Railroads: San Vicente Lumber Company Railroad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Citations & Credits:

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

Bridges: Lower Los Gatos Creek

A photograph showing the bridge across
Los Gatos Creek with the Los Gatos
Manufacturing Company at the end, c. 1900.
Photo by Alice Hare. [San Jose Public Library]

When the South Pacific Coast Railroad first built its track south from San José, the track crossed to the east bank of Los Gatos Creek just in front of the Los Gatos Manufacturing Company mill. At the time, this route was intended to be the mainline for the railroad, but that would change quickly when clay was discovered along the path of the train and the entire right-of-way would have to move to the west bank of the river. Nonetheless, the route over the creek remained in place to support the mill and the clay quarry that was located at the end of the spur.

The first bridge over Los Gatos Creek was a simply-built narrow-gauge trestle with a redwood deck that sat atop piers supported by crossbeams. Like most things built by the South Pacific Coast, the deck was wide enough to support standard-gauge trains, with the expectation that the route would be upgraded at some point in the future. However, this was the only bridge over Los Gatos Creek that was never expanded. The spur was abandoned in 1907 when the narrow-gauge tracks in Los Gatos were pulled, and the bridge sat abandoned for years before the Southern Pacific Railroad finally demolished it around 1910. Nothing remains of this bridge.

A popular postcard of the Los Gatos Manufacturing Company showing the wide bridge over Los Gatos Creek, 1905.
[San Jose Public Library]

Further down the mainline, in the heart of Cats Canyon, the South Pacific Coast was forced to build yet another crossing over the creek. Unlike the bridge to the north, this one would remain a part of the mainline until the closure of the route, although it would be entirely replaced at one point.

A postcard showing the underside of the original narrow-gauge bridge prior to 1903. [CardCow.com]

The original structure was primarily composed of a wooden double-intersecting Warren truss bridge, which was a fairly standard design that the South Pacific Coast used elsewhere along the line. Rather than passing through the truss span, the trains would run atop it over a wooden deck. The truss was built atop two wooden piers that were erected on the banks of the creek. Minor trestlework bridged the gap between the truss and the bridge abutments. Unlike the first bridge, this one was not wide enough for standard-gauge rail and certainly could not support the weight of such rolling stock. There are only a few photographs of this early bridge, including the photo above and one on file at the California State Railroad Museum.

Los Gatos Creek bridge #1 on a winter's day with a woman standing atop, c. 1930s. [Unknown]

An early postcard of the new bridge,
c. 1910s. [Unknown]

The structure was replaced around 1903 with an entirely new bridge that has proven much more photogenic over the four decades it existed. The bridge consisted of a single prefabricated American Bridge Company steel plate-girder deck. This was installed atop two tall concrete piers that were anchored on either bank, roughly at the same locations as the older, wooden piers. New concrete abutments were installed and new trestlework connected the track from the abutments to the deck. Again, this was a standard design Southern Pacific adopted throughout the area in their upgrading of the old narrow-gauge tracks. Unlike the original bridge, this one did have a bit of a curve to it suggesting that the right-of-way was smoothed out a bit in the process of upgrading. The photograph at right shows a fairly wide right-of-way approaching the bridge from the south and very little brush or trees are nearby, hinting that they have recently been cleared for widening. Wooden railings were installed in the late 1920s or early 1930s, probably due to new safety laws.

A freight train passing over the bridge in 1938 during the final years of operation. [Wilbur C. Whittaker]

Curiously, this trestle was one of the first removed by the Southern Pacific Railroad after the disastrous storms of February 1940. Bruce MacGregor and Richard Truesdale's South Pacific Coast: A Centennial claims the photograph below was taken June 21, 1940, but that seems impossible since permission to abandon the line was not even granted until November. What is more likely is that this photograph is from June 1941, when much of the demolition work was conducted. Southern Pacific crews removed the rail, ties, trestlework, and prefabricated bridge, but they left the rest behind.

