line Railway, the Coast Line was running behind schedule so the Ocean Shore's initial single track was built to Davenport first. In February 1906, the Ocean Shore leased the Union Traction Company in order to extend its network further south to Watsonville—the anticipated next step in its scheme to build the line to Nevada. Beyond Davenport, grading crews made it to Scott Creek where they built a wye beside a small resort area the company hoped to develop called Folger, named after the coffee magnate. Freight traffic to Davenport began in late January 1906 and, following short delays from the earthquake, regular passenger service to Davenport began on June 15. Meanwhile, the track to Scott Creek was completed by October, several months behind schedule, but still not too far above upper estimates.

The long, partially filled trestle bridge across San Vicente Creek and Davenport Beach, 1906. [Gary Griggs – Colorized using DeOldify]

Along the route south of San Francisco, progress was moving more slowly. Track layers had only reached Mussel Rock outside Daly City by the time of the earthquake, but grading had been completed for many miles further south, with much of the equipment located on Devil's Slide, which was the most precarious part of the route. This proved disastrous when the earthquake struck, since much of that machinery was either buried or tossed into the sea. While railroad crews in San Francisco used its rolling stock to help remove debris following the quake and fires, the construction crews further to the south had weeks of work ahead of them recovering machinery, restoring rights-of-way, and reinforcing hillsides against further slides.  It was several months before actual progress resumed on the Northern Division, but work did slowly resume. Regular passenger service only began in October 1907 to Tobin (Pedro Valley).

The Ocean Shore Railway's Pedro Point Tunnel north of Devil's Slide following abandonment of the line, 1928. [Uncertain provenance – Colorized using DeOldify]

Unfortunately for the Ocean Shore Railway, many of its wealthier financiers pulled out of the company in the months following the earthquake. A few were ruined by the earthquake, but others just decided to be more cautious with their money. The resort at Folger was probably one of the casualties of this restructure even though construction on the Southern Division continued without more than a hitch. The railroad found more investors and scraped together enough funds to continue building through the rest of 1906 and into early 1907. Construction to Half Moon Bay resumed after the Devil's Slide mess was cleared. Meanwhile, a new contract was made with Shattuck and Desmond to continue building the line from Scott Creek to Pescadero. In June 1908, the subsidiary Scott Creek Railway was incorporated to extend a track up Scott Creek and Little Creek to the timber tracts of the San Vicente Lumber Company. This proved to be the Southern Division's most profitable and reliable customer throughout the 1910s.

Advertisement for the San Juan Pacific Railway, 1907. [Unknown provenance]

Optimism was always the Ocean Shore Railway's greatest strength and weakness. The earthquake led to the Ocean Shore abandoning its purchase agreement of the Union Traction Company, although it retained an option to purchase it at a later date. On December 28, 1906, the railroad incorporated its first subsidiary, the Monterey, Fresno & Eastern Railway, and soon afterwards this company leased the Watsonville Transportation Company in the hopes that it could extend the small interurban line to Hollister and Fresno. In February 1907, alongside the lease of the interurban, Ocean Shore incorporated another subsidiary, the Ocean Shore & Eastern Railway, which was intended to build a railroad line from Santa Cruz to Watsonville, likely using the Union Traction line, although it did not resume its deferred payments at this time. In April 1907, the San Joaquin Valley Western Railroad was founded to connect Watsonville to Fresno, and in May the San Juan Pacific Railway was incorporated to link Chittenden to San Juan Bautista and its new cement plant, with plans to eventually extend its line further south through the Gabilan Range. All but the last of these projects came to nothing.

Ocean Shore Railway train on a high fill across a beach near Davenport, ca 1908 [Western Railroader – Colorized using DeOldify]

The nail in the coffin of the Ocean Shore Railway proved to be neither Southern Pacific interference nor the 1906 earthquake. Instead, it was the Knickerbocker Crisis which led to the Panic of 1907. A stagnant economy following the earthquake had led to a recession and by October 1907, the New York Stock Exchange was half the value it had been the previous year. The actual panic occurred when several banks, most notably the Knickerbocker Trust Company, failed to seize control of the United Copper Company. The collapse of Knickerbocker led to a run on money and the withdrawal by many from high-risk investments. Although the crisis was short-lived, it led to many of the remaining and new investors in the Ocean Shore Railway to pull out. Funds were solicited locally in early 1908, allowing construction to continue, but the railroad was running entirely on rapidly-increasing debt.

Idealized postcard of Granada Depot on the Ocean Shore line, 1908. Image produced by Charles H. Kendrick Company. [Cambridge Lutece – Colorized by DeOldify]

Despite everything, optimism remained through 1908. Property along the San Mateo County coast was selling quickly, while farmers, quarriers, and lumber companies were eager to begin shipping via the completed railroad. Construction on the Southern Division was primarily focused on the Scott Creek Railway line rather than the route north, although surveyors were likely busy determining the best means of crossing Scott Creek. In the north, passenger and freight service to Granada opened in June 1908 and Half Moon Bay in October, while tracks were laid across the Tunitas Creek bridge by January 1909. Another bridge was built a mile south over Palmer Gulch (Trestle Beach), but no tracks were ever installed here. Grading, meanwhile, had progressed as far as Pigeon Point. At Pomponio Beach, two short tunnels were in the process of being bored when construction ceased on the line.

