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.

Railroad: Southern Pacific's Pajaro Branch

Santa Cruz County had much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, November 30, 1871. Following years of debate, investment, and disappointment, the county was finally connected to the rest of the United States via rail. On November 27, the Southern Pacific Railroad completed the Pajaro Branch—a 17.2-mile standard-gauge line from Gilroy to a tiny village across the Pajaro River from Watsonville. While not technically within the county, the station at Pajaro was eagerly embraced by the residents of Watsonville and beyond. All life within the Pajaro Valley came to revolve around the railroad and its many benefits. Farmers and ranchers abandoned landings and ports in favor of the station. Lumber companies stopped hauling laden wagons through the mountains or to the coast, opting instead for the ease of a flatcar. And travelers, tired of long trips over dusty roads in cramped stagecoaches, embraced the efficient wonder of a passenger coach. As the track continued south to Castroville and Salinas, the branch line became the mainline and eventually the Coast Division of a grand transcontinental railroad that linked San Francisco to Los Angeles and destinations in the East.

Southern Pacific No. 2534 approaching Watsonville Junction, circa late 1940s. [Courtesy Yesteryear Depot – colorized using MyHeritage]

The extension of the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad from San Jose to Gilroy via its subsidiary, the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, was completed two years earlier, on April 8, 1869. The idea of this new terminal motivated the hearts and minds of Santa Cruz County residents, prompting them to incorporate their own railroad in June 1867to complete the connection to Watsonville: the California Coast Railroad. At the time, this seemed like a prudent course of action since the planned Southern Pacific Railroad, which the Gilroy line would form a part, intended to continue south through San Juan Bautista and then over the mountains into the San Joaquín Valley. County residents felt that, to ensure a railroad would reach the Pajaro Valley, local action was necessary, if only to entice Southern Pacific to turn west. Fortunately for local pocketbooks, Southern Pacific showed its hand in January 1870 when it incorporated the subsidiary California Southern Railroad to build a railroad between Gilroy and Salinas. The only question remaining was: when would construction begin?

Official survey map for the Southern Pacific Railroad south of San José, later incorporated as the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, surveyed by T. J. Arnold and drawn by G. F. Allardy, 1868. [Courtesy Sourisseau Academy for State and Local History, San José State University]

Not immediately, as it became clear. On October 12, 1870, Southern Pacific reincorporated, absorbing the San Francisco & San Jose, Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley, and California Southern Railroads in the process. The company was now under the direct control of the Central Pacific Railroad’s Big Four: Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. This sudden change convinced locals that the railroad had changed its mind and would take a different route south. Frederick A. Hihn and others once again incorporated an alternative line in April 1871 with plans to connect Santa Cruz with San José, this time via a narrow-gauge route along Soquel Creek. A the same time, General William S. Rosecrans and E. N. Robinson began surveying for a narrow-gauge railroad that would run the entire length of the coast from San Francsico to Los Angeles, passing through Santa Cruz County on the way. Meanwhile, in June, Pajaro Valley residents began a subscription drive to convince Southern Pacific to build a branch line to Watsonville. Regardless of the motivating factor, on July 17 Southern Pacific held a ground-breaking ceremony at a point two miles south of Gilroy, thereby marking the start of construction of a branch line to Watsonville and Castroville. The railroad’s intention was to complete the 25-mile-long line within ninety days, but the route would not be so easily made.

Henry Miller's private farm at Nema on the line of the Southern Pacific, circa 1890. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

For its first 3.8 miles—from its starting point at a place called Carnadero to a settlement at the junction of the Gilroy, San Juan, and Pajaro Valley roads called Sargent’s—Southern Pacific encountered few obstacles. Most of the area was relatively flat ranchland owned by Miller & Lux and James P. Sargent, with only Uvas Creek and Tar Creek requiring short bridges. Beyond Sargent, the right-of-way required its first cut through a short hill, followed by further cuts as it began winding its way for 1.9 miles through a narrow valley created by the northern extent of the Pajaro River. More small bridges and culverts were needed here, though the gently sloping eastern edge of the Santa Cruz Mountains made the task relatively routine. At the southern end of the valley, the track turned decisively west toward the Monterey Bay, interrupted by the 4.8-mile-long problem of Pajaro Gap.