The demolition of Los Gatos Creek bridge #1, June 21, 1940/41. [Bruce MacGregor & Richard Truesdale]

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
Los Gatos Creek bridge (Manufacturing spur): 37.223˚N, 121.981˚W
Los Gatos Creek bridge #1: 37.205˚N, 121.990˚W

The bridge that once crossed over Los Gatos Creek to access the Los Gatos Manufacturing Company has long since disappeared. The construction of the State Route 17 bypass in 1956 destroyed any remnants of the trestle and the creek itself was diverted into a culvert at this location.

Northern curb of the bridge, looking south. A graffiti-covered concrete box sits atop the abutment. [Derek Whaley]

The bridge in Cats Canyon, however, is entirely accessible from the west bank. People hiking along the Los Gatos Creek Trail will reach a point within sight of the James Lenihan Dam where the trail takes a steep climb upwards. To the left of this hill there is an overgrown path populated primarily with Scotch broom. Taking this path will bring a hiker to the northern abutment of the bridge, from which the nearest pier can be easily viewed through the trees.

Across the abutment toward the southern side one can see the piers and the clearing for the right-of-way, as well as some remnants of wood pilings. [Derek Whaley]

From the top of the hill, both piers can be seen as well as the remnant right-of-way across the creek, which is extremely difficult to access safely. This right-of-way eventually ends in the parking lot on the northern face of the Lenihan Dam. Public access is not permitted.

A view from above the hill looking south with both piers visible as well as the right-of-way on the opposite bank. The area remains heavily overgrown and forested, and the opposite bank appears to be clear but unused. [Derek Whaley]

Citations:

• Hamman, Rick. California Central Coast Railways. Second edition. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002.
• MacGregor, Bruce, and Richard Truesdale. South Pacific Coast: A Centennial. Pruett Publishing, 1982.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Wilder Creek Trestle

As the now-joint Coast Line and Ocean Shore Railroad right-of-way—triple tracked—curved northward out of Santa Cruz on its heading toward Davenport and beyond, it narrowed into a single lane as it passed over its second trestle at Wilder Creek. The creek is an expansive waterway breaking quickly into branches as it travels from Ben Lomond Mountain to Wilder Beach. The largest of these branches required an impressive redwood truss bridge to cross. The trestle began southeast of the Wilder Ranch dairy and ended just slightly southwest of it, spanning roughly 850 feet.

A freight train heads north to Davenport over the Wilder Creek Trestle, c. 1950. (MacGregor)

The creek itself had not always named Wilder Creek, nor do all consider it called that today. The earliest name attributed to it is Bolcroff Creek, for an early Santa Cruz settler, while Meder Creek, named after Moses A Meder, was the name it had until the Wilder family moved in to the property. That name is after Deloss D. Wilder, the first Wilder to own the property beginning in 1871. But the government remains inconclusive on the name, often using Wilder and Meder interchangeably, a debate that still quietly continues to this day in paperwork.

Double-headed excursion train heading toward Santa Cruz, 1948 (Rice & Echeverria)

Unlike the other trestles along the joint-SP/OS right-of-way to Davenport, the trestle over Wilder Creek was never filled in. First built in 1905, it remained a full-exposed wood-frame trestle right into the present, finally being filled at some point after 1951, probably in the 1970s. It is instantly recognizable compared to other water spans in the county due to a darker wood or heavier tar used in the center of the trestle, as is visible in all three photographs here. Because it was not filled, the trestle was heavily reinforced for use along a line that primarily supported cement trains heading out from Davenport, thus photographs show extensive crossbeams with closely-packed pilings. Though heavily photographed in excursion trips that passed the Wilder property, pedestrians were not encouraged to cross the bridge and no walkway or railings were provided for such a use. A sign in the photograph above looks similar to other signs along the Southern Pacific's routes warning people to stay away from the tracks and trestle.

A northbound double-header taking an excursion group to Davenport, c. 1950. (Hamman)

Wilder Creek now travels through three separate culverts under the right-of-way, one under the former trestle near its eastern end, and two east of the former trestle through additional culverts. The filled trestle can be easily viewed from the Wilder Ranch State Park property as a steep hillside just south of the former houses of the dairy farm. No evidence of the physical trestle remains, though the tracks continue to pass over the top of the fill. The right-of-way is currently owned by the City of Santa Cruz as part of its Iowa Pacific-operated Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway project.

