Stations: Orby

Orby served as the Coast Line Railway’s primary team track south of Davenport, where rolling stock could park along its 2,600-foot-long (52 carlengths) siding that ran from a point slightly east of Swift Street to just before the Cliff Drive (now Natural Bridges Drive) crossing. The station itself was located west of Swift Street and featured a sign and a platform, but no other facilities. Though few people lived in the vicinity of the station, passengers could flag trains or stop there. What other purpose Orby served when it was established is unknown, yet the Ocean Shore Railway a quarter mile to the south clearly saw the same potential. The Shore Line Investment Company, Ocean Shore’s real estate subsidiary, had purchased 35 acres of Louis C. Rapetta’s ranch in June 1905, though what the company planned to do with this is unknown. When the San Vicente Lumber Company began scouting for sites to erect a massive lumber mill, Ocean Shore offered the ranch, which, after some bureaucratic delays, the company accepted. The location was directly between the lines of the Ocean Shore Railway—which set up a station named Rapetti sometime in mid-1908—and the Coast Line Railway’s Orby station.

The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company factory on Mission Street on the West Side of Santa Cruz, circa 1955. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The San Vicente Lumber Company’s mill and yard quickly evolved into an interchange between the two railroads. A long, curving track passed through the yard, linking the lines and eliminating the need for the junction further west at Wilder’s Ranch. Trackage within the mill property catered to both railroads. Ocean Shore maintained a siding that ran along the north side of the Moore Creek fill to allow carloads of timber to be dumped into the adjacent millpond (today’s Antonelli Pond). Another spur supported a repair shop for the lumber company’s rolling stock, while a car shed straddled the main track through the yard. On the northern end of the property, two spurs connected to the main track just before its connection with the Coast Line Railway. These spurs allowed cars to be rolled directly from the lumber stacks to Orby’s siding, where the daily freight train collected them.

San Vicente Lumber Company viewed northeast from the Ocean Shore tracks across the log pond, circa 1920. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

After the Ocean Shore Railroad collapsed in late 1920, the San Vicente Lumber Company took over most of the line and ran it until early 1923. By this time, the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company plant in Davenport had extensive trackage and there was little need for the extra siding space at Orby. In response, Southern Pacific reduced its siding length to 43 carlengths in May 1923. However, a new freight customer arrived on the scene just in time to save the station. In November 1922, Walti, Schilling & Company acquired 70 acres from Stella Tolle west of Moore Creek on Shaffer Road. The company needed to replace its aging slaughterhouse and stockyard on 7th Avenue near Twin Lakes and this new location outside the city limits, on a large tract, and directly alongside the Davenport Branch, was a perfect solution. The company only needed 10 acres for its cold storage plant and modern slaughterhouse, so it leased the remaining acreage to G. Marcucci and P. Guidotti, who planned to grow artichokes on the property. The Walti–Schilling plant opened in late 1923, supported by a private spur installed by Southern Pacific.

The fire at the Coast Drum and Box Company factory on Mission Street, September 4, 1953. [Santa Cruz Sentinel-News – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although Orby maintained a flag stop until the end of passenger service on the Davenport Branch in 1932, few people lived around the station or called trains there. In 1936, the Santa Cruz City Council rezoned the area around the spur for industrial use, opening it up for development. The first customer was John L. Debenedetti, who negotiated with the Union Ice Company to erect a cold storage warehouse for artichokes and peas. Competition heated up the next year when two businesses opened a shared facility between Swift Street and Fair Avenue to the east. The Coast Drum & Box Company had been operating in Davenport since the late 1920s but had been acquired in 1937 by the Half Moon Bay Drum & Box Company, run by Louis G. Pardini. The company relocated in September 1937 to Fair Avenue, where it built a substantial box, drum, basket, and lumber mill. Directly to the west, the Santa Cruz Artichoke and Brussels Sprout Growers’ Association built a packing house, with its workers using the manufactured products from next door. Southern Pacific installed a split spur to access both facilities. The Half Moon Bay Drum & Box Company’s primary plant in Daly City burned down in May 1939, leading Pardini to shift all of the company’s operations south to Santa Cruz.

Label for Pfyffer Bros. Brussels sprouts, packed at the company's plant on the West Side, circa 1950.

Other vegetable packing plants moved in over the next two decades. Davenport Artichoke Growers and Shippers relocated from its namesake town in October 1940 and was rebranded as Pfyffer Brothers, owned by Fred and Joseph Pfyffer. The Birds Eye division of the General Foods Corporation took over the former Santa Cruz Artichoke and Brussels Sprout Growers’ Association packing house in summer 1951, though it had been operating in part of the facility since 1948. In turn, the growers association moved into a new plant on nearby Ingalls Street in February 1952. Edward V. Moceo, sales manager of the company, quit following the move. In 1959, he founded his own packing firm, E. V. Moceo Company, in a new facility on Almar Avenue, which afterwards served as the easternmost extent of the industrial area. Santa Cruz had become one of the largest vegetable packing centers in California, collecting produce grown along the entire Santa Cruz North Coast and San Mateo County coastline by train and truck. Every harvest season throughout the 1940s, four to five boxcars left daily from the spur at Orby, supplying grocery stores and restaurants across the Central Coast and beyond.

The Thomas J. Lipton Company factory on the West Side, circa 1971. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz]

Despite all of this activity, Southern Pacific decided that Orby could just as well function as a northern extension of its downtown yard and, therefore, abandoned the station on August 1, 1954. That same day, the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company’s chewing gum and candy factory opened to great anticipation. Construction of the plant had begun in 1951 and required the relocation of the Debenedetti’s warehouse and the installation of a 400-foot-long siding, which ran along the entire south side of the plant. The company employed hundreds of staff year-round, leading to the suburban development of the West Side to the city limits. The largescale factory also attracted other new industries to the area. The Borchers Brothers construction firm moved to Fair Avenue in 1964. It did not stay for long, though, and in 1968 the warehouse was taken over by Peerless Portable Metal Buildings. In 1970, the Mondo Bros. Distributing Company moved from Amat Street to a warehouse and office on a spur just beside Swift Street, wholesaling in beer and wine. The last and largest industry to arrive in the West Side came on July 6, 1971: the Thomas J. Lipton Company. This massive complex sat slightly below the railroad grade, so a forked pair of spurs curved down from Swift Street to two loading bays on the north side of the plant. It more than doubled the number of year-round jobs provided by the other businesses, cementing the West Side as a core industrial center in Santa Cruz.