Ocean Shore Railway auditor Ted F. Wurm on right with family members standing on the tracks near Davenport, ca 1910. [Marvin T. Maynard – Colorized using DeOldify]

The end result of the Ocean Shore Railway's three and a half years of effort was approximately 54 miles built of an 80-mile-long railroad. The missing section, 26 miles between the southern bank of Tunitas Creek to the southern bank of Scott Creek, was never completed. However, grading south from Tunitas, including a bridge and two tunnels, was partially completed for around 12.5 miles to Pigeon Point, and possibly even further to the south, meaning that only 13.5 miles remained of heavy work on the line. Some of this may have been damaged in the heavy winter storm of 1909 that wrecked large portions of the right-of-way, effectively shutting it down until late April. This storm mixed with creditors finally calling in their debt put an end to the reckless optimism that had been motivating the company previously. The company was $2,321,740 in debt and had nowhere left to turn for help.

The Ocean Shore Railroad beside Islais Creek and Mission Street outside San Francisco, 1915. [OpenSFHistory]

The Ocean Shore Railway went bankrupt on December 6, 1909 and was reincorporated as the Ocean Shore Railroad on October 9, 1911, following nearly two years in receivership. Although the new firm stated its intention to fill the 26-mile gap between Tunitas Creek and Scott Creek, it never had the funds to do so. Estimates in 1911 placed the cost of finishing the line at $1,351,115, over $35,000,000 in 2021 money. Thus, the new company, sans the debts of its predecessor, never bothered to finish the final 26 miles of its route, which was the only way the railroad would survive in the long term. Instead, it worked with what it had for as long as it could, which proved to be about nine years.

An accident at Little Creek switch outside Swanton, 1916. [UCSC Legacy Digital Collections – Colorized using DeOldify]

Possibly as early as 1908, regular horse-drawn stage coach service connected Davenport or Swanton in the south with Tunitas or Half Moon Bay in the north. The details of this early connecting activity are obscure, although it is known that the Ocean Shore Railway funded the service in order to maintain the premise of their coastal railroad. However, it was slow, poorly patronized, and couldn't compete once automobiles began appearing on the coast in the early 1910s. A solution had to be found and the new Ocean Shore Railroad had an idea.

An Ocean Shore Auto Stage Stanley Steamer leaving Tunitas for Santa Cruz, ca 1914. [Uncertain provenance]

Rather than providing rather typical coach service between the railroad's two termini, it purchased a Stanley Motor Carriage Company autobus to bridge the 26-mile gap via a new subsidiary, the Ocean Shore Auto Stage Company, incorporated in March 1914. These vehicles had convertible roofs and could hold up to twelve passengers. They were operated by a thirty horsepower steam engine designed in a novel and space-saving manner, although they were known for burning through water quickly. Due to the initial popularity of the service, a second Stanley Steamer was added to the roster on June 10.

Both Ocean Shore Auto Stage Stanley Steamers in Pescadero, 1914. [Bob Gray]

Service between Tunitas and Swanton began on April 1, 1914 under the direction of James W. Gray, a former Ocean Shore brakeman. The second steamer was operated by Harry L. Staples. Through service from San Francisco to Santa Cruz via rail and steamer cost $4.50 a ticket and took a total of 8:15 hours northbound and 7:50 hours southbound. The Stanley Steamers called in at Waddell Creek, Gazos Creek, Pigeon Point, Pebble Beach, Pescadero, San Gregorio, Tunitas Glen, and Torquay, providing transportation to and from some of the most remote communities on the Central Coast. A separate bus service also transported people from Torquay to the California Redwood Park (Big Basin). During wet winters, when portions of the railroad's right-of-way were washed out or otherwise damaged, the steamers also provided service shuttling passengers around inoperable sections.

The never-used Palmer Gulch bridge, 1920s, already showing a distinct slump in the center. [UCSC Legacy Digital Collections – Colorized using DeOldify]

Most Ocean Shore Railroad services ceased on August 17, 1920. The Southern Division was subsequently leased to the San Vicente Lumber Company while the Northern Division was scrapped. Remnants of the right-of-way survive all along the coast, especially in San Mateo County. Between Tunitas Creek and Scott Creek, some cuts and fills can be found beside Highway 1, but much more was once visible. The bridges over Tunitas Creek and Palmer Gulch remained for many decades until they either collapsed or were demolished. The two incomplete short tunnels at Pomponio Beach existed into the 1970s before they collapsed or were demolished for safety reasons.  Another tunnel south of Pescadero Beach appears on the 1961 USGS quadrangle map but has also now disappeared. 

A Stanley Steamer somewhere along the 27-mile gap with its roof up, ca 1918. [Randolph Brandt]

Meanwhile, the autobuses of the Ocean Shore Auto Stage Company continued to operate across the entire line under emergency provisions. On January 14, 1921, Gray and Staples were granted a permanent franchise to continue running buses between San Francisco and Pescadero, which led to the incorporation of the Coastside Transportation Company later that year. Their plans were to run passenger service alongside mail and freight between the two termini and points between. The Railroad Commission, however, limited the franchise repeatedly, forcing Gray to redirect traffic to Colma and San Mateo, drastically reducing his potential profits. He became frustrated and looked for interested buyers of his franchise.

Coastside Transport Company advertisement from the Santa Cruz Evening News, March 15, 1940.

