BUILDING OF THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC San Francisco and San JosÉ Railroad The Huntington interests had secured control of the California Pacific. The next logical step was to strengthen the position of the Central Pacific south of San Francisco Bay. A start in this direction had already been made through the construction of a branch from Lathrop on the Central Pacific to Goshen in the San Joaquin Valley, finished in August, 1872. But this was not enough. Not only did the Central Pacific fail to reach the city of San Francisco, but the company was threatened in 1869 with the possibility that an independent Southern Railroad system might be created, no less ambitious than the California Pacific, and penetrating a richer if less developed territory. This projected system was that of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and in respect to it Mr. Stanford frankly said some years afterwards: Well, the necessity of obtaining control of the Southern Pacific Railroad was based really upon the act of Congress providing for its construction. It became apparent that if that last was constructed entirely independent to those who were interested in the Central Pacific, it would become a dangerous rival not only for the through business from the Atlantic Ocean, but it would enter into active competition for the local business of California. It was of paramount importance that the road should be controlled by the friends of the Central Pacific; and all our anticipations consequent upon the control of that road have been realized. The small beginning of what later came to be known as the Southern Pacific Railroad system is to be found in the San This expectation was disappointed, as was the hope that the San Francisco and San JosÉ would participate in the federal subsidies and land grants provided in the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864. The city of San Francisco did, however, subscribe $300,000 in city bonds to San Francisco and San JosÉ Railroad stock, and the counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo, $200,000 and $100,000, respectively. At this time the Huntington group had no interests south of Sacramento. In 1869 the San Francisco and San JosÉ was extended to Gilroy by a company known as the Santa Clara and Pajaro Valley Railroad Company. Southern Pacific Railroad Company Shortly after the completion of the San Francisco and San JosÉ, another company, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, was incorporated The evidence suggests that the San Francisco and San JosÉ and the Southern Pacific Railroad companies fell under the control of Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker some time in 1868. Mr. Stanford published a statement on March 6, 1868, to the effect that any rumor that the Central Pacific or Western Pacific Railroad Company or any person connected with either of them had purchased the Southern Pacific or the San Francisco and San JosÉ or any property or franchises connected Consolidation On October 12, 1870, the San Francisco and San JosÉ Railroad, the Southern Pacific, the Santa Clara and Pajaro Valley Railroad, and a new company, the California Southern, organized on paper only, were consolidated into a corporation known as the Southern Pacific Railroad of California. The directors for the first year were Lloyd Tevis, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Charles Mayne, and Peter Donahue. Plainly, Central Pacific interests were in control. The purpose of the new company was stated to be to construct and operate a railroad from San Francisco to the Colorado River, through the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Monterey, Fresno, Tulare, Kern, San Bernardino, and San Diego, together with a line from Gilroy through the counties of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey, to a point at or near Salinas City. This was not the line proposed in the articles of incorporation, as an examination of the accompanying map will show. It was, however, in the main the route designated by the Southern Pacific in 1867, upon which land had been withdrawn from entry by the government at Washington, and it had the advantage of reaching the eastern boundary of California with less mileage and fewer grades than the line originally laid out. In 1871, an additional route from Los Angeles to Yuma was designated under the authority of the twenty-third section of the act to incorporate the Texas Pacific Railroad, which authorized the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to construct a line of railroad from a point at or near Techachapi Pass, by way of Los Angeles, to the Texas Pacific Railroad at or near the Colorado River, with the same rights and privileges, and subject to the same limitations and restrictions as were provided in the Atlantic and Pacific Act of 1866. Ambitious Construction Program Because of the terms of the federal Act of 1866, it was necessary for the Southern Pacific to proceed steadily in its construction to the south. The first piece of road offered in satisfaction of the requirement for a minimum annual construction, was that from San JosÉ to Gilroy. Then came an extension to Tres Pinos, which ended, for the time being, building on the Northern Division. What happened was that the associates found the southern end of the San Benito Valley, In later years there was discussion concerning the right of the Southern Pacific to refuse to build the stretch of road lying between Tres Pinos and Alcalde, connecting the San Benito and the San Joaquin valleys. It was insisted that the contract implied in the Congressional land grant of 1866 was an entire one, and that the amount of land given had been fixed in consideration of the difficulties of mountain construction between the valleys named. This contention is not, however, borne out by the terms of the Act of 1866, and there seems to be no good reason why Congress should have stipulated for the building of this particular bit of road, when satisfactory connection between the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco could be secured in another way. On their part, the associates never intended to build across the Coast Range, at least not out of the San Benito Valley. In 1872 the articles of association of the Southern Pacific Branch Railroad Company contained provision for a line from a point at or near Salinas City in the county of Monterey southeasterly to a point in Kern County south of Tulare Lake, intersecting the San Joaquin Division of the Southern Pacific. Even this road never was built. At the time when the Southern Pacific Railroad entered upon its ambitious project for southern construction, the territory south and east of Goshen was very slightly developed. Los Angeles was a city of 5,728 persons in 1870, with an assessed valuation of $2,108,061, and an average of one saloon to every fifty-five inhabitants. The railroad construction in the territory consisted of two local railroads connecting Los Angeles with the harbors of San Pedro and Santa Monica, to which should be added mention of the Texas Pacific project of Mr. Scott. The Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad was organized in 1868 and was finished on October 26, 1869. The city of Los Angeles subscribed $75,000 in city bonds, and the county took an additional