NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR READERS This is a draft version of the new digital edition of Goleta Depot: The His- tory Of A Rural Railroad Station. The final version will be released by the end of 2013. Here is a synopsis of what is contained in the draft and what is not: 1. All of the chapters, with their complete text and images are included in the draft. I will be editing the draft text in response to the comments received from my reviewers. I’m not completely satisfied with the quality of some of the images in the draft and will likely work some more on these as well. 2. The front and back cover art is not complete. Instead, you will find placehold- er images there. 3. The Acknowledgment page has yet to be prepared. This is explained on page ii, the verso of the short-title page. 4. I will be adding Author’s Notes for the new edition. 5. The Dedication has yet to be written. 6. The most notable deficiency in the draft is that many of the hyperlinks that will be contained in the final book have yet to be added. Instead, you will find only a sampling of hyperlinks, mostly in the first chapters of the book, which will at least give you an idea of what the final is going to be like in this regard. 7. I’ve added the word “DRAFT” on a number of pages throughout the book to remind any readers that this is not a final version. The recommended way to read and use this book is as follows: 1. Download the complete file to your computer. 2. To read the book, load the pdf file into Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Reader, or another dedicated pdf reader. Do not read the book in your Internet browser using an Acrobat plug-in. You’ll want to reserve your browser for viewing the outside resources that are accessed via the hyperlinks in the book. 3. It is highly recommended that you set your pdf reader for either two-page viewing (View/Page Display/Two-Page Viewing) or two-page scrolling (View/Page Display/Two-Page Scrolling) using the menu at the top of the reader window. This is especially important in order to properly view the many graphics that span across adjacent pages. You are welcome to distribute this draft to others. Anyone who has yet to order their free copies of the completed book may do so at: http://www.goletadepot.org/_orderbook/order_book1.php Additional copies of the draft may be downloaded at: http://goletadepot.org/draftbook.pdf — Gary Coombs GOLETA DEPOT DRAFT ACKNOWLEDGMENT This book was made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional Project Contributors In the final book, this page will also acknowledge those who have supported the book project with additional financial contributions. The list of names will be similar to that found on page 255, which comes from the first edition. The listing here will be tiered, with the names of those contributing larger amounts appearing first. There will be three levels of support: (1) $250 or more; (2) $100- $249; and (3) $50-$99. All donors of $50 or more will be acknowledged here. Persons wishing to support the project may send their tax-deductible contribution to: Depot Book Project South Coast Railroad Museum 300 North Los Carneros Road Goleta, CA 93117 Please make checks payable to: South Coast Railroad Museum. The South Coast Railroad Museum is a program of the Institute for American Research, a public-benefit (501c3) nonprofit organization. All donations are deductible from state and federal income taxes in accordance with law. TITLE PAGE GOLETA DEPOT The History of a Rural Railroad Station GARY B. COOMBS Institute for American Research Goleta, California Copyright © 1982, 2013 Institute for American Research All Rights Reserved. First Edition printed at Kimberly Press, Goleta, Calif. First Printing: November 1982 Second Edition composed digitally in Goleta, Calif. First public draft released in June 2013. DRAFT The History of a Rural Railroad Station v Author’s Notes [to the first edition] This volume owes its existence to many people. Much credit is due to those organizations and individuals who underwrote the research and manuscript preparation costs. These contributors have received a special acknowledgment on an earlier page.