On July 16, Gray sold the company to Edward Serretto, Louis Alfred Mattei, and Emile Michel. In 1925, the company under William Azevedo petitioned to run freight between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay but was again denied by the Commission. The firm's persistence finally paid off in March 1927 when it received permission to run passenger, freight, and express service across the entirety of the old Ocean Shore route including all settlements along the way. Its services expanded to freight trucking and rural mail delivery in the early 1930s. The firm declared bankruptcy in late 1933 only to reform with the same franchise rights as the Coastside Transport Company in November of that year. The company eventually abandoned passenger services on August 25, 1937, with the Southern Pacific Railroad-backed Pacific Greyhound Company taking over, while Coastside shifted its focus entirely to freight and parcel delivery. Coastside survived for another five years before selling out to Highway Transport Company on August 4, 1942.

Citations & Credits:

• Brandt, Rudolph. "Ocean Shore 'Reaches the Beaches," Western Railroader 15:7 (Issue 151).
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2007.
• Nanney, Duncan. Personal correspondence.
• Schmale, John. "Railroad historian John Schmale: 'Stanley Steamers' Filled in the Ocean Shore's 26-Mile 'Gap,'" Half Moon Bay Memories, February 26, 2009.
• Wagner, Jack R. The Last Whistle: Ocean Shore Railroad. Berkeley, CA: Howell–North Books, 1974.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Coast. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, forthcoming.

Companies: Watsonville Fruit Packing Company

The arrival of the Santa Cruz Railroad to Watsonville in 1876 did not immediately lead to an expansion of the agricultural industry in the Pajaro Valley. Most fruit grown on the Santa Cruz County side of the Pajaro River was still delivered to Pajaro for drying and shipping. By 1887, however, the situation had improved. More people were flocking to the region and the purchase of the railroad by Southern Pacific, which promptly standard-gauged its new line, meant that trains could run without transfer from Watsonville to San Francisco and elsewhere in California.

Advertising postcard for Luke G. Sresovich & Company at the Midwinter Exposition in San Francisco, showcasing the Chinese Building, 1894. [WorthPoint]

The Watsonville Fruit Packing Company was incorporated in June 1887 to capitalize off the growing agricultural industry of the Watsonville area. The initial capital stock for the firm was $10,000. Early the next month, John Kennaugh sold the company 1.619 acres of land between Beach Road and the railroad tracks for $450—below market value. The directors also purchased for $1,100 a twelve-section Fleming Dryer, which George A. Fleming personally helped assemble. Because of the size and style of dryer, it was installed on the property first with the building erected around it. Initial estimates predicted a capacity of 7,000 to 9,000 lbs. of fruit could be processed daily. The building itself was composed of brick and wood with a corrugated iron roof. A mid-sized warehouse was erected near the railroad tracks, likely along a short spur.

In 1887, there was no cannery in the Pajaro Valley and refrigerated boxcars were still in their infancy, so all the fruit grown for export in the region was evaporated (dried) for shipment. Popular local fruits included German and French prunes, plums, peaches, apples, apricots, and nectarines. The Watsonville Transcript hoped that the success of the Watsonville Fruit Packing Company would lead to the opening of a cannery within a few years. With such a facility, a wider range of products could be shipped from the Pajaro Valley.

Sanborn fire insurance map showing the layout of the Watsonville Fruit Packing Company, 1888. [Library of Congress]

The Watsonville Fruit Dryer opened on August 2 with an optimistic goal of producing eight to ten tons of dried fruit per day. Their first production run was five tons of apricots, which was lower than intended because the company only had twenty staff initially. Ultimately, they ended up with between thirty and forty-five workers at any given time receiving an average pay of $7.00 per week.

The first season’s run was an indisputable success. The company paid top rates to farmers for their crops, with crates of apples selling for 25¢ to 30¢, resulting in $250 to $500 per acre profits for apple growers. By mid-November, the dryer had produced 40 tones of dried apricots, 25 tons of peaches, 30 of prunes, and 195 of apples. The success was so great that the company paid dividends of 25% to its investors in October. People in Santa Cruz began clamoring for their own dryer since so many fruits were discarded at the end of the season due to too high demand from farmers.

At the Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco in October, an elegant arrangement of a range of local products were displayed including contributions by the Martinellis, Struves, Tuttles, Charles Gallerly, and F. Ceschi, among others. The Pajaro Valley exhibit won a Special Silver Medal award and the Pajaro Valley finally entered the ranks of internationally-known agricultural production zones.

With the first year under its belt, the company planned for expansion in 1888. Its goal was to triple the refinery’s capacity to twenty-five to thirty tons of fruit per day and employ 100 staff to manage the enlarged facility. The dryer’s second season began in mid-July with a large stock of apricots. Unlike the first year, the Watsonville Fruit Packing Company appears to have expanded to working directly with local farmers to dry their fruit rather than buying the fruit outright. At least one local firm, Besse & Still, did this to create novelty fruit boxes for the Eastern market in September. Little else is known about the company in its second season, however. Two Sanborn Fire Insurance maps imply the dryer was permanently closed from February 1888, but other evidence suggests this is incorrect. Nonetheless, competition began heating up with other fruit growers, who saw the financial potential of establishing their own dryers.

Business card for L. G. Sresovich & Company of San Francisco, ca 1895.

