WESTERN PACIFIC MARCH 1983 Mileposts Historic Issue ( --. • ~f (t r il!', OAKLAND {j(lff W/lf f ' WfLCOM&S I I.... A kl ~ ~!1 WESTON PAClftC; 11111,,1 IN THIS ISSUE Mileposts Last Issue REGULAR FEATURES: MILEPOSTS LAST ISSUE The MILEPOSTS issue you now hold is the last to be published under Editorial ......... ... ..... 2 Caboosing ... ... ....... ..... 52 that banner. By this time each of you will have received at least one issue FIFTY CANDLES FOR of Union Pacific INFO magazine and I know that you will agree that Service Awards .... .. ...... .. 56 WESTERN PACIFIC Manager-Employee Communications Jim Beck and staff do an excellent They Have Retired . .. .. 60 A reprint of the history job. In fact, a new publication is being designed to properly reflect the written for Mileposts needs of all employees in the merged system. In Memoriam ... .... .. .. ... 61 March 1953 by G. H. Kneiss .. 4 Before we leave MILEPOSTS to the historians, a few words are in order. Letters Received . ... .. ...... 62 In all, MILEPOSTS published 255 issues since 1949. The first Editor of EIGHTY CANDLES ON THE FINAL CAKE course was Lee "Flash" Sherwood ~ ~ Milepost 255 .. .. .. .. ... .. 63 Being the history of Western who started MILEPOSTS in 1949 ~ Pacific between 1953 and served until his retirement in and 1983 ............... .. .. 42 1974. In numbers, Lee was respon­ sible forthe first 234 issues. Lee will YESTERDAY ... TODAY . .. be remembered always as "Mr. TOMORROW Mileposts." Paul Gordenev of our A photographic salute to our Accounting Department took over promising future . .. Rear Cover from Lee in 1974 and served as Editor for several years until MILE­ POSTS was switched to a different format. Late in 1980, the Personnel Department, under the able steward­ ship of its Director Tom Green, received the mission to revive the Lee Sherwood MILEPOSTS and to return it in MILEPOSTS EDITOR most ways to the status it held 1949-1974 during the tenure of Lee Sherwood. Photo by Ted Benson I have indeed been fortunate to serve as your Editor these past two years and hope that what you now hold will serve as a keepsake in place of ON THE COVER all the issues you wished you had saved but didn't. First, we have reprinted the original history of the First Fifty Years of Western Pacific exactly as written by Gil Kneiss and printed in the March 1953 issue of MILEPOSTS. Second, Dick Bridges has been commissioned to write the Last Thirty Years of Western Pacific's history which appears under the title " Eighty Candles on the Final Cake." When you read it, I'm certain you Seldom, if ever, has a train met a more will agree that it has been prepared with the same care Gil Kneiss used , enthusiastic welcome than Oakland put on back in 1953. for the first through Western Pacific pa s­ Happy Reading! senger train on August 22, 1910. A. P. Schuetz Editor g Id d l 9 rs th t 110d b n fly ov n un til . nd fh d I am f hovfnc I '11 l ill Iln i l­ Fe ther River country following Bidwell's ing it celebrated discovery on July 4, 1848, The young surveyor managed 10 in­ had departed with thei r pokes and six­ terest several important men in his Fifty Candles for Western Pacific shooters. Barkeeps and dance hall gals idea Asbury Harpending of diamond had followed them. The many-pronged hoax fame, Civil War General William by G. H. Kneiss turbulent river which Arguello had named Rosecrans, Creed Hammond and oth­ Rio de las Plumas because of countless ers. Some of them were sincerely inter­ floating feathers from moulting wild ested in railroad building. Harpending. pigeons, flowed in solitude through its for one, was convi nced that the Central deep gorges. Pacific had chosen a most inferior One of the first professional jobs that route over the mountains and would be came Keddie's way after he had hung easy competition As the Qui ncy Union Tuesday, March 3,1903, was just an­ Prattville. Walter J. Bartnett, San Fran­ out his shingle at Quincy, county seat put it: "The Central Pacific have long other rainy day to most San Francis­ cisco, lawyer and promoter, had su b­ of Plumas County, was that of explor­ since understood they must content cans. There wasn't much excitement. scribed to 14,900 of the 15,000 shares of ing the North Fork of the Feather for themselves with the su m mer trade of Carrie Nation, armed with axe and Bible, capital stock but behind him, specula­ smashed some bottled goods and glass­ tion went, were probably the Goulds, the ware in a Montgomery Street saloon and Vanderbilts. Jim Hill or David Moffat. was hustled off to jail