Liquid cars parked behind a diesel locomotive beside the Wrigley plant, 2010. [Courtesy 1TrickPony at West Coast Rail Forms]

The year 1970 was the peak for the former Orby area, and the decline came swiftly after. Previously in December 1954, the Coast Drum & Box Company had rebranded as the Santa Cruz Veneer Products Company but the firm shut down in 1967 due to high costs and declining sales. It would not be the last. The West Side’s success had drawn hundreds of families to the crowded cliffs overlooking the Monterey Bay. Joining these were an increasing number of Silicon Valley tech workers who wanted beachfront property within reach of their workplaces. As a result, property costs skyrocketed and the local industries struggled to turn a profit. The packing houses shuttered first, followed by the larger industries. Reluctantly and with much public dismay, Lipton shut its doors on December 14, 2002, the last freight customer still operating on the West Side. Shortly afterwards, Union Pacific detached the Wrigley siding and Mondo Bros. spur and removed the Lipton spur.

A cement car and diesel locomotive on the Swift Street siding, 2010. [Courtesy 1TrickPony at West Coast Rail Forms]

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

36.95933, -122.05028

The Monterey Bay Sanctuary Trail runs directly beside the Swift Street Siding, which was used into the mid-2010s to temporarily park rolling stock. Remnants of the spurs can still be seen beside the main track and almost all of the buildings that once used these spurs still stand, playing host to a wide variety of commercial and light industrial businesses. While the tracks are the property of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and trespassing is not allowed, most of the surviving rail infrastructure can be viewed from the safety of the adjacent trail.

Credits & Citations:

• Henry E. Bender, Jr., "SP Davenport Branch
• The Bulletin. 1907.
• Department of Commerce and Labor—Coast and Geodetic Survey. "Santa Cruz Harbor and Vicinity, California." 1910.
• The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. 1907.
• San Mateo Times. 1930.
• Santa Cruz Evening News. 1922–1940.
• Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel. 1905.
• Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel. 1936.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel. 1959–2002.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel–News. 1951–1954.
• Santa Cruz Surf. 1908.
• Shore Line Investment Company. "Rapetta Ranch." Undated. Courtesy California State Library.
• Southern Pacific Company. Coast Division Time Tables. 1907-1923.
• Southern Pacific Company. List of Officers, Agencies and Stations. 1949.
• Southern Pacific Company. "Orby station plan." July 1909. Courtesy California State Library.
• Union Pacific Railroad Company. Roseville Service Unit—Santa Cruz Industrial Lead, Davenport, CA. March 17, 2004.

Stations: Molino

The Southern Pacific Railroad did not employ the most creative naming scheme on its Loma Prieta Branch. Three stations have Spanish names, three are descriptive, and one is named after a property owner. Molino was no exception: a Spanish name describing a place, specifically a mill. However, Molino lived two lives, once in the mid-1880s and again from 1911. In both cases, it was often called Molino Junction since it marked the place where a spur line broke off from the branch line, initially to access the shingle mill of the Pacific Improvement Company situated on a small rocky floodplain, later the site of the Loma Prieta Lumber Company’s main mill.

The only known photograph of Molino in its first iteration, showing the Loma Prieta Branch to the left and the shingle mill spur to the right, with no facilities other than a station sign, circa 1885. [Courtesy Timothy Hopkins Collection, Stanford University – colorized using MyHeritage]

The site of Molino was first reached by Loma Prieta Railroad construction crews around August 1883, making it the oldest station on the line. Crews divided their focus at Molino, with the main force of men working on the branch line and a smaller force grading a 320-foot-long spur across Aptos Creek to the shingle mill, located on the property of Timothy Hopkins. No railroad documentation of the station from this period survives, but supporting evidence strongly suggests that it was officially recognized by the Southern Pacific Railroad when it took direct control over the route in 1884. A single photograph taken about 1885 shows a large sign marking the station, but no other facilities.

The shingle mill on the Molino spur, 1884. [Courtesy California State Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

During its lifetime, the spur leading from Molino was in constant year-round use. The shingle mill was the largest such operation in the county’s history to date. Daily operations were overseen by Frank Simmons on behalf of the Loma Prieta Lumber Company. The facility ran day and night throughout 1885, which was unusual at the time, and it produced around fourteen million shingles that year. The mill was supported by a meandering narrow-gauge railroad that ran south, crisscrossing Aptos Creek several times until reaching the edge of the southern edge of Rancho Soquel Augmentation, near today’s steel bridge over the creek.

Everything changed for Molino following a disastrous fire at the Loma Prieta Lumber Company’s primary lumber mill further down the line at Monte Vista on May 13, 1885. Rather than rebuild, the company decided to relocate its mill south to the site of the shingle mill. Preparation of the site commenced in spring 1886 and work on a new dam across Aptos Creek began in August under the direction of Kinsman Brothers of San Francisco. New trackage were built from Molino to the mill site, and the equipment from the old mill was moved in the winter after the year’s lumber operations had ended. By the time the new mill opened in spring 1887, Molino had vanished as a recognized station, though nothing had actually changed at the station’s site. The switch remained and the sign likely survived for many more years, though it was gone by the late 1900s. The location never appeared on timetables or in station books during these years, though it was often included on maps, including those published by third parties.

Southern Pacific Railroad radii survey of the Loma Prieta Branch from Molino to Loma Prieta, circa 1908. [Courtesy California State Library]

The longevity of the name Molino proved itself when it was incorporated into the name of the Molino Timber Company in 1910. In June 1911, the station reappeared as a formal station and was finally included in official Southern Pacific documentation. Curiously, Molino was listed with a 156-foot-long spur, a feature not present in the area immediately around the switch. This suggests that the station may have expanded to encompass a larger area stretching as far as 0.25 miles to the south, where logging activity continued even as the Loma Prieta Lumber Company wound down operations at its Aptos Creek mill.

In the spring of 1901, German immigrant and Aptos farmer Lorenz Schilling and his son John took out a contract from Timothy Hopkins to cut timber along the tracks south of Molino. Although all of the surrounding area had been harvested seventeen years earlier, the trees lining the Loma Prieta Branch had been allowed to remain standing due to a dream by Southern Pacific’s investors that Loma Prieta would one day host a prosperous mountain resort. In hindsight and with the commercial potential of the Loma Prieta Branch reaching its end, it became clear to the railroad that any chance for a profitable tourism industry on the line had passed. As a result, the remaining trees were marked for felling.