Sargent's Station on the Southern Pacific, circa 1885. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

The northern side of the gap was owned primarily by Sargent and Nathaniel Chittenden, and their property line on Pescadero Creek marked the southern boundary between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties. The terrain remained hilly, with Sargent Creek and Pescadero Creek both requiring more substantial bridges, though nothing remarkable. West of Pescadero Creek, the right-of-way followed a narrow shelf cut out of the hillside for a short distance before the route opened into a small basin occupied by Chittenden’s ranch. Small bridges and culverts allowed the railroad to reach the other side of the basin with little difficulty. However, deciding how to proceed through the narrowest part of the gap forced Southern Pacific to make its biggest and most consequential decision: whether or not to cross the Pajaro River in the gap.

The original bridge over the Pajaro River, 1910. [Courtesy McCarthy Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

Nearly all surveying efforts prior to 1871 had focused on a route that would take a railroad through Pajaro Gap along the north side of the Pajaro River, thereby allowing it to enter Watsonville directly. In fact, Railroad School east of Watsonville was named after the fact that it was located on the right-of-way of a proposed railroad. On paper, however, this route was not ideal. The rugged farming road that would later become State Route 129 barely existed at this time and the space between the southern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the river was perilously narrow along two sections. Nonetheless, the people of Watsonville expected the railroad to connect to Watsonville directly before crossing the river and they even attempted to bribe the railroad to do so in case it was wavering in its commitment. Unperturbed, Southern Pacific decided against the northern route and went south instead, forever depriving Watsonville its place on the main trunk of the Coast Division.

The Pajaro River bridge following the April 18, 1906 earthquake, with temporary support trestlework on its southern end and a collapse pier. [Courtesy Charles Derleth Collection, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley – colorized using MyHeritage]

The bridge required to cross the Pajaro River west of Chittenden was substantial. At 432 feet in length and 50 feet high, it included a short trestle approach from the east and four 87.5-foot-long Howe truss sections chained together atop concrete piers. It was likely the most monumental structure erected in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties at the time. The bridge would latter suffer greatly from its placement near the San Andreas Fault when the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake rocked it off its foundations by more than three feet. Crews quickly secured the bridge with a hastily-erected trestle but other damage along the route meant the line was out of service for a week after the temblor. It seems likely that further repairs were made over the next few months to ensure the piers remained stable and the abutments on either side of the river were secure.

A butcher's wagon going up Carpentaria Road in Aromas, circa 1900. [Courtesy Albert and Alzora Snyder Collection, Monterey County Free Libraries – colorized using MyHeritage]

After a final turn around the granite-rich hill that would one day host the Graniterock quarry, the Pajaro Branch made its entry into the Pajaro Valley, or rather a smaller vale through which the Pajaro River meanders between steep banks before curving sharply north upon encountering an insurmountable sandstone wall. The railroad passed through here for 1.5 miles, yet the wall could not be bypassed in the manner of the river, and this proved to be quite the obstacle for Southern Pacific. In their eagerness to avoid the steep hillsides north of the river, surveyors had misreported the severity of the obstacle. At 0.4 miles thick, including necessary approaches, this sandstone leg of the Gabilan Range could only be overcome with a cut or tunnel. While the railroad crews attempted the former, the results were mixed and a sort of tunnel was eventually settled upon out of obligation more than desire. By the 1890s, crews were able to widen and reinforce the cut sufficiently to avoid the need for a tunnel, but even today piles of sand collect on the rails whenever a storm strikes or there is inactivity on the line for more than a few days.