June 1889 saw the dryer leased for the season to L. G. Sresovich & Company, a San Francisco-based fruit dealer. Lucas G. Sresovich was born in Dalmatia (modern Croatia) on August 18, 1848 and immigrated to the United States around 1866. Upon his arrival in California, he enrolled in a program at Santa Clara College to become a bookkeeper, a course in which he excelled. He expressed an early interest in the local fruit industry and quickly put his bookkeeping skills to use when he founded L. G. Sresovich Company in 1870.

The earliest advertisement for the company’s wholesale domestic and imported fruits business appeared in the Daily Alta California on June 17, 1872, at which time it appeared to be new. The company based its operations in San Francisco but eventually owned properties across the Central Coast of California. Sresovich achieved renown for its Pioneer brand of desiccated coconut. However, the firm also dried or canned bananas, citrus, dates, onions, and other fruits from around the Pacific Ocean. Their largest market was Hawai’i, where advertisements from the firm appeared regularly in newspapers for nearly thirty years. The company won many awards of the decades for its different fruit varieties and was well respected in California.

Pioneer brand desiccated Cocoanut, sold by L. G. Sresovich & Co., from Los Angeles Herald advertisement, April l25, 1890.

Luke Sresovich first visited Santa Cruz County in 1876 to buy apples that he could pack and ship. Through this and future exchanges, Sresovich became one of the first Slavs involved in the local agricultural scene. Initially, the company shipped fruit out of Pajaro, likely to avoid transfer charges from narrow- to standard-gauge trains. It boxed fruits in rented buildings in Watsonville before shipping them to San José and San Francisco.

By 1884, Sresovich was the largest fruit buyer in Santa Cruz County with apples the primary product purchased. In August, the firm purchased land on Main Street in Watsonville for an apple packing house. It also began leasing and buying orchards in Watsonville, Pajaro, Corralitos, and Green Valley. For the 1885 harvest season, it employed thirty boys to pack 20,000 boxes of apples for shipment. By 1887, it was considering moving its primary drier to Watsonville, but financial problems led to the collapse of his business in late 1887. The company quickly regained its footing and resumed leasing orchards.

Sresovich first attempted to dry fruit locally through its lease of the Watsonville Fruit Packing Company’s plant in June 1889. Curiously, the company did not use the facility much and instead dried most of its apricots and prunes in the sun. In 1890, the firm decided to build a new packing plant in Capitola.

1889 proved to be the last year for Watsonville Fruit Packing Company. A new board of directors was elected in April composed of J. S. Menasco, A. Lewis, Otto D. Stoesser, M. A. Hudson, William McGrath, H. K. Goodwin, and John A. Burton—likely all members of the original board. A month later, on May 13, the directors filed for disincorporation, with a hearing before the Superior Court set for June 20. Why the business wanted to close after only three years is unknown, but several new fruit dryers had opened in Watsonville and Pajaro since 1887. The directors likely wanted to get out while the going was still good and they could maximize their profits. Approval was granted on June 30 and the directors cashed out their shares at $26.70 each, a rich payout assuming the shares initially sold for $1.00 each, as was standard at the time.

The Watsonville Fruit Packaging Company’s property, including the evaporation plant, was sold to the Pajaro Valley Railroad Company, a subsidiary of Claus Spreckels’ Western Beet Sugar Company. Spreckels purchased the property because of its location—it sat immediately beside the path of his new railroad and would provide a perfect spot for the company’s passenger depot and freight house. The Pajaronian suggested the plant was being used for something other than drying in 1890 but would be moved and returned to its original function in the near future. It is unclear what it was being used for but it likely never reopened. The only part of the plant that was used was its small warehouse beside the railroad tracks, which was moved to become the depot and freight house for the railroad. The drier was removed at some point after May 1892.

Sanborn fire insurance map showing the layout of the Watsonville Fruit Packing Company's dryer shortly after it was taken over by the Pajaro Valley Railroad Company, 1892. [Library of Congress]

The Sresovich Company, meanwhile, completed its new packing house in Capitola in 1892 and situated near the railroad depot. It employed around fifteen boys. Its first shipment was pears sent to Chicago, and the Sentinel noted that it was the first fruit ever shipped to the East from Soquel. On average, Sresovich exported two carloads of fruit a week from the Capitola house during packing season. The facility was upgraded into a full dryer by October 1892. By November, the house had shipped out 20,000 boxes of apples, and the newspaper advised growers that Sresovich would buy apples any time of the year. A second packing house was eventually built beside the first to deal with the excess boxes.

For the next few years, operations continued like clockwork, with Sresovich’s fruit buyers leasing orchards or buying fruit stocks and then hauling them to Capitola for packing. Around 1894, the company leased space in M. N. Lettunich & Company’s packing house beside Watsonville Depot. In total, 24,000 boxes of apples shipped out that year. However, competition with other local fruit buyers and growers had become fierce and somebody in the county had it in for L. G. Sresovich Company.

In October and November 1897, all of Sresovich’s fruit packing houses in Santa Cruz County were burned down by arsonists. Over 55,000 boxes of apples ready for shipment were destroyed between the three structures. Undaunted, the company pledged to rebuild, but financial realities got in the way. By March 1898, Sresovich was facing increasing financial problems from years of heavy borrowing during a recession, when fruits were not making as much money as his costs.