* The members and friends of the In- stitute for American Research also have been essential in supporting the project. My thanks to the many longtime Goleta residents and former Southern Pacific Transportation Co. employees and their families who provided the oral testimony on which much of this book rests: Al Hartnett, Earl and Rose Ann Hill, Mildred Love, Ruth Hammond, Marion Sepulveda, Al San- dal, George Love, Barbara MacLean, Frances Rodrigue, Evelyn Durham, Margaret O Rourke, Charles and Sallie Munro, Mrs. Ralph Hughes, Sue Anderson, E.P. Sandy, Albert St. Clair, Tom Hartigan, Gene Allen, Frank Vasquez, and Chris Christenson. Thanks to the many other fine people who helped in one way or another to find and bring together the information contained in this volume: Larry Sizer, Lucille Christie, Michael Glassow, Greg Knudson, Robert Miller, Susan De Lapa, Ray Baird, Angie Burke, and Linda Dick. Paul Heuston generously devoted countless hours to the project, provid- ing photographic work and technical advice whenever they were required. A considerable debt is owed to Walker A. Tompkins, not only for his ex- cellent foreword, but also for his editorial assistance and his earlier written works on the Goleta Valley — Santa Barbara‘s Royal Rancho, Goleta: The Good Land, and Fourteen at the Table — which proved to be indispensable sources for much of the general material on local history contained in this volume. Encouragement and assistance was lent by Steve Sullivan, longtime bu- reau chief of the Santa Barbara News-Press, whose interest in the depot spans more than a quarter-century. The newspaper’s generous loan of key * This acknowledgment of financial contributors to the first edition is now located on page255 . vi Goleta Depot pictures made by staff photographers over the years also helped make the book possible. Finally, I want to thank Phyllis Olsen, assistant director of the Insti- tute for American Research, for her help in collecting the oral accounts and written materials on which the book is based, for her successes in obtain- ing financial underwriters, and for other assistances far too numerous to mention. In order to improve the readability of the depot history, I have not in- cluded references to all of the many source materials used in its prepara- tion. To assist researchers and others who may be interested in tracing and reviewing these sources, a fully-referenced copy of the book may be con- sulted at the Institute for American Research, 300 N. Los Carneros Road, Goleta, Calif GBC The History of a Rural Railroad Station vii FOREWORD [to the first edition] by Walker A. Tompkins Author of Goleta: the Good Land The only thing more destructive to historical landmarks than a bull- dozer is procrastination on the part of preservationists. Witness what happened in Santa Barbara: Out of 200 authentic Spanish adobes at the turn of the century, only 16 survive today. The Goleta Valley was essentially developed by American settlers, who had few Spanish-era adobes to protect. The San Jose Winery on up- per Patterson Avenue and the Daniel Hill Adobe on La Patera Lane are examples of landmarks which escaped destruction. Lack of awareness of their heritage on the part of the Goleta Valley’s earlier settlers resulted in the irrevocable loss of such landmarks as John More’s mansion on More Mesa, the Birabent Hotel near Magnolia Av- enue, the original St. Raphael’s Catholic Church which stood on stilts above the marsh at Hollister and Fairview Avenues, the 1875 Langman ranch house, the 1872 “Fairview” home of Albert G. Hollister, the Meth- odist Church of 1875, the Baptist Church of 1884, Deu’s pioneer store, Pico’s blacksmith shop. All unnoticed in the years following World War II, another facet of frontier Americana was disappearing before our eyes on a countywide scale — the taken-for-granted country railroad depots and freight sta- tions at Carpinteria, Naples, the Sudden ranch, Point Conception and Surf. These Southern Pacific depots didn’t look much like future museum pieces. They were strictly utilitarian, with about as much architectural ornamentation as a shoe box. They were universally painted “SP yellow” with brown trim, and had clones wherever the Southern Pacific tracks ran. It was the newcomers to the Goleta Valley — members of the great in- viii Goleta Depot flux of people following the Cachuma water project of the mid-50s which tripled the valley’s population in one decade — who first called public attention to the fact that Goleta had a rare treasure in its midst — the last surviving example of the classic “Combination Station 22” railway depot. The Southern Pacific had stopped using Goleta Depot for passenger and freight service by 1973. The only thing that stopped them from reduc- ing the hoary antique to matchwood was a legal contract with the Kel- logg family heirs, original owners of the trackside property on which the depot had been built in 1901. The Kelloggs were willing to donate the Goleta Depot to the valley’s historical society for use as a museum, but the Southern Pacific insisted that it be moved from the premises. Each passing month saw the old sta- tion succumbing to mindless vandalism, souvenir hunters, graffiti artists, transients and the weather. The Goleta Valley Historical Society rallied around the battle cry of “We’ve got to save the Goleta Depot! It may be the last of its kind! This is a bit of vanishing Americana!” but after four futile years of battling red tape, they gave up the struggle.