The Sand Cut between Aromas and Vega on the Southern Pacific line, 1909. [From the Neil Vodden Collection, courtesy Jack Hanson – colorized using MyHeritage]

The final 4.8 miles between the west side of the Sand Cut and the community of Pajaro imposed no obstacles—not even a creek or gully—to Southern Pacific crews. In fact, the track only turned once along this stretch to gently wrap around another foot of the Gabilans. At Pajaro, the right-of-way initially ran until stopping just short of Salinas Road, roughly paralleling today’s Railroad Avenue. However, June 1872, construction crews began building a new track south along the east side of Salinas Road to extend the line to Castroville, Salinas, and ultimately Los Angeles. Despite initial annoyance that the route bypassed them, the people of Watsonville celebrated the arrival of the railroad to Pajaro since it gave them a direct connection to San Francisco and beyond. Further celebrations were in order in May 1876, when the Santa Cruz Railroad was completed to Pajaro. In 1882, this line was taken over by Southern Pacific and standard-gauged shortly afterwards, unifying the Pajaro yard and allowing the fluid flow of traffic from Santa Cruz and Watsonville to the Southern Pacific mainline.

The Thompson Road grade crossing near Vega, September 1, 1927. [Courtesy California State Archives – colorized using MyHeritage]

A total of twelve registered stations popped up along this 17.2 miles of track between 1871 and 1949. Over half existed from the beginning, including Carnadero, Nema, Miller’s, Sargent’s, Chittenden’s, Sand Cut, Vega, and Pajaro. All of these catered to surrounding rural communities, with three named after landowners and two after Mexican ranchos. Later, four additional stations were added: Corporal, Betabel, Newria, and Logan. These primarily reflected new industries that arose in the years after the railroad’s construction. Three stations later experienced name changes, as well, with Sand Cut becoming Aromas, Vega becoming Eaton, and Pajaro becoming Watsonville Junction. All of the stations in this section are now formally abandoned except for Carnadero, Sargent, Logan, and Watsonville Junction, the latter two of which remain active freight yards, though no passenger service currently caters to either location.

Marvin Maynard outside Tres Pinos depot, July 31, 1949. Photo by Wilbur C. Whittaker. [Courtesy Jim Vail – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although the Watsonville Branch began life as an offshoot of the Southern Pacific Railroad, it briefly became the mainline. The completion of the track to Tres Pinos south of Hollister in August 1873 marked an unexpected end to the railroad’s original plans. That same month, construction of the line south from Pajaro reached Soledad and Southern Pacific decided that a mainline passing through the Salinas Valley was much more profitable and sustainable than one continuing up the nearly uninhabited San Benito Valley. As a result, the Tres Pinos line became a branch and the Soledad line, passing through Pajaro, became the new mainline. This new status only lasted two years. Around June 1875, another route through the San Joaquin Valley—one that would eventually become the second transcontinental railroad—stole the title of mainline from its coastal kin. The former mainline became the trunk of the Northern Division and, on July 1, 1892, the Coast Division.

A Coast Daylight crossing the new Pajaro River Bridge, circa 1941. [Courtesy Gilroy Museum – colorized using MyHeritage]

Unlike most of the other railroads in and around Santa Cruz County, this 17.2-mile section of the Southern Pacific was built at the standard gauge from the start, so it never underwent the kind of reengineering the other lines endured. In fact, most of its changes were relatively minor and cosmetic. Automatic Block Signaling (ABS) was adopted across the entire section sometime before 1907, allowing for a more efficient and safer flow of traffic along the lines. This was supplemented in 1959 with the addition of centralized traffic control (CTC)—a remote operated system that helps control traffic over single track sections—between Corporal and Logan. Around the same time that ABS was adopted, nearly all bridges were converted into fills with culverts, or extremely short steel-reinforced concrete spans. An exception to this is the bridge over Pescadero Creek, which remains a traditional timber trestle. A more notable exception is the long bridge over the Pajaro River. Following its initial construction in 1871 and its substantial repair in 1906 after the earthquake, the bridge remained in place for another 35 years. In August 1940, Southern Pacific finally decided that a new bridge was needed. Work began in November with an entirely new structure erected directly to the west of the old bridge. It was composed of a single 450-foot-long prefabricated American Bridge Company open-deck plate girder span mounted atop two concrete piers. The bridge was completed in late March 1941 and shortly afterwards the older bridge was removed, though its piers still stand in the river today beside its still-functioning replacement.