A partial recovery may have come through the purchase of the fruit-buying company of his longtime rival, Marko Rabasa, in 1898. By the second half of the year, Sresovich resumed purchasing fruits for export. Business continued for the next five years as if nothing had happened. At some point, the company must have rebuilt its Capitola packing house and dryer because it was set alight again on August 2, 1900. Five days later, the adjacent barn was also destroyed by arson. A new packing house must also have been built in Watsonville since once was operating in 1901 and shipping out 35,000 boxes of apples in 1903. Meanwhile, yet another fire burned down a packing house in San Francisco in November 1901, amounting to $15,000 in damage.

Portrait of Luke Sresovich from his obituary in the San Francisco Call, May 13, 1908.

Despite suggestions that Sresovich was doing better financially, a poor fruit market followed by several condemned shipments in early 1904 revealed that the company remained in substantial debt. In April of that year, Luke Sresovich also suffered a personal tragedy with the sudden death of his wife, Mary Caroline, in a streetcar accident in San Francisco. Bereft and with few options, Sresovich allowed the company to fall into insolvency on April 3, 1905. As before, he soon attempted to revive his fruit empire with a shipment of apples from Capitola to Los Angeles, and he continued the next year by buying a large quantity of cherries in Santa Cruz.

Still, Sresovich was haunted by the memory of his wife. Her estate in Capitola was listed for sale in January 1907, but much of the property burned down in a suspicious fire in May. Suffering increasing bouts of depression from the loss of his wife, Sresovich likely committed suicide during a hunting trip at Brentwood in Contra Costa County on May 10, 1908. Since 1905, his company had operated within Santa Cruz County under the name of his son, L. Geo. Sresovich Jr., but his son sold the company to the Santa Cruz Produce Company in June 1907.

Citations & Credits:

• Circa Historic Property Development. “Historic Context Statement for the City of Watsonville.” Final report. Watsonville, CA: Circa Historic Property Develop-ment, 2007.
• Ninkovich, Thomas, ed. The Slav Community of Watsonville, California, as reported in old newspapers. Watsonville, CA: Reunion Research, 2014.
• O’Connell, Daniel. The Inner Man: Good Things to Eat and Where to Get Them. San Francisco, CA: Bancroft Company, 1891.

Download expanded and fully-cited versions of these articles:

• L. G. Sresovich Company
• Watsonville Fruit Packing Company

Events: The Earthquake of April 18, 1906

On the evening of April 17, 1906, the Central Coast of California was on the brink of big changes for local railroads. After nearly twenty years, the Southern Pacific Railroad was finally upgrading its narrow-gauge route along the old South Pacific Coast Railway line from Alameda Point to Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, the Loma Prieta Lumber Company's mill in the Hinckley Basin off Soquel Creek had just started up again for a new season and the F. A. Hihn mill at Laurel was revving up for its fifth full season. Along the North Coast, the Ocean Shore Railway had just reached Davenport where the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company was busy building its new refinery, while the Coast Line Railroad, owned by Southern Pacific, was lagging behind with its tracks through the West Side still under construction. Southern Pacific crews elsewhere in the county had recently finished a substantial survey for a route north of Boulder Creek into the Pescadero Creek basin, where they hoped to build a new connecting loop line that would eventually wrap back south to Davenport and allow access to millions of board feet of lumber in the Pescadero valley. The Ocean Shore was also interested in such a loop route, as well as an electric streetcar line into Big Basin. At around the same time, the Western Shore Lumber Company, owned by Loma Prieta Lumber Company executives, was founded to harvest these tracts as soon as possible. The vision for local railroading ventures was boundless.

A stretch of three-rail track displaced by the earthquake above Los Gatos Creek near Wrights, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Earthquakes were not a new phenomenon in California—the indigenous Awaswas people were keenly familiar with them and even the earliest Spanish settlers experienced them somewhat frequently. Every generation of Californian eventually came to terms with the fact that the San Andreas Fault was more unpredictable and temperamental than your average fault line. But the temblor that struck the Bay Area on the morning of April 18, 1906, was unlike any the state had felt since it became a United States possession. Most of the Central Coast was still either sleeping or just emerging from rest when it struck. Railroad workers were just beginning their morning shifts, with construction crews preparing to toss off the third rail between San José and Los Gatos, their work of upgrading the line nearly complete. People in the mountains were lighting fireplaces and stoves for their morning coffee and tea. Mill donkey engines were warming up, too, preparing for a long day of sawing cut logs into lumber. None of them anticipated the destruction that would violently interrupt their peace and destroy all plans for the foreseeable future.

An Ocean Shore Railway train assisting in clearing debris from the ruins of San Francisco, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

The sun was only minutes from rising over the distant Sierra Nevada at 5:12 a.m. when the world first shifted. Frederick A. Hihn, who was staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco that day, recounted:

I felt the earthquake coming—much harder than I had ever experienced. The plaster from all around the sides of the room fell in large pieces, while in the middle of the room where my bed was, only sand and dust came down. The quake seemed to continue more than five minutes though it really lasted less than two minutes. It seemed to try its best to shake me out of bed, but I succeeded in staying in. As soon as it subsided I arose and turned on the electric light. Its unsteadiness proved there was an interference which indicated danger to the house being set afire.

He was right to fear the unsteady flames of his lamp—much of San Francisco would burn over the next week due to broken gas lines and open flames causing an inferno through the heart of downtown. The palatial mansions of the Big Four on Nob Hill were among the victims of the fires as were the corporate offices of the Ocean Shore Railway and some of the offices of the Southern Pacific. Over 80% of the city was damaged or destroyed in the temblor and inferno.

