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    Yreka Western Railroad
    Yreka Western Railroad
    Yreka Western Railroad
    Ebook163 pages57 minutes

    Yreka Western Railroad

    By Matt Starman and Tim Stricker

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    About this ebook

    The city of Yreka was determined to have a railroad. When the Southern Pacific Railroad decided in 1883 to bypass Yreka, the citizens constructed their own railroad known as the Yreka Railroad Company. This railroad managed to eke out a living over the next few decades. In the 1930s, the railroad was reincorporated as the Yreka Western Railroad. By the mid-1930s, the railroad went bankrupt and was forced into receivership, and a new manager was put in charge. Through perseverance of the new manager, the railroad began to grow and prosper. By the late 1970s, the railroad once again started to decline, but as in the past, it managed to hold on. In 1986, the railroad started an excursion train known as the Blue Goose, and steam locomotive No. 19 was added in 1989. Throughout all the hardships, the railroad still continues today and has been given the nickname the Little Railroad that Refuses to Die.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 11, 2011
    ISBN9781439639191
    Yreka Western Railroad
    Author

    Matt Starman

    Authors Matt Starman and Tim Stricker are both dedicated volunteers on the Yreka Western Railroad. Both have had a fascination with railroads since an early age, with frequent trips being taken on the Yreka Western�s excursion train. This book houses over 200 photographs from the archives of the Yreka Western Railroad as well as other public and private collections.

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      Book preview

      Yreka Western Railroad - Matt Starman

      Archives.

      INTRODUCTION

      In 1848, James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill near Coloma, California. Maj. Pierson B. Reading visited the gold discovery area that same year. He returned to his rancho in Northern California and washed out the first gold on Clear Creek in Shasta County. He then went up the Trinity River to continue prospecting there. Shortly thereafter, in 1849, prospectors began moving north, making one discovery after another. One day in March 1851, a party from Oregon on their way to a mine at a location known as Greenhorn stopped to camp in the area known as Yreka Flats, which was a common place for prospectors to stop on their way to other diggings. Before breaking camp that morning, a member of the party, Abraham Thompson, decided to do a little prospecting before leaving through a ravine later known as Black Gulch. It did not take him long to realize the richness of the area.

      The party would later organize a mining district and name it Thompson’s Dry Diggings. Soon after, other miners and prospectors began flocking to the area in droves, all arriving at Thompson’s Dry Diggings. Within six months, the name of the town was changed to Shasta Butte City and boasted a population of just over 5,000. By 1852, the town was renamed Yreka, which is derived from a local Native American tribe word Wyekah, meaning White Mountain, which refers to nearby 14,162-foot Mount Shasta.

      Early transportation into the area was by pack train, horseback, or on foot. Pack trains soon gave way to freight wagons and stagecoaches as the trails improved. The first stage between Yreka and the Scott Valley was in 1854. Within a few years, roads began to develop. Soon, the agriculture industry began to grow in the area. By the 1860s, roads had developed between the gold camps in Siskiyou County to a connection with the steamboats on the Sacramento River at Red Bluff. In May 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed, linking California with the rest of the union. Not long after, the Central Pacific Railroad began building north from Sacramento to Oregon under the name of the California and Oregon Railroad.

      In 1872, the railhead reached an area known as Poverty Flats, and the railroad established the town of Redding, named after B. B. Redding, Central Pacific’s first land agent. Construction halted here for the next decade because of the financial panic of 1873. By 1885, construction had resumed, and the Central Pacific purchased the Oregon and California Railroad, whose railhead was at Ashland, Oregon. By January 1, 1887, the railhead reached the southern end of the Shasta Valley at Edgewood station. On December 17, 1888, the two railroads met at Ashland, completing the railroad over the Siskiyou Mountains between Sacramento, California, and Portland, Oregon.

      During construction, the original survey of the railroad made by Central Pacific’s chief engineer, Samuel S. Montague, had placed the railroad running through Yreka. When he died in 1883, William Hood succeeded him as chief engineer for the railroad. However, when Hood took over, he opted for a less expensive and more level route through the Shasta Valley, bypassing Yreka all together. In November 1886, a Yreka delegation consisting of James Vance, H. B. Gillis, and Dr. D. Ream met with directors of the railroad in San Francisco to discuss the advantages of building through Yreka. At the same time, another citizen from Yreka, Fred Autenrieth, met with William Hood at Edson’s, which was near Mount Shasta. The delegations returned to Yreka with high hopes after receiving positive feedback from the railroad directors and the chief engineer. However, a letter from Timothy Hopkins, railroad treasurer, ruined the hopes of the citizens of Yreka when it was determined that the route through Yreka would add 5.5 miles to the proposed route and was more costly to build.

      Without a rail connection to the outside world, the citizens of Yreka feared that the city would lose its prestige as a money center in Siskiyou County and eventually die. In December 1886, the citizens of Yreka decided to attempt to build a railroad of their own. Yreka then formed a committee to try and build the railroad. In March 1887, Fred Autenrieth, a committee member, acquired surveyors to find the best possible route to a connection with the Central Pacific. The first proposal called for a 10-mile route from Yreka to Julians, which was 9 miles south of Montague near the present town of Grenada. However, this would require building a depot on the Central Pacific, which would increase the total cost of the railroad.

      On August 27, 1887, an election was held to bond Yreka for $85,000 to build a shorter route over Butcher Hill to Montague, a town site laid out by Central Pacific and named after the late Samuel Montague. There was opposition to the railroad by four men running the stagecoaches between Yreka and Montague. The bonds were passed, with a vote of 241 for the bonds and

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