Southern Pacific track and siding through Chittenden, circa 1921. [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

There was only one other substantial change to the line. In the late 1920s, Southern Pacific was hoping to double-track the entire section from Gilroy to Watsonville Junction, with plans to also extend the long siding in Chittenden to 100 carlengths. Concrete abutments capable of supporting three bridges were erected on either side of State Route 129 in Chittenden for this purpose. Only two bridges were actually installed, both 80-foot-long open deck plate girder spans, and only the southern bridge was ever put into service, though both remain in place today. Double tracking never actually reached Chittenden. The section from Watsonville Junction to Logan was finished in October 1929, while the section from Gilroy to Sargent was finished on December 26, 1930, but between these points, the right-of-way remains a single track. The cost of installing a second track through Pajaro Gap and especially across the Pajaro River in the midst of the Great Depression ended any hope for this project’s completion.

A Del Monte—Southern Pacific No. 2454—leaving Watsonville Junction, circa 1930s. Photo by Fred Stoes. [Courtesy Yesteryear Depot – colorized using MyHeritage]

Passenger service along the Coast Division mainline suffered greatly from the increased use of private automobiles in the first half of the twentieth century. By 1951, most regular passenger trains had stopped calling at stations between Gilroy and Watsonville Junction. Further consolidations led to Southern Pacific merging two neighboring divisions into the Western–Coast Division on April 26, 1964, though this became the Western Division six months later. The next year in May, the Coast Mail made its last run, followed in May 1971 by the Coast Daylight and Del Monte, when Amtrak took over national passenger services. Changes across its lines convinced the railroad to rebrand in 1969 as the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Further reductions in service and contractions across the industry led the Western Division to absorb other adjacent divisions in April 1987 to become the Western Region. This remained the name for the section at the time the Union Pacific Railroad took full control of Southern Pacific’s operations in 1998. Under its new owners, the section became the Salinas Subdivision, part of Union Pacific’s Roseville Service Unit.

An Amtrak Coast Starlight passing through Corporal, December 1979. Photo by Drew Jacksich. [Courtesy Drew Jacksich and Flickr]

Freight service along the former Southern Pacific Coast Division has not ceased since the line first opened in 1871, and local freight industries at Logan, Watsonville Junction, and Watsonville suggest that it will remain active for the foreseeable future. In addition, larger freight movements passing along the line, though not stopping, are constant. Restoring passenger service to this section has been a more difficult goal that has faced endless setbacks since the 1970s. The Coast Starlight succeeded the Coast Daylight and the Starlight in 1971 and runs regularly between Seattle and Los Angeles along this section, but does not stop. However plans to extend Caltrain service south of Gilroy to Watsonville Junction, Castroville, and Salinas have not materialized. Only time will tell if full, regular commuter passenger service will resume along this section of railroad, but the trackage remains active and under the ownership of Union Pacific.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr., “SP San Jose to Watsonville Junction” [SP70/73]. December 2017.
• California Coast Railroad Company, “Articles of Association." June 15, 1867. Courtesy California State Archives.
• Daggett, Stuart. Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific. New York: Ronald Press Company, 1922.
• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. SSanta Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• Signor, John R. Southern Pacific’s Coast Line. Wilton, CA: Signature Press, 1994.
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Miscellaneous corporate documents. 1892–1996.
• Surface Transportation Board. Finance Docket No. 32760—Decision No. 44. August 6, 1996.
• Union Pacific Railroad Company. Roseville Service Unit—Salinas Subdivision Gilroy OGN/Phase 4/ Book 52. April 13, 1998.
• Various articles from The Daily Examiner, The Independent, The Pajaronian, The San Luis Obispo Tribune, Santa Cruz Evening News, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

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.