A displaced fence caused by a rift through a person's property near Wrights, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

The earthquake hit in waves, with an initial rumble at 5:12 that woke up much of the Bay Area, and a more severe blast about 30 seconds later, that would later be estimated at about 7.9 on the Richter scale. It was the single greatest earthquake in the recorded history of the West Coast. As few as 700 and as many as several thousand people perished in the quake and ensuing fires, making it also the deadliest natural disaster in California. Aftershocks continued for weeks, causing mayhem and straining nerves. The dispersion of energy from the fault led to earthquakes elsewhere in the state, as well, as far south as the Imperial Valley and as far north as Eureka, where a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck on April 23. Nobody in California rested easy in the month after April 18, 1906.

Twisted rails caused by the earthquake along the viaduct at Moss Landing, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Further south, outside Los Gatos at a station named Bermingham, the powder warehouse for the New Almaden quicksilver mines, operated by the California Powder Works, erupted in a massive explosion, although it appears nobody was killed in the incident. Throughout the Bay Area, including along Los Gatos Creek and as far south as the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad's track at Moss Landing, rails were twisted and grades shifted. Even the course of the Salinas River moved from Elkhorn Slough to an old channel northeast of Marina. In truth, the integrity of the entire network of rails that spanned the Central Coast was questioned with surveyors needed to verify that trackage was still stable and reliable. In many places, it was not and required sometimes substantial repairs before rolling stock could pass over it again. For example, the Southern Pacific bridge over the Pajaro River south of Chittenden shifted over three feet off its piers, ultimately destabilizing the bridge. The bridge spanned the San Andreas Fault.

Cracked piers under the Pajaro River bridge near Chittenden, with temporary trestling to maintain the integrity of the span, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Overall, the damage in Santa Cruz County was substantially less than in San Francisco, largely because no fires swept through the cities and towns. After Hihn returned from San Francisco he recounted his observations:

At Watsonville I found the damage by the earthquake light comparative to San Francisco and San Jose. There I took another team which brought me to Santa Cruz about five o’clock where I was received with great pleasure by many of my friends and family, who had feared I was lost.

The loss by earthquake at Santa Cruz is comparatively light. Our office building suffered perhaps the most although it was the strongest building. The Court house seems to have been considerably injured and a few other places.

Wreckage at the site of the Hinckley mill, 1906. [Popular Science Monthly]

Eleven people died in the county as a direct result of the earthquake, all but two of whom were killed in a massive landslide that completely buried the Loma Prieta mill on Hinckley Gulch. The Surf reported:

Here both sides of the canyon walls appeared to crush together and a mass of earth estimated at a hundred feet in depth filled the canyon, crushing in and burying the workmen who were living in cabins at work on the new mill

Mill, buildings and road were all submerged. Mr. Williams, the resident representative of the company, sent doctors to the scene, and dispatched laborers by the wagonload as fast as they could be obtained, but on arrival at the scene it was found impossible to reach the men or to make much progress in rescue work. The stream is completely choked by the debris, and the impounded water will form a menace to all the valley below.

The entombed men, as far as known, are believed to be Foreman [James] Walker; J. O. Dunham (the engineer); H. E. Estrada; Alex Morrison; Gus Vollandt; Frank Jones; Fred Peaslee; A. Buckley; and Charley June (the Chinese cook).

Part of the landslide that cost the lives of nine millworkers on Hinckley Creek, 1906. [Popular Science Monthly]

David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, added that the "mill was completely buried, with nine mill hands, and a redwood tree over a hundred feet high was set erect and unhurt over the place where the mill stood. The bodies of six men were recovered. One of these, the foreman, was found erect, smothered in mud, standing with extended arms and limbs in the act of running from the mill. With him, equally erect and in the act of running, was the body of a Siberian mastiff." The other two deaths in the county were two men who were caught in a similar slide at the Hartman and McNabb mill on Deer Creek north of Boulder Creek.

The slide on Deer Creek that cost the lives of two millworkers, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Jordan wrote a detailed forensic analysis of the earthquake's geomorphic impact to the Monterey Bay, explaining:

The crack went on across the hills, always in the same direction, southeast by south, till it came to the Chittenden Ranch in the Pájaro Valley. Here it tore off the hillside, destroying the highway at its base; then descended to the Pájaro River, shifting a pier of its railroad bridge about eighteen inches to the northwest. Here it met the Pájaro cross-fault. But here the straight line from Point Arena came to an end. A series of short breaks creeps off to the southeast, ending two miles southwest of San Juan, the last act being the final, almost complete, wreck of the beautiful and venerable Mission of San Juan Bautista.

Rift through the road caused by the earthquake at the entrance to Watsonville's Chinatown, 1906. [Pajaro Valley Historical Association]

A letter by a member of Hihn's staff, dated the day after the quake, gave more particulars regarding damage to downtown Santa Cruz and to the operations of the Hihn company:

Very heavy earthquake here. Court House badly damaged. Office building [of F. A. Hihn] — rear wall down above second story and side walls cracked. Other buildings of the Company were on lines injured. Two thirds of the chimneys in the entire town off. Might have been worse but bad enough. We suppose you have received reports from the Hinckley Mill. Nine lives being lost and two at Boulder Creek.

