WESTERN PACIFIC Milepoits MARCH 1953 GOLDEN ALTNIVERZAILY ISSUE 'WESTERN PACIFI This short history is re- printed from MILEPOSTS for March, 1953, in observance of the fiftieth anniversary of ,Mileposcis Western Pacific. Fifty Candles for Wastorn Pacific By G. H. KNEISS Tuesday, March 3, 1903, was just Pardee signed a bill making the Golden another rainy day to most San Fran- Poppy the state flower of California. ciscans.There wasn't much excitement. No, not too much excitement, but Carrie Nation, armed with axe and even so readers of the San Francisco Bible, smashed some bottled goods Chronicle next day reached page 14 and glassware in a Montgomery Street before they learned that eleven men saloon and was hustled off to jail. To had sat down around a table in the jail likewise went Miss Flo Russell, a Safe Deposit Building on California young lady whose crime lay in expos- Street and organized a new transconti- ing an ankle and bit of petticoat while lifting her skirts high enough to Vre n arvL1zfi clear the muddy pave- • ment, and to jail in Mann County, across the Bay, • r 1.• ct c. • 1•_11)ct. ontc a m/. went one George Gow, who illegally failed to bring his automobile to a 7/ ri //// .//e '14 dead stop when a horse- /,/,// drawn vehicle approached 4 , 4 ,,,,,,, ,e e, ;747: 47 tee, 4/,/e 7 /7; je, within 300 feet. , Over in Corea (as it .,„ ee, -47 /, then was spelled), San /4,e4e , Franciscans learned from 74 //"S their newspapers, fighting , -/- 7 ,r7 • ,1 71/ / went on along the Yalu River between the Rus- sians and the Japanese, ,, ,/ / („> and at Harvard Professor / / / / / / I Hollis, chairman of the A , - Athletic Committee, said that football aroused only ' 7,, , / / / the worst impulses and / should be abolished. Up .//h ,/ , / , / / in Sacramento Governor eee'; e e e e, , 4,7 7 4 , / / MARCH, 1953 , / zz, „, / 7 ' 1 • / '4 nental railroad to be named the West- trained as a surveyor. By that time the ern Pacific. gold diggers that had briefly overrun It was to run from the city of the Feather River country following San Francisco eastward through the Bidwell's celebrated discovery on July canyons of the Feather River and 4, 1848, had departed with their pokes Beckwourth Pass and on to Salt Lake and six-shooters. Barkeeps and dance City. By branch lines it was also to hall gals had followed them. The many- serve San Jose, Alameda, Berkeley, pronged turbulent river which Ar- Richmond, Fresno, Chico and Pratt- guello had named Rio de las Plumas vine. Walter J. Bartnett, San Francisco, because of countless floating feathers Reconnaissance party On the Butte & Plumas Railway Company. "Snow- ball" is carrying a desk and bedding for two men. lawyer and promoter, had subscribed from moulting wild pigeons, flowed in to 14,900 of the 15,000 shares of capital solitude through its deep gorges. stock but behind him, speculation One of the first professional jobs that went, were probably the Goulds, the came Keddie's way after he had hung Vanderbilts, Jim Hill or David Moffat. out his shingle at Quincy, county seat Perhaps the reason that the Chronicle of Plumas County, was that of explor- put its writeup back on page 14 along ing the North Fork of the Feather for with the truss ads and the electric belts the newly-organized Oroville and was that the story was not exactly new. Men had talked about a railroad Beckwourth Pass Wagon Road Com- through the Feather River Canyon for pany. Beckwourth Pass, for unknown a long time, particularly one named ages a great Indian thoroughfare, had Arthur W. Keddie. been discovered to civilization by Jim KEDDIE'S DREAM Beckwourth, a mulatto scout, in 1850. Keddie had come to California in the A Sierra crossing more than 2,000 feet early sixties a young Scottish lad, below the elevation of Donner Pass, it 2 MILEPOSTS had become popular for covered wagon of Plumas County to take and Sub- trains. scribe to the Capital Stock of the Oro- Keddie made his canyon reconnais- ville and Virginia City Railroad Com- sance in the dead of winter but the pany." Actually, it not only authorized snows he encountered were surpris- them, it specified that said Supervisors ingly light. Furthermore, he found a could be fined, removed from office, route with grades too easy to waste on and sued for damages if they didn't a wagon road. Back to Quincy he went do so! This may have been good politics with a thrill and a dream in his heart— but it was deplorable public relations. the thrill of having discovered what he Enthusiasm for the railroad in Plumas felt sure would prove to be the best County cooled while indignation boiled route for a transcontinental railway and the