Mules hauling wood at the Schillings' camp, circa 1903. [Courtesy Aptos History Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

The Schillings owned a pack of mules and used them to haul out splitstuff, which they cut where the trees fell. To support the operation, they built a workers’ camp beside the railroad tracks in a clearing south of Molino on the other side of a cut. It included a blacksmith shop, cabins, a cookhouse, a barn and hay store, and a supply shed. On the west side of the tracks across from the camp, Lorenz and John each built a cabin for himself and his family, where each lived for the next four years. Drinking water was provided from a pipeline extended from the village of Loma Prieta, with Spring Creek its ultimate source. The railroad built a short spur on the east side of the branch line into the camp so flatcars could be loaded without interrupting traffic continuing north. The operation at the Schillings’ camp ran through the summer of 1904. The spur track was left in place after the family closed shop.

Molino with dual-gauged tracks, circa 1915. [Composite of three photographs, courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, the Woods Mattingly Collections at the Aptos History Museum, and Santa Cruz Public Libraries – colorized using MyHeritage]

The Molino Timber Company converted the abandoned camp in late 1910 into a construction camp for making flatcars for its narrow-gauge railroad that ran along China Ridge. As a result, the location also served as the company’s southern end of track, though the standard-gauge tracks continued to Aptos. When the company was running at its peak in the mid-1910s, piles of splitstuff were stacked along either side of the tracks for nearly a mile north of the camp. This was never the intention, but market fluctuations and varying yields of splitstuff meant sometimes the supply far outstripped demand, leaving these stacks of unpurchased product waiting for a buyer. Molino Timber Company crews unloaded their freight and stacked it in such a way that it could be easily loaded onto a Southern Pacific flatcar whenever an order arrived. While this process led to double handling, it allowed the company to free up its small fleet of custom-made narrow-gauge flatcars quickly and avoided the need for a lumber yard, since most freight shipped out directly to customers via Southern Pacific.

Splitstuff stacked along the Loma Prieta Branch, circa 1915. [Courtesy Aptos History Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although the Molino Timber Company ceased working on China Ridge in late 1917 and went out of business completely at the end of 1919, Molino continued to be used by the Loma Prieta Lumber Company in its logging operations along Bridge Creek. It produced a mixture of lumber and splitstuff, which allowed the company to process felled timber more efficiently. To save money, the company acquired the narrow-gauge rolling stock of the Molino Timber Company, supplementing it with a second locomotive and more flatcars. This meant that the bridge over Aptos Creek at Molino had to be dual-gauged to allow the narrow-gauge trains to reach the mill, which the company rebuilt to support this new project. For five summers from 1917, lumber crews cut down every accessible redwood tree standing on either side of Bridge Creek and its tributaries. And then, sometime in the middle of the summer of 1921, the last tree was cut and fellers found themselves without anything to do. The lumber company was done with the Aptos Forest once and for all, and all that was left was to clean up.

A mule team beside piles of splitstuff at the former Schillings' camp, circa 1919. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

In an abstract way, Molino became the most important station on the Loma Prieta Branch after 1921. There was no point in continuing along the branch line to Loma Prieta, and the tracks beyond had been abandoned years earlier. The extremely limited traffic that ran on the line—mostly a rail speeder car operated by the property’s caretaker—only stopped at the mill site, accessible on the spur that split off at Molino. In 1925, Southern Pacific announced the end of all official service to the line, effective January 31, 1926. The Loma Prieta Lumber Company used this opportunity to remove the last of the uncut timber, lumber, and splitstuff from the mill property, as well as the usable machinery and other equipment still stored there. Molino was abandoned at the same time as the rest of the branch on February 19, 1928. The station’s site is still accessible today and can be found where the Loma Prieta Grade Trail separates from the Aptos Creek Fire Road within The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. The site of the Shillings’ camp and its spur is now the Porter Family Picnic Area.

Citations & Credits:

• Gilbert, M. E., ed. Santa Cruz County: A Faithful Reproduction in Print and Photography: Climate, Capabilities and Beauties. San Francisco: H. S. Crocker Company, 1896.
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• Interstate Commerce Commission. Finance Docket No. 6615 "Abandonment of Branch Line by Southern Pacific." January 20, 1928.
• Powell, Ronald G. The Reign of the Lumber Barons: Part Two of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, 2021.
• Powell, Ronald G. The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part Three of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, 2022.
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Miscellaneous records. 1887–1930.
• Various articles from the Santa Cruz Evening News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Watsonville Pajaronian. 1883–1912.

Stations: Brookdale

Few communities in the Santa Cruz Mountains are more shrouded in mystery and confusion than Brookdale. The village began life as Clear Creek, a descriptive name applied to the fast-running mountain stream that runs down the east side of Ben Lomond Mountain until emptying into the San Lorenzo River about a mile south of Boulder Creek. In the 1870s, the flume was constructed through the area, a likely site for several of the more scenic photographs since the structure was situated relatively low to the ground here. In addition, a feeder flume was erected up Clear Creek. It was along this feeder that the first logging activity in the area that would become Brookdale began.

A Southern Pacific train approaching Brookdale with passengers waiting to board, circa 1915. [Courtesy George Pepper – colorized using MyHeritage]

In March 1880, McKoy & Duffey acquired stumpage rights to the Ellsworth tract on Clear Creek. The property itself was likely owned by a lumber combine of Grover & Company and James P. Pierce, who hired itinerant mill crews to harvest timber tracts outside their core domain. Andrew Duffey left the partnership in March 1882 to pursue a new enterprise leaving sole ownership of the mill to Hubbard Wilson McKoy, who closed it in 1883 to take over management of the Central Hotel in Felton. Duffey was not done with the area, though. The Comstock brothers, led by Jared W. Comstock, joined with Edward P. Reed and leased property from Pierce a half mile up Clear Creek in early 1888. They brought Duffey on as a partner in October. Their mill was capable of producing 15,000 board feet of lumber per day. It benefited from the replacement of the flume by the Felton & Pescadero Railroad—though a spur beside Clear Creek is not mentioned in Southern Pacific documents until 1892, it seems likely that it was installed at the same time the mill opened in spring 1889. The Duffey & Comstock partnership only lasted a single season since Jared Comstock died in October 1889.