Watsonville badly shaken. San Jose, several buildings down. San Francisco reports the earthquake did not do much damage but the fire has burned from the Ferry to Seventeenth Street and Larkin Valley. Lick House reported burnt so the fire must have crossed Market as the report also says Battery Street building is on fire.

Fix up the water works first and clear creek of lumber. Do not think advisable to do more than necessary to place things in order until Mr. F. A. Hihn returns. Have sent four different parties to San Francisco but have not been able to receive any information in regard to Mr. Hihn. Party reports leaving Palace at 9 o’clock after earthquake and the Palace Hotel not injured a great deal, thus was greatly relieved in regard to Mr. Hihn being injured.

Can order meat sent to Glenwood if advisable. Think advisable not to build fire under boilers or run any portion of the Mill until F. A. Hihn returns as every portion should be inspected. Think advisable to stop all other operation to skid road and other work until we secure some information in regard to time it will take to clear tunnels for operation.

Instruct all tenants not to build fires in chimneys where broken below the roof. Do not delay in fixing water mains.

The shifted wall within the Summit Tunnel, the town of Wrights visible through the portal at right, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify] 

In the end, much of the damage around the Monterey Bay and in the Santa Cruz Mountains was relatively easy to repair. The biggest problem, however, was the damage to the Southern Pacific route through the Santa Cruz Mountains. Besides small landslides, sinks, washouts, shifts in the grade, and twisted rails, the route had suffered a monumental blow to the Summit Tunnel, which experienced an internal lateral shift of five feet at about 400 feet inside from the Wright's side. In the weeks after the quake, Southern Pacific Engineer Everett P. Carey assessed the tunnel, concluding:

The damage to the tunnel itself consisted in the caving in of overhead rock; the crushing in toward the center of the tunnel of the lateral upright timbers, and the heaving upward of the rails, due to the upward displacement of the underlying ties. In some instances, these ties were broken in the middle. In general the top of the tunnel was carried both north or northwest with reference to the bottom.

This should have been predicted—the San Andreas Fault passed directly through the tunnel on its northern side and a coal vein linked to this fault line had released methane and oil into the tunnel in 1879, prompting a deadly explosion. Repairs after a massive landslide in 1893 had led to the upgrading of the portal on the Wright's side, which also addressed more definitively the methane leak but not the potential problem of the fault line, which engineers had positively identified as such as early as the 1880s.

Work crews inside the Summit Tunnel, ca 1907. [Derek Whaley – colorized using DeOldify]

With the Summit Tunnel out of commission, work on standard-gauging the line came to a halt, as did all traffic along the line. Any railroad traffic into Santa Cruz would have to go via Pajaro once those tracks were repaired. Indeed, for several days, Santa Cruz County was almost entirely cut off from the outside world, with telegraph and telephone wires severed and transportation difficult across ruined bridges and suddenly uneven roads. The Laurel-Glenwood Tunnel and the smaller tunnels along the southern portion of the mountain line mostly survived the quake and were back in working order within weeks. As a result, Hihn opened up a shingle mill at Laurel to cut crossties, bents, and posts to repair the railroad lines, while he relocated the rest of the mill's machinery to King's Creek north of Boulder Creek, where he produced lumber for the rebuilding of downtown Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and the other more severely hit Bay Area towns.

Derailed fruit boxcars that were awaiting shipment at Chittenden, 1906. [Graniterock – colorized using DeOldify]

The Railroad Wharf, which had only occasionally been used for the past decade, once more became a primary means of shipping goods and steamships called in regularly in the months after the quake to collect lumber, lime, and blasting powder, and other products for use in San Francisco and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the mountain tracks remained narrow-gauge and would continue to be so for the foreseeable future until the tunnels and existing infrastructure were repaired. Much of the old rolling stock had already been sold, meaning that operations relied heavily on California Timber Company stock and locomotives and other long-outdated machinery.

Closeup of the temporary trestlework done to the Pajaro River bridge near Chittenden to reinforce the structure, 1906. [Bancroft Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Relying on old machinery and obsolete track gauges meant that Southern Pacific had to work fast to restore access to Santa Cruz County. The Pajaro River bridge was restored to functionality via a complex wooden trestle frame installed around the collapsed piers. The remainder of the coastal route was repaired over late spring and operating again by summer. The next step was to standard-gauge the track from Santa Cruz to Boulder Creek to facilitate the easy transfer of lumber between the two points. Unfortunately, this required replacing the bridge over the San Lorenzo River south of Felton and several other bridges on the way to Boulder Creek. The tight curves along San Lorenzo Gorge, as well as the tunnels, delayed progress more since the curves had to be lessened and the tunnel enlarged. The route only opened to standard-gauge traffic in June 1907, although narrow-gauge tracks still existed to Old Felton, from the Newell Creek Mill, and along the Dougherty Extension.

Repair camp at Wrights outside the Summit Tunnel, February 22, 1907. Photograph by Frank Herman Mattern. [Greg De Santis – colorized using DeOldify]

Meanwhile, repairs to the narrow-gauge track from Felton to Laurel, including to the tunnels, was completed by July, allowing wood products produced in Laurel to get to market. In early 1907, Southern Pacific announced that it did not intend to reopen the mountain route at all until the route was broad-gauged, meaning that the line would remain out of commission for at least another year. In reality, it took over two years, largely because of the economic Panic of 1907, which was partially caused by the earthquake. Reconstruction efforts in San Francisco brought in millions of dollars of funds from the East Coast but this led to an imbalance in investing in the market. From January 1906 to July 1907, the stock market became increasingly unstable culminating in a crisis in October 1907. These financial issues caused Southern Pacific to become more cautious with its spending, in effect delaying the upgrading of the mountain route and shelving plans for a Pescadero route or an extension of the Coast Line.  The panic also led to the temporary closure of several mills due to a lack of funds for building projects and a surplus of building materials.