To jail likewise Perhaps the reason that the Chronicle went Miss Flo Russell, a young lady put its writeup back on page 14 along whose crime lay in exposing an ankle with the truss ads and the electric belts and bit of petticoat while lifting her skirts was that the story was not exactly new. Reconnaissance party high enough to clear the muddy pave­ Men had talked about a railroad through on the Butte & Plumas ment, and to jail in Marin County. across the Feather River Canyon for a long Ra ilway Company. "Snowball" is carrying the Bay, went one George Gow, who time. particularly one named Arthur W. a desk and beddmg fo r illegally failed to bring his automobile to Keddie. two men. a dead stop when a horse-drawn vehicle KEDDIE'S DREAM approached within 300 feet Over in Corea (as it then was spelled). Keddie had come to California in the San Franciscans learned from their news­ early sixties - a young Scottish lad, papers. fighting went on along the Yalu trained as a surveyor By that time the River between the Russians and the Japanese. and at Harvard Professor Hol­ .; lis. chairman of the Athletic Committee. ::e:rJimintl.r~ !Il~~tin,g the newly-organized Oroville and Beck­ Virginia City and Carson The Feather said that football aroused only the worst 1f~$ttm f-a.:jfic .{f(j<1tfw,,¥ ~Qm;a~ wourth Pass Wagon Road Company River Railroad will be the road across impulses and should be abolished. Up in Beckwourth Pass. for unknown ages a the continent " But others of the asso­ Sacramento Governor Pardee signed a great Indian thoroughfare. had been ciates were looking only at the specu­ bill making the Golden Poppy the state discovered to civilization by Jim Beck­ lative possibilities when coupled with flower of California. wourth, a mulatto scout. in 1850 A their own political influence No. not too much excitement, but Sierra crossing more than 2,000 feet The Oroville and Virginia City Rail­ even so readers of the San Francisco below the elevation of Donner Pass, it road Company was formed in April. Chronicle next day reached page 14 had become popular for covered wag­ 1867 Capital stock sales were author­ before they learned that eleven men had on trains ized up to five million dollars, but a sat down around a table in the Safe De­ Keddie made his canyon reconnais­ negligible amount was sold Where­ posit Building on California Street and sance in the dead of winter but the upon some of Keddie's new associates organized a new transcontinental rail­ snows he encountered were surpris­ railroaded a most amazing bill through road to be named the Western Pacific. ingly light Furthermore. he found a the California Legislature and induced It was to run from the city of San Fran­ route with grades too easy to waste on Governor Haight to sign it cisco eastward through the canyons of a wagon road Back to Quincy he went This new law was entitled "An Act the Feather River and Beckwou rth Pass with a thrill and a dream in his heart­ Authorizing the Board of Supervisors and on to Salt Lake City By branch Ii nes the thrill of having discovered what he of Plumas County to take and Sub­ it was also to serve San Jose. Alameda. / felt su re wou Id prove to be the best scribe to the Capital Stock of the Oro­ , l' / ." , Berkeley. Richmond. Fresno. Chico and route for a transcontinental railway ville and Virginia City Railroad Com- 4 S pany " Actually, it not only authorized the Feathe r. Bogue ra ttler favor d th them, it specified that said Supervisors Deer Creek route despite some 80 could be fined, removed from office, miles of 4 per cent grade, but Jay and sued for damages if they didn't do Gould gained control of the Union SOl This may have been good politics Pacific about that time, and the plans but it was deplorable public relations for a San Francisco extension were Enthusiasm for the railroad in Plumas abandoned County cooled while indignation boiled THE SAN FRANCISCO & and the Supervisors resigned en masse. GREAT SALT LAKE A legal battle finally repealed the ob­ noxious statute. This was bad news to California sh ip­ General Rosecrans tried to induce pers and merchants who had hoped the Union Pacific to take over the 0 & for some relief from the Central Pacifi c V C project as its California connec­ monopoly which skillfully adjusted rates tion and thus by-pass the Central Pa­ to the maximum figures which would cific with its already critical snow prob­ allow its customers to remain in busi­ lems. His old comrade in arms, General ness. A group of them got together an d G. M Dodge, actually left his U .