Survey of Grover & Logan's properties at Clear Creek shortly before the start of development, based on E. D. Perry's August 1894 survey. Reed's Spur (called Reid Switch) features prominently in the top-left quadrant. [Courtesy Santa Cruz County GIS]

Reed’s Spur survived the collapse of Duffey & Comstock and Duffey continued to run the mill there in partnership with Frank W. Simmons until September 1891. In January 1891, Reed purchased the property outright from Pierce’s Ben Lomond Land and Lumber Company and he may have taken over the mill in 1892 following Duffey’s departure. In April 1895, he hired Irvin T. Bloom and Patrick Patton to manage the mill, which ran with a crew of forty men. At the same time, the Grovers began milling lumber at a site further to the north at a bend in the San Lorenzo River. The economic recession in the mid-1890s led to the brief closure of the mill but it reopened in 1897 with a focus on clearing the remaining standing timber in the vicinity of today’s Brookdale Lodge. However, by this time, the area had grown in prominence as a camping and picnic destination, so the company wisely decided to retain the larger trees and hired W. H. Booth to clear the undergrowth, specifically in the area between the river and the County Road along either side of Clear Creek.

Feeder flume over Clear Creek, circa 1884. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The Grovers’ decision reflected a fundamental shift in attitude toward the area around Clear Creek. Whereas just a decade earlier, clearcutting marketable timber was the only reason for owning land in the San Lorenzo Valley, the economic turbulence of the 1890s paired with a growing concern that the natural beauty of the valley was being destroyed led several lumber firms to pause operations and reconsider their long-term goals. Much worked in Clear Creek’s favor—high somewhat flat shelves sat on either side of the San Lorenzo River, creating five areas perfect for campgrounds and vacation cottages. Furthermore, the railroad passed directly through all five areas, meaning access would be simple. And the lumber firms had not entirely cleared all of the territory, so towering redwood and fir trees still stood tall. On top of those benefits, the river meandered slowly and eddied in multiple places, creating several ideal locations to erect seasonal dams for fishing, boating, and swimming. The spectacle of the area was captured in early photographs and camping became one of its hallmarks.

View of the San Lorenzo River at Brookdale, circa 1910. [Courtesy ebay – colorized using MyHeritage]

From the late 1880s, groups of Santa Cruz, Oakland, San Francisco, and San José elite gathered together each year at camps strung along the San Lorenzo River. The three-mile stretch between Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek was the most popular destination as it was the least developed and a few old groves of trees had withstood the threat of the axe. Two of the earliest named camps were Camp Thunder and Camp Lightning, led by prominent Santa Cruz families, both established in 1887 about a mile south of Clear Creek. The first major camp on Clear Creek was established in July 1890 as Camp Yelland, named after its most famous attendee, artist Raymond Dabb Yelland. For three summers, Oakland and Santa Cruz elite bivouacked on either side of the creek at the camp. News of camp sites around Clear Creek goes quiet over the following years, possibly because of the activities of the nearby mill. A fire in April 1897 burned part of the mill and lumber yard, as well as much of the remaining timber tract, prompting Bloom & Patton to close the mill. Shortly afterwards, James Harvey Logan took over management of the property for the Grovers and began laying out a formalized campground on Grover Island.

Narrow gauge tracks south of Reed's Spur, May 5, 1901. Photo by Henry King Nourse. [Courtesy California State Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

Having just retired as a superior court judge, Logan shifted roles quickly and was elected an officer of Grover & Company in June 1897 alongside Stephen F. Grover, Lafayette F. Grover, Joseph Schwarts, and H. E. Makinney. He took a personal interest in Clear Creek and erected a country home there in April 1898, from which he could oversee the development of the company’s mountain resort. Over the next three years, Logan and Stephen Grover erected cottages for themselves and their families, using still-living trees to help support the rustic structures. They also sold lots close to the river to Alameda families, who also built cottages, platforms for tents, and other amenities. By 1902, the seasonal community had grown large enough to justify the addition of a post office, which opened in April under the name Brookdale.

The Cascades, James H. Logan's first summer house in Brookdale, circa 1903. [Courtesy Scott Tucker – colorized using MyHeritage]

The unusual name raised some eyebrows. A writer for the Evening Sentinel misread the announcement as “Brookville” and asked: “Why not call it Loganville or Groverville?” The name’s origin, though, has older roots. In 1887, a Camp Brookdale arose in an unspecified location near Boulder Creek—possibly at Clear Creek, which was associated with its neighbor at the time. This camp returned in 1889 before disappearing, possibly to be replaced by Camp Yelland the next year. In 1897, grocer John B. Bias’ Brookdale Cottage appeared on Olive’s Sulphur Springs on a tributary of Soquel Creek, not far from the Grovers’ primary mill. Bias had previously been a business partner with Lafayette Grover, Stephen Grover’s son, in 1892 and the two ran in the same social circles. Ultimately, the name was descriptive, possibly brought over by the Grovers from their home state of Maine, where both “brook” and “dale” were far more common terms than in California. It likely gained increased notoriety, though, due to Brookdale Farm of New Jersey, which was widely publicized in newspapers throughout the 1880s and 1800s as one of the foremost stables for breeding and training racehorses. Thus, contrary to popular belief, the name Brookdale was likely chosen by the Grovers rather than Logan.

A Southern Pacific passenger train at Brookdale Station, circa 1915. [Courtesy Grant Correll – colorized using MyHeritage]

The evolution of the industrial settlement of Clear Creek to the resort destination of Brookdale readily embraced by the railroad. Reed’s Spur first appeared as a flag-stop on employee timetables in April 1902 and was renamed Brookdale in October 1903. A single-story passenger shelter with an agent booth was added shortly afterwards, with a small freight platform installed just to the south. The existence of this platform and a short-lived freight shed suggests that Grover and Logan still anticipated some industrial revenue to derive from Brookdale, at least in the short term. The 239-foot-long spur also remained and was even extended to 400 feet during the standard-gauging of the Boulder Creek Branch in 1908. But retaining this feature can be easily explained since several photographs show passenger cars and excursion trains parked on the spur to keep the branch line clear for regular rail traffic. The station was staffed seasonally, functioning as a scheduled stop from late spring to early autumn and as a flag-stop the rest of the year.