Citations:

• Donald Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary (Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008).
• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways (Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002).
• Bruce MacGregor, South Pacific Coast: An Illustrated History of the Narrow-Gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad (Howell-North Books, 1968).
• Walter Rice & Emiliano Echeverria, Images of Rail: Rails of California's Central Coast (Arcadia, 2008).

Moore Creek Trestles

As the Ocean Shore Railroad's Southern Division began its northernly turn toward the Southern Pacific's Coast Line tracks, both lines were forced to bridge the first body of water along a route that would be riddled with creeks and lagoons. Fortunately, a corporate agreement between the two companies ensured that this would be the only creek that the two firms would have to bridge separately. In the end, the Ocean Shore won the battle, but the Coast Line won the war.

At Moore Creek, the border between the northern city limits of the City of Santa Cruz and the vast wilderness of the north coast, the two railroad right-of-ways were within eye-shot of each other, no more than 400 feet apart. Within a quarter of a mile, the two lines would unify as they approached the dairy at Wilder Ranch. The only thing between them was the mill pond and factories of the San Vicente Lumber Company that exclusively used the Ocean Shore's line for lumber between 1909 and 1923. The creek itself was named after Eli Moore, a North Carolinian who moved to Santa Cruz in 1847 and built a ranch on the hill near the current Arboretum. After only a few years on the site, he moved to downtown where he is said to have built one of the first wooden structures in the city (the previous all being made of adobé). Moore died in 1859 but the creek has retained his name ever since.

San Vicente Mill at Antonelli Pond, c. 1910. Parallel tracks in the foreground
are the Coast Line tracks and a siding. (Rick Hamman)

The approximately 225-foot long Ocean Shore Trestle was less a trestle and more of a fill, located along modern-day Delaware Avenue at the southern end of the Antonelli Pond where Moore Creek passes into Natural Bridges State Beach. The trestle was filled very early on, possibly as early as 1905 when the creek was first bridged, and afterwards the creek passed through a culvert under the right-of-way as it did in numerous places along the North Coast. The pond itself was artificial, caused by the earthen works of the fill then used by the San Vicente Lumber Company for its mill pond which serviced their mill located immediately east of the pond. When the lumber company ceased using the Ocean Shore tracks in 1923, the tracks were pulled and the right-of-way was converted into a road named Ocean Shore Boulevard, later Delaware Avenue.

The San Vicente Lumber Company mill pond eventually was renamed the Mazzoni Pond, after a landowner, before it was finally named the Antonelli Pond, for the Antonelli brothers—John, Patrick, and Peter—who owned the adjacent property. They were known for growing and selling begonias in Capitola and they opened a second garden here. In 1980, the western half of the pond was sold to the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County to be built up as a historic landmark.

Southern Pacific's Moore Creek Trestle, c. 2012. (Google Maps)

Just north of the Ocean Shore's trestle, the more formal Coast Line trestle over Moore Creek still sits. Constructed of numerous rows (at least 15) of redwood pilings and cross braces, the 325-foot long trestle was erected by the Southern Pacific around 1906, soon after construction began on the route out of Santa Cruz. For whatever reason, the Coast Line decided that the creek was better spanned than filled here, allowing the lagoon to survive to this day. Unlike the more northern trestles, this span was always a single track bridge with no easement allowed for Ocean Shore trains, which were diverted south along their own track. Mike Dalbey, a Wilder Ranch employee, photographed parts of the trestle recently and noted that Roman numerals are printed on the crossbeams, piers, braces, and bulkheads of the all-wood trestle allowing it to be prefabricated elsewhere and reassembled on site here. The trestle stills remains across the creek and can be most easily viewed from Delaware Avenue or accessed from Natural Bridges Drive. It is the only trestle remaining along the North Coast within Santa Cruz County, the rest being demolished or filled over the past century.

Citations:

• Donald Thomas Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary (Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008)
• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways (Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002).