Washout out Ocean Shore Railway tracks at Devil's Slide, 1906. [Huntington Library – colorized using DeOldify]

Following a year of uncertainty and little progress, Southern Pacific resumed upgrading in late 1908. On the North Coast, the Coast Line to Davenport was completed and the Ocean Shore Railway, which had suffered heavy financial loses in the earthquake and the panic, resumed work on a line from its temporary terminus at Scott to Swanton, where it had received a contract from the San Vicente Lumber Company in 1908 to use its line to transport logs. At Wright, Laurel, and Glenwood, Italian, Greek, and Japanese workers were brought in to finish the standard-gauging of the mountain route and enlarge the four tunnels still in need of upgrading. On May 29, 1909, the route was finally opened to standard-gauge trains and the last physical impairment caused by the earthquake in Santa Cruz County was removed.

Destroyed crushing plant along the tracks at the Graniterock quarry at Logan, 1906. [Graniterock – colorized using DeOldify]

The earthquake, however, had a long shadow and its long-term impact on the people of Santa Cruz County was felt in several ways. The hit to the tourism industry in the San Lorenzo Valley was permanent. Places like the Hotel de Redwood near Laurel, the various Glenwood resorts, Brookdale, and even Big Trees suffered and never full recovered since people were more weary and also had less cash to spend on travel. By the time the economy had recovered, the Model T Ford had arrived and people decreasingly spent their entire summers in one place as they had prior to the earthquake. While Fred Swanton's Neptune Casino and Plunge at the Santa Cruz waterfront survived the earthquake, both burned down only two months later and the economic fallout from the Panic of 1907 was one of the primary reasons why Swanton became increasingly desperate from 1908 to turn a profit with his rebuilt Casino and Natatorium. 

Debris blocking the flow of Los Gatos Creek creating a pond beside the three-rail tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad, 1906. [Derek Whaley – colorized using DeOldify]

Meanwhile, Southern Pacific shelving most of its ambitious plans for the region meant that all of the local lines were doomed to a slow abandonment once their principal industries closed down. Indeed, the need for lumber to rebuild San Francisco greatly expedited the timber harvesting efforts at the headwaters of Pescadero Creek, on Bear, Deer, Two Bar, and King's Creeks, in the Aptos and Soquel Creek basins, within Rancho San Vicente, and in the Newell Creek basin, leading to the decimation the county's remaining old-growth redwood by about 1920. With these sources of timber gone, branch lines began to shut down—the Newell Creek Branch in 1913, the Dougherty Extension in 1917, the Ocean Shore-San Vicente line in 1923, the Loma Prieta Branch in 1927, the Boulder Creek Branch in 1934, and the mountain section in 1940.

Hay barn and stable damaged by the earthquake at Scaroni's Ranch on the North Coast near Davenport, 1906. [Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using DeOldify]

Lastly, the costs associated with recovering from the earthquake's damage to its lines around Devil's Slide near Pacifica, as well as from the fallout of the panic in 1907 and further damage caused by destructive storms in January 1909, led to the financial collapse of the Ocean Shore Railway by December 1909. In January 1911, a new company, the Ocean Shore Railroad, was formed to revive the dream, but its scope was narrower and its dreams more realistic. In the end, it too failed to connect with the northern line that abruptly stopped just south of Tunitas. The Coast Line, with no functional competition and a ready customer in the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company at Davenport, abandoned its plans to continue the line north to San Francisco or even to Pescadero, permanently ending the dream of a railroad line along the North Coast.

The Santa Cruz County Court House (Cooper House) undergoing repairs following the earthquake, 1906. [UCSC Legacy Digital Collections – colorized using DeOldify]

There are moments in history when everything changes in a moment. For California, that moment was the San Francisco Earthquake. Even though the Central Coast quickly recovered and most of the quake's visible scars were wiped away through new construction and renewed economic activity, the delay of roughly five years of progress stripped San Francisco of its central position in California politics. During this time, San Pedro Harbor opened in Los Angeles, slowly displacing San Francisco as the state's primary industrial port. The film industry also settled in the Los Angeles basin rather than the Bay Area during this time, partially due to a lack of space and facilities caused by the lingering impact of the earthquake. And the expansion of the automobile meant that people could travel farther and control their destination more acutely, which led to the slow abandonment of many formerly-popular vacation spots along the Central Coast. While the earthquake alone did not cause the diminution of the Bay Area, its timing was poor and certainly eased the shifting of political power to the rapidly-developing south.

Citations & Credits:

• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2007.
• Hihn, Frederick A. Letter written by F. A. Hihn regarding the San Francisco earthquake and fire of Wednesday, April 18, 1906. Santa Cruz, CA: University of California, Santa Cruz, Library.
• Jordan, David Starr. "The Earthquake Rift of 1906," Popular Science Monthly 69 (Oct. 1906).
• Powell, Ronald G. The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part Three of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, forthcoming.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, forthcoming.