Map of Brookdale, Santa Cruz Co., Cal., published by the Union Litho Company for James H. Logan, 1910. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

Brookdale became a tourism boomtown. Grover Island was sold in late 1902 to Arthur H. Breed, city auditor of Oakland, who renamed it Huckleberry Island and quickly began selling lots to hand-selected friends. Between the County Road and the river, fifteen lots were laid out and four permanent cottages soon erected. On the west side of the County Road, Lafayette Grover enlarged and expanded his summer residence Minnehaha, named after a character in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, into a boarding house to be run by Augusta “Gussie” Heubeling. And as part of their first promotion drive, Grover and Logan installed electrical lighting, sewage, and telephone services throughout the community. To manage this new resort and oversee property sales, the partners founded the Brookdale Land Company around May 1903, with Logan serving as site manager and Grover keeping the books and managing advertising. They went their separate ways at the end of 1905, leaving Logan in sole charge of Brookdale.

Entrance to The Brookdale, circa 1920. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The same year, The Brookdale opened as the first dedicated hotel in the hamlet. Madame N.M. Du Quoy ran the hotel from 1905 until 1910 on behalf of the Brookdale Land Company. In early 1911, Logan sold most of the remaining undeveloped land in Brookdale to John Dubuis, while he sold his interest in the developed parts of the community to the Santa Cruz Emporium Company, run by William M. Aydelotte, in February, including The Brookdale, the town’s general store, the Chateau, the Cuckoo Cottage, Rose Cottage, Near Spring Cottage, the community dance hall, a stable, and a warehouse. At the same time, Du Quoy bought Logan’s home on Cascade Street—formerly The Cascades and renamed by her Burlwood—and converted it into a new hotel. Logan’s interest in Brookdale should have ended with these sales, but Dubuis defaulted on his payments in early 1912 and Logan petitioned to have the sale rendered void. Instead, Dubuis’ property went up for auction in March and was sold to Theodore A. Bell. By 1914, Bell and Logan must have come to some agreement as both began selling property in the area and Logan began the erection of the two-story commercial building at the corner of Pacific Street, where the general store and post office later relocated.

Brookdale passenger shelter and office with a keg on a handcart outside, circa 1918. [Courtesy George Pepper – colorized using MyHeritage]

Brookdale held steady for the next decade as a vacation spot for travelers wishing to remain within easy reach of the Bay Area. Both trains and automobiles brought visitors to the mountain town, and the village evolved into a seasonal town complete with stores, homes, and amenities. But this also deprived the hamlet of the that made it desirable, namely untamed wilderness and rustic charm. Thus, in 1923, Dr. F. K. Camp of Pasadena purchased the aged Brookdale Hotel and began a comprehensive renovation and expansion. He demolished much of the old resort and in its place built 34 cottages of several rooms each featuring tiled baths, heating, lighting, and private garages. On the County Road, he erected a rustic lobby flanked by redwood columns, walled with creek stones, and heated by a floor-to-ceiling fireplace. Over Clear Creek, he created a sprawling dining room divided across three terraces and intersected by a waterfall and the babbling stream. And opposite the dining room he installed a pair of concrete swimming pools, steam heated and lighted from under water. The Brookdale Mountain Lodge and Redwood Terrace Gardens opened to the public on May 18, 1924 to great fanfare. Over the next several years, Hollywood celebrities visited the hotel and dined at the Brook Room, making the hotel famous on the Central Coast.

Colorized postcard of the Brookdale Lodge's Brook Room, circa 1924. [Courtesy ebay]

By this point, the importance of the railroad to the community had reached its end. The Brookdale Lodge was primarily a destination for automobile drivers cruising the highways of California on a never-ending journey of adventure and discovery. The train was just old fashioned, and every year fewer and fewer people were taking it to Brookdale. Passenger service along the Boulder Creek Branch ended sometime after summer 1930 and never resumed. All public transportation to Brookdale after this point was by Pacific Greyhound buses. When the tracks were removed in the spring of 1934, most residents probably sighed in relief since it meant an end to the occasional freight trains interrupting their rural solitude.

The site of Brookdale Station today, looking southeast down the right-of-way, October 3, 2013. [Photo by Derek R. Whaley]

The station shelter was sold at auction and may have been converted into a cottage. One of the station signs eventually found its way to the San Lorenzo Valley Museum, though it has been shortened on both sides to allow it to fit atop a fireplace mantle. Most of the right-of-way was sold but small sections survive over Clear Creek, on the banks of the San Lorenzo River, and on Huckleberry Island. After weathering the Great Depression, Dr. Camp sold the Brookdale Lodge in 1945 and it soon after passed to Barney Marrow, who owned the Brookdale Inn across the County Road. During Marrow’s years of ownership, the lodge gained an unsavory reputation that stayed with the hotel to the present. The lodge continued to change hands over the decades and suffered substantial fires in 1956, 2005, and 2009, leading to its condemnation in 2011. The Brookdale Lodge is now under the ownership of Pravin and Naina Patel and reopened in July 2025 following many years of extensive renovation work.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr. “SP Boulder Creek Branch (ex-South Pacific Coast Ry.)” [SP22A]. April 2019.
• Chown, Jon. “New Chapter Starts at Brookdale Lodge,” Times Publishing Group Inc. August 4, 2025.
• Gibson, Ross Eric. “Historical Memories Haunt Brookdale.” From San Jose Mercury News, 10/20/1993, 4B.
• San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Cruz Evening News, Evening Sentinel, Morning Sentinel, Sentinel, and Surf, various articles, 1887–1924.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, various material, 1892–1931.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA: Zayante Publishing, 2015.

Companies: Coast Drum and Box Company

In the decade after the closure of the San Vicente Lumber Company plant at the northwestern boundary of the City of Santa Cruz, several small agricultural-oriented businesses sprang up along the Davenport Branch on the West Side between Natural Bridges Drive and Almar Avenue. One of the earliest was the Coast Drum and Box Company.

The Coast Drum and Box Company factory on Mission Street on fire, September 4, 1953. [Santa Cruz Sentinel-News – colorized using MyHeritage]

From early in its history, the business had a close relationship with the Half Moon Bay Drum and Box Company, which was incorporated in February 1923 in San Francisco as a packaging material maker catering to vegetable growers operating along the San Mateo County coastline. The business was initially run by Louis G. Pardini, A. Bartolozzi, R. Tomei, and C. Raffanti. Not much is known of the firm in the 1920s, but its main facility was located on Battery Street until March 1930, when a catastrophic fire leveled the three-story building. The firm rebuilt in Daly City, where it operated a large factory until May 1939, when it too burned down. Though the company continued to exist, it shifted its focus to the south.