Supervisors resigned en masse. and the dream of having part in build- A legal battle finally repealed the ing it. obnoxious statute. The young surveyor managed to in- General Rosecrans tried to induce terest several important men in his the Union Pacific to take over the idea: Asbury Harpending of diamond O. & V. C. project as its California hoax fame, Civil War General William connection and thus by-pass the Cen- Rosecrans, Creed Hammond and others. tral Pacific with its already critical Some of them were sincerely interested snow problems. His old comrade in in railroad building. Harpending, for arms, General G. M. Dodge, actually one, was convinced that the Central left his U. P. construction camp and Pacific had chosen a most inferior came out to consider the offer. He liked route over the mountains and would what he saw but the Central Pacific be easy competition. As the Quincy end-of-track was miles into the Ne- Union put it: "The Central Pacific have vada sagebrush by then and, although long since understood they must con- the Union Pacific was authorized by tent themselves with the summer trade Congress to build to the California of Virginia City and Carson. The Feather River Railroad will be the road line, it had to stop wherever it met the C. P. across the continent." But others of the associates were looking only at the Keddie started construction on the speculative possibilities when coupled O. & V. C. near Oroville in the spring with their own political influence. of '69. A gang of thirty Chinamen was 4 The Oroville and Virginia City Rail- put to grading between Thompson Flat road Company was formed in April, and Morris Ravine. Shortly afterward 1867. Capital stock sales were author- Congress was asked to help with a land ized up to five million dollars, but a grant of 641,200 acres. But the whole negligible amount was sold. Whereupon thing blew up. The builders of the some of Keddie's new associates rail- Central Pacific were adept at "pres- roaded a most amazing bill through sure" and they put plenty of it on the California Legislature and induced Harpending to ditch the scheme. And Governor Haight to sign it. one of them, C. P. Huntington, laughed This new law was entitled "An Act Keddie out of his office with the remark Authorizing the Board of Supervisors "no man will ever be fool enough to MARCH, 1953 3 Western Pacific, unlike earlier transcon- build a railroad through the Feather tinentals, was largely machine constructed, River Canyon." though the equipment used seems quaint by today's standards. Arthur Keddie had to put his dream in mothballs but he did not forget it. Left, above, shows a steam shovel working The seventies and the eighties passed. in the cut just east of °royale. The close of the latter decade found Right, above, is the "merry-go-round" used the Union Pacific, less than entirely in constructing large fills in operation at Milepost 59. happy with its western connection, again considering its own line to San Below, "Improved Harris Track-Layer" Francisco. Out in the field was Virgil G. putting down rail near Hartwell (now Quincy Junction). Bogue, U. P. chief engineer, running trial surveys over the Sierra. One was almost as bad above it, this low divide down the Pit River, one through offered a means of utilizing the best Susanville and along Deer Creek, sev- parts of both canyons. eral through Beckwourth Pass and Crossing the Sierra summit at Beck- down the Feather. Bogue rather fa- wourth Pass, thence descending the vored the Deer Creek route despite upper reaches of the Middle Fork and some 80 miles of 4 per cent grade, but cutting over to the North Fork at Jay Gould gained control of the Union Spring Garden, as Keddie had sug- Pacific about that time, and the plans gested, to reach the Sacramento Valley for a San Francisco extension were at Oroville, Kennedy completed his abandoned. survey late in 1892. It was a good line, with a ruling grade of 173 per cent, and THE SAN FRANCISCO & as he filed his maps in the various GREAT SALT LAKE county court houses, they established This was bad news to California under the existing laws, a five-year shippers and merchants who had hoped option on the route in the name of the for some relief from the Central Pacific San Francisco and Great Salt Lake monopoly which skillfully adjusted Railroad Company. rates to the maximum figures which With these rights and Kennedy's would allow its customers to remain in estimate of $35 million to build the business. A group of them got together railroad, the San Franciscans jour- and determined to build the Union neyed to New York City, the lair of Pacific connection themselves.