The Half Moon Bay Drum and Box Company and Colma Vegetable Packing Association plants on fire in Daly City, May 28, 1939. [San Francisco Examiner – colorized using MyHeritage]

Meanwhile, in Santa Cruz County, the agricultural industry, especially along the North Coast, was growing rapidly. Artichoke and Brussels sprout, along with peas, had taken off as an industry in 1915. By the 1920s, it required its own packaging plants and related industries. Thus, sometime in the late 1920s, a group of farmers formed the Coast Drum and Box Company in Davenport beside the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The purpose of the business was to make drums, crates, boxes, and hampers for local growers, a task that employed seven men during the harvesting season. In August 1932, the group completed construction on a much-enlarged plant on property they had purchased property from Gilbert Caiocca. This was located on the east side of Davenport across from the main village and was erected by Palmer & Balsiger of Santa Cruz for $1,700. Archie Marracci of San Francisco served as manager of the plant during this time.

Things became more corporate in January 1934 when R. Willis of San Francisco took over the company. While daily operations did not change, new blood from the Bay Area was brought in that shifted the focus of the business. In 1935, Ed Marracci became owner of the company. Yet elsewhere, the Half Moon Bay Drum and Box Company was making inroads. Louis Pardini was named an officer of the Coast Drum and Box Company by September 1935. In May 1937, he took over, turning the company into a subsidiary of his own firm. Pardini appointed himself president while Albert A. Axelrod became secretary. Feeling that there was too much competition on the North Coast with the nearby Davenport Drum and Box Company, Pardini made the decision to move the company’s operations south.

Aerial photograph of the Coast Drum and Box Company factory, showing the railroad spur with boxcars and the new additions to the original plant, 1940. Photograph by Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Pardini immediately set to work finding a site for a new drum and box factory within the Santa Cruz city limits, ultimately settling on a site near Swift Street on Mission Street beside the railroad tracks. He hired Wilson & Castagnola, a local firm, to build a new plant for $15,762.50. The new drum-making facility and packing plant was jointly run by the company and farmers of the Santa Cruz Artichoke Growers’ Association, who had been advocating for a new plant closer to their fields. As a result, the facility catered to customers from West Side Santa Cruz to Laguna Creek—the boundary of the Coast Dairies property. In early September 1937, the Santa Cruz City Council authorized the installation of a spur across Swift Street to cater to the packing house. The facility was formally opened on September 19, 1937, and Thomas McCambridge, manager of the packing house in Seabright, was given management of this new plant as well.

The Coast Drum and Box Company did well on the West Side. Within just two years, it petitioned the City Council to build a $10,000 annex that more than doubled the size of the existing facility. The new buildings provided space for a dedicated box factory and a paraffin house where Brussels sprouts could be sealed. Due to the destruction of Pardini’s facility in Daly City in May 1939, the Half Moon Bay Drum and Box Company merged its operations with the Coast Drum and Box Company in Santa Cruz. This led to the year 1939 becoming the Santa Cruz-based company’s biggest year yet, with all of the artichoke and sprout harvest from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz packed and shipped from the Mission Street plant. The company employed around 80 workers that fall, making it seasonally one of the largest employers in the county. Each day, four to five boxcars left from the company’s siding on the Davenport Branch. The cars were loaded with hampers and containers made out of strips of basswood, each of which contained a bushel of vegetables.

The company was it its peak in the 1940s, with few events of note happening other than small fires breaking out occasionally at the plant. A minor addition to the complex was the erection of a machinery shed detached from the other buildings, which cost $5,000 when it was built in 1944. A small addition to the main building, costing $1,500, was made in November 1945. The company broke away from the Half Moon Bay company that same month, with Axelrod elected president and Gladys C. Okerstrom and R. J. Hecht joining as officers. Pardini stayed on as general manager until his death in 1951. A larger, albeit unremarkable addition to the complex came in April 1947, this one costing the firm $9,000. When Maywood Manufacturing Company relocated to Santa Cruz in December 1949, it leased space from Coast Drum and Box until it was forced out in mid-1951 to make room for corporate offices relocated from San Francisco.

More fires and lawsuits over workplace injuries and other incidents dominated the news throughout the 1950s. Emil C. Nissen of the American Box and Drum Corporation succeeded Axelrod as president of the company, effectively turning the business into a subsidiary of another firm. Daniel A. Whitehead, his son-in-law, became vice president and took over as general manager following Pardini’s death. By August 1953, the partners had managed to buy the shares of the Capurro, Chiappari, Falco, Marracci, and Church families, giving them an 80% controlling interest, with Margaret Bard the only notable holdout. Shortly afterwards, a catastrophic fire erupted in a warehouse at the factory causing $25,000 in damages, primarily to nailing machines, two cranes, a small lumber mill, and the warehouse itself. Fortunately, the plant was insured and the warehouse was quickly rebuilt.

A log being prepared for processing at the lumber mill inside the Santa Cruz Veneer Products factory on Mission Street, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on June 17, 1956. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

In December 1954, the company changed its name to the Santa Cruz Veneer Products Company. By this point, Nissen seems to have left the business and Whitehead was in full control. Nissen passed away in May 1967. In 1959, Whitehead made another expansion to the buildings, a $3,000 addition to the main complex to increase its lumber-making capacity to 45,000 board feet per day. This resulted in high quantities of basket bottoms, with excess timber being used for lumber, which was sold commercially. Despite the shift in focus getting the reluctant approval by the city planning commission, the lumber products failed to find a market. Whitehead listed the machinery for auction in 1961.

Aerial photograph of the Santa Cruz Veneers Products facility at its maximum extent, 1965. Photograph by Clyde Sunderland. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Santa Cruz Veneer Products Company ceased to operate sometime in late 1966 following repeated complaints by neighbors over trash smoke and a slump in the labor market . Whitehead trialed running the business exclusively as a veneer manufacturer but this proved unprofitable. He went on to found Dan Whitehead Travel Agency, which he ran with his wife until his death in June 1981. In June 1967, the Santa Cruz Veneer Products property was listed for rent, with the railroad spur included as an incentive. The expansive yard in front of the building was soon leased for storing mobile homes, trailers, campers, and boats. With no patronage, the railroad spur was cut back around 1970 to the edge of the property, only catering to the adjacent Mondo Brothers warehouse. In June 1976, the City Planning Department rezoned the complex from industrial to commercial use, but few seemed interested in using the buildings on a long-term basis. Finally, in September 1983, Mission Industrial Lands, Inc, acquired the property and began its slow transition into a creative arts venue. In 1994, it was rebranded Mission Industrial Studios and began hosting art studios and workshops. Several arts and crafts businesses now use the space for woodworking, sewing, metalworking, sculpting, glass working, and art conservation.

Citations & Credits:

• Los Angeles Times, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Recorder, San Mateo Times, Santa Cruz Evening News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Santa Cruz Sentinel–News, various dates 1923–1994.

Companies: Maywood Manufacturing Company

Everett W. Eyer liked the name of his hometown so much that he brought it with him to Santa Cruz. In 1931, he began producing commercial-grade unfinished furniture from a small workshop in the south Los Angeles suburb of Maywood. The Great Depression caused prices for finished goods soar making do-it-yourself furniture a popular alternative. Maywood at the time was a hive of activity with small-scale industries. But by the end of the World War II, Eyer found himself crowded out. He decided it was time to find a more spacious venue for his business.

Everett Eyer inspecting an unfinished chair with Ed Scofield, plant superintendent, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel August 3, 1955. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

It is not known why Eyer chose Santa Cruz over other options, but upon his arrival in December 1949, he rented space in the newly-enlarged Coast Drum & Box Company warehouse on Mission Street near Swift Street. This site was ideal since it already had a Southern Pacific freight spur, allowing him to ship out products quickly and frequently. However, his rental agreement was only for a short time and by early 1951, the Coast Drum & Box Company wanted him out. Eyer, dependent on railroad access for the profitability of his venture, began searching for a new home along the line.

Maywood Manufacturing's new complex under construction on Thompson Avenue, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel–News August 9, 1951. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

After a few fruitless months of searching, Fred Morris, a member of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, convinced Eyer that it would be better to build a custom warehouse beside the tracks. Eyer recruited new partners in his venture—George S. Morden, Reginald Moore “Pat” Booker, and Mannis N. Dick—who together incorporated Maywood Manufacturing Company, Inc. They purchased 5.5 acres of land at 1115 Thompson Avenue in Live Oak from Albert Knauer. The location had room for a 13,200 square foot warehouse and plant, as well as a small lumber mill. A railroad spur was installed around September, directly paralleling the main warehouse. The entire facility cost the firm around $30,000 to build.

Workers preparing a workshop within the new Thompson Avenue facility, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel–News August 9, 1951. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

The company picked up a new partner in July 1952 in the form of Lottie Henry. Only three years later, though, in April 1955, Morden and Dick left the firm leading Eyer, Booker, and Henry to divide it into three entities: Maywood Manufacturing, Maywood Properties, and Maywood Milling Company. Shortly afterwards, an entirely new board of directors took over, including Kenneth Ferguson, Robert J. Pedder, George A. Andrews, Jr., A. L. McDonnell, and H. R. Ketterbaugh. Eyer remained as manager, guiding the company through its first decade in Santa Cruz. He ran a staff of around 70 employees and produced about 350 separate items, including chairs, desks, cabinets, and dressers. In August 1955, he oversaw a massive $75,000 expansion that saw the addition of over 30,000 additional square feet of space for a conveyor belt system, processing rooms, and a painting annex. The company also expanded into select finished products.

Maywood Manufacturing advertisements, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel February 10, 1970 (left) and February 28, 1971 (right).

In March 1959, William H. Raley took over all three companies as president and manager. He remained at the helm for nearly two decades. By this point, Maywood was producing over 50,000 pieces of furniture a year and selling from more than 600 stores across Central and Northern California. Raley expanded distribution to Hawaii and Alaska, and began trialing plastic lamination techniques. While most products were produced using ponderosa pine, Raley began importing hardwood from Taiwan for use in stools.

L. S. Melindy and Dale Shultz working a machine at Maywood Manufacturing, published in the Santa Cruz SentinelAugust 3, 1955. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

Maywood was not immune to problems. The company suffered countless burglaries and several fires, though none of them were overly successful or damaging. By the mid-1970s, people were turning away from do-it-yourself furniture. Cheap imported furniture and increased family incomes meant that the target market for Raley’s firm was no longer profitable. On September 2, 1977, he sold the business to two couples, James H. and V. Joyce Elliot, and John T. and Caroline K. Shook, all of San José, but they could not keep it afloat. In early 1980, Maywood went bankrupt and all of its equipment and chattel was put up for auction.

A Maywood Manufacturing worker preparing a dresser for shipment, published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel February 2, 1968. [Colorized using MyHeritage]

In February 1981, Tom Bowers purchased the property and turned the warehouse into Bowers Park, a light industrial business park. It was probably at this time or shortly afterwards that the railroad spur was removed. Among the first occupants of the former warehouse were SAE Automotive Enterprises, Microalgae International Sales Corp (Miscorp), Light Force Spirulina Company, and Santa Cruz Cabinets.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.968, -121.971
1115 Thompson Avenue, Live Oak

The site of the Maywood Manufacturing Company freight spur began at the end of Thompson Avenue and went west alongside the south side of the warehouse still located at 1115. All evidence of the spur has been either removed or buried beneath dirt and asphalt. Bowers Park remains in use today and is home to several light industrial firms.

Citations & Credits:

• Santa Cruz Evening News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz Sentinel–News, and The Daily Breeze, 1931–1981.
• Southern Pacific Railroad records.

Stations: Nuga

Out on the fringe of Watsonville Slough, 0.5 miles from the nearest road, the Santa Cruz Railroad Company established its least known and most remote stop, a place that the Southern Pacific Railroad eventually named Nuga. Yet the history of this little waypoint between Ellicott and Watsonville far off the beaten path is much more complicated than it should be.

Flood-damaged Southern Pacific Railroad tracks northwest of Nuga at the Harkins Slough bridge, 1909. [Neil Vodden, Jack Hanson]

After years of disagreement between the people of Santa Cruz and those of Watsonville, it was finally decided by Frederick A. Hihn and the other directors of the Santa Cruz Railroad Company to bypass Watsonville by nearly two miles with the intention to cross the Pajaro River closer to its outlet into the Monterey Bay. Thus, in late 1875, railroad grading crews cut across the lands of around a dozen farmers and orchardists without warning or compensation, sparking a vicious legal battle. What would become Nuga proved to be at the center of the issue, since it was here that the railroad would ultimately turn inland on a path that would have the line enter the Watsonville town limits in spring 1876.

Map of the Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro showing property boundaries and owners with the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way passing through the center, June 1889. [Santa Cruz GIS]

This land was once a part of Ranch Bolsa del Pajaro, the same Mexican land grant upon which much of Watsonville itself was situated. By 1867, the tract between Watsonville Slough and Beach Road was owned by Thomas Martin, who operated a private farm and ranch on the property. When the grading crews of the Santa Cruz Railroad passed through his property in November 1875, he was not pleased. He had not granted the right-of-way to the railroad and the railroad did not ask permission to cut down his fences, plow over his land, and grade the railroad across it. In fairness, Martin himself likely only suffered a little from the slight, since most of the land through which the railroad passed was slough, but he nonetheless joined Charles Ford and Alvin Sanborn’s lawsuit against the railroad, halting railroad construction in the process.

What precisely happened next for Martin is unclear, but county records show that he transferred a thin right of way through his land to the Santa Cruz Railroad Company on November 21, 1876, six months after the railroad itself was completed. Unlike his angry neighbors, though, Martin negotiated a station out of the deal. Martin’s Station catered not only to Martin’s farm but was also a gathering point for farmers and ranchers working near the mouth of the Pajaro River. A short road, long since removed, was built between Beach Road and the station to allow ease of travel.

Map of part of the Ranchos Bolsa del Pajaro and San Andreas belonging to John, Thomas, William, and James Martin, August 27, 1891. [Santa Cruz GIS]

For the railroad, the presence of the nearby Watsonville Slough and a shallow freshwater lagoon on Martin’s land led to the erection of a water tank for passing trains just northwest of Martin’s. Virtually nothing is known about this water tank, but it was used throughout the period that the railroad through Martin’s was narrow gauge. Public timetables printed in the Sentinel from the late 1870s include Water Tank as a passenger stop, possibly for people wishing to bathe in the lagoon or slough. The last mention of Water Tank is in September 1883, during the standard-gauging of the right-of-way to Santa Cruz, and it seems likely that the waypoint was no longer needed once standard-gauge locomotives began running on the track at the end of that year.

The purchase of the Santa Cruz Railroad by Southern Pacific in 1881 led to the renaming of Martin’s to Laguna, a reference to the adjacent Watsonville Slough. This was probably done to avoid confusion with another “Martin’s” found on the Monterey Branch and named after Thomas’s son, William H. Martin. Thomas continued to own his property off Beach Road, although he was sent to an asylum in 1889 for mental health reasons. He was released in 1897 and continued to farm until his death in February 1911. However, ownership of the trapezoidal station site was transferred at some point earlier to the railroad.

Laguna proved over the years to be a troublesome location to the railroad. For one, it was a shockingly dangerous location, with several trains derailing at the site and at least a few passengers and crew killed over the years. This may be due in part to a sinkhole that periodically made its appearance near the station, buckling tracks and misaligning the right-of-way without warning. This happened because the tracks just to the west marked the lowest point on the entire line, at just six feet above sea level as it crossed Watsonville Slough, and as such the tracks flooded regularly, knocking the tracks out of commission until flood waters receded and the right of way was cleared and repaired. In 1910, efforts were made to raise the track and install a rock wall to protect the right-of-way, although it still experienced seasonal flooding afterwards.

Aerial view showing the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way and facilities at Nuga (lower center), 1937. [University of California, Santa Cruz]

Nonetheless, Southern Pacific continued to support the station since it served an important purpose for the lower Pajaro Valley. By 1905, the station had a 674-foot-long siding situated on the south side of the tracks. Over the next three years, this nearly tripled in size to 1,528 feet, or 39 carlengths. Such an expansion was likely due to an aggregate quarry that opened on the north side of the tracks between the station and the slough. This was certainly operating by 1909 and supplied ballast to repair railroad bridges and culverts in the Watsonville area. The station hosted a small warehouse with freight-loading platform and telephone service, a smaller unattended passenger shelter with platform, and a packing shed.

Right of way and track map of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, June 30, 19[17?]. [Santa Cruz GIS]

Curiously, the name Laguna did not stick—in January 1909, the station was renamed Nuga, an inversion of the its previous Laguna that removed the first and last letters. This may have been done to avoid confusion with the Laguna Creek flag-stop on the Coast Line Railroad south of Davenport or Lagos station on the Ocean Shore Railway, also at Laguna Creek. By 1913, the station had been reduced in status, while in 1926 the siding was cut back. In the early 1940s, the siding was removed entirely even though Sidney Harold Gandrup, a local real estate developer and rancher, still used the shed beside the tracks. On October 26, 1954, all the railroad facilities at Nuga burned down when a grass burn-off on the adjacent field spread out of control. This likely saved the station from destruction in the flood of 1955, though this may have further contributed to Southern Pacific formally abandoning the station on May 20, 1957.

Oil tankers parked on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line tracks over Harkins Slough just northeast of the Nuga station site, February 2020. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

In more recent years, the site of Nuga has been reclaimed by the adjacent farm despite still legally belonging to the railroad (now the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission). In 2018, Iowa Pacific Holdings through its Santa Cruz & Monterey Railway subsidiary parked dozens of empty oil tanker cars onto the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, including at Nuga's site. These prompted protests from Greenway and other groups, eventually resulting in their removal after Progressive Rail took over the contract to operate on the line.

The former location of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, December 10, 2017. [Derek Whaley]

Public access to the site is no longer possible without trespassing on adjacent property. The location is just to the east of where Watsonville Slough runs under the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. No evidence of the siding or station remains at Nuga, although the area just to the south of the existing tracks remain undeveloped and wide enough for a siding. Where a farm road that continues to Beach Road meets the tracks marks the former station point. All the area between the tracks and Watsonville Slough remains an undeveloped, rocky field that may represent the short-lived quarry at the station but otherwise shows few signs of development.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr. "SP72 (SP Santa Cruz Branch)." 2017.
• Clark, Donald T. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, Coast Division Employee Timetables and Officers and Agencies books. 1889–1940.
• Various articles. Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel, Evening Pajaronian, and Register-Pajaronian. 1867–1956.