amount of $150,000, also paying in bonds. City and county bonds both bore 10 per cent. The construction of this railroad marked the fruition of efforts begun as early as 1861, but the credit for final accomplishment of the work was due to Phineas Banning, the principal business man of Wilmington. In addition to the Los Angeles and San Pedro, reference should be made to the Los Angeles and Independence, a railroad built in 1875 by Senator John P. Jones, of Nevada, partly to afford an outlet to certain mines in Inyo County from which the senator expected large results, and partly to develop property on Santa Monica Bay. This road was also acquired by the Southern Pacific interests, but at a later date, and at the instance of Mr. Huntington against the judgment of at least one of his associates. Grant by Los Angeles By the acquisition of the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, the Southern Pacific provided itself with a southern terminal, in advance even of the completion of its main line. At the same time it used the advantage which the location of its mileage in the San Joaquin Valley gave to it in order to persuade the people of Los Angeles to grant it aid in the measure they could afford. Speaking after the event, it is sufficiently obvious that sooner or later the Southern Pacific, or some other transcontinental road, was bound to seek an outlet on the Pacific Ocean either at San Diego or at San Pedro, and of these two San Pedro was the most likely to be chosen. But this fact, clear at the present time, was not obvious to the inhabitants of Los Angeles; on the contrary, the possibility that Los Angeles might be passed by caused them the liveliest concern. This feeling was known to the officials of the Southern Pacific. In May, 1872, two citizens of Los Angeles wrote Mr. Stanford stating that they expected to call a meeting of tax-paying citizens of the county in a few days, for the purpose of selecting from among them an executive committee which should have full power to meet the representatives of any railroad company who might visit Los Angeles, in order to agree upon some plan whereby a railroad to Los Angeles might be constructed. The meeting was called, and the committee appointed. Harris Newmark, a prominent business man of Los Angeles, says that before the meeting he and ex-Governor Downey went to San Francisco and canvassed the whole situation with Mr. Huntington. A delegation from the citizens’ committee made a second visit and returned with a man named Hyde, who represented the railroad company. Between Mr. Hyde and the new committee terms were presently agreed upon. The Southern Pacific demanded a donation of 5 per cent of the assessed valuation of the county, which was the maximum authorized by state law. Since the county valuation in 1872 was set by the State Board of Equalization at $10,554,592, this meant a gift of $527,730. To cover this the county proposed to issue $377,000 in new 7 per cent bonds, and to turn over besides $150,000 in stock of the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, which it held by virtue of its subscription to that company in 1868. The city added $75,000 in Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad stocks, and 60 acres of depot ground. This made a clear gift in the aggregate of $602,000, besides whatever the depot ground might be worth, or $100 per capita for a population of 6,000 souls. On its side the Southern Pacific agreed to build 50 miles of its main trunk line in the county of Los Angeles, 25 miles to be built northward and 25 miles eastward from Los Angeles city. Later the company promised to add a branch to Anaheim. The whole arrangement was submitted to popular vote on November 5, 1872, and was then approved. Inconveniences of Travel Construction in accordance with the terms of the agreement of 1872 was promptly begun. San Fernando and San Pedro were reached in 1874, Anaheim in 1875, and the Southern Pacific main line in September, 1876. A vivid picture of the inconvenience of travel between Los Angeles and the East while the work was in progress, is given in the reminiscences of Harris Newmark, who has just been mentioned in connection with the negotiations between the railroad and the county of Los Angeles: Before the completion of the San Fernando tunnel, a journey east from Los Angeles by way of Sacramento was beset with inconveniences. The traveler was lucky if he obtained passage to San Fernando on other than a construction train, and twenty to twenty-four hours, often at night, was required for a trip of the Telegraph Stage Lines’ creaking, swaying coach over the rough roads leading to Caliente—the northern terminal—where the longer stretch of the railroad north was reached. The stage lines and the Southern Pacific Railroad were operated quite independently, and it was therefore not possible to buy a through ticket. For a time previously, passengers took the stage at San Fernando and bounced over the mountains to Bakersfield, the point farthest south on the railroad line. When the Southern Pacific was subsequently built to Land’s Station, the stages stopped there; and for quite a while a stage started from each side of the mountain, the two conveyances meeting at the top and exchanging passengers. Once I made the journey north by stage to Tipton in Tulare County, and from Tipton by rail to San Francisco. The Coast line and the Telegraph line stage companies carried passengers part of the way. The Coast Line Stage Company coaches left Los Angeles every morning at five o’clock and proceeded via Pleasant Valley, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Guadalupe, San Luis Obispo, and Paso de Robles Hot Springs, and connected at Soledad with the Southern Pacific Railroad bound for San Francisco by way of Salinas City, Gilroy, and San JosÉ, and his line made a specialty of daylight travel, thus In 1876, I visited New York City for medical attention and for the purpose of meeting my son Maurice, upon his return from Paris. I left Los Angeles on the twenty-ninth of April by the Telegraph Stage Line, traveling to San Francisco and thence east by the Central Pacific railroad; and I arrived in New York on the eighth of May. The San Fernando tunnel to which Mr. Newmark refers is located 27 miles north of Los Angeles in the valley of the same name. It lies along the most direct and convenient route from Los Angeles into the San Joaquin Valley. Because of its length, nearly one and a quarter miles, and the unfamiliarity of the people of the coast with projects of this kind, there was much interest in the work and many doubts as to whether it could succeed. Governor Stevenson was credited with the statement that a tunnel could not be constructed. Other critics maintained that people could never be induced to travel through so long a tunnel, and that in any case the winter rains would cause it to cave in, to which Stanford replied that it was “too damned dry in Southern California for any such catastrophe.” So far as the records now show, however, there was no unusual obstacle encountered in the work, although the slowness with which the bore advanced and the large expense connected with construction caused considerable anxiety to the management of the Southern Pacific. Western Development Company In carrying out their plans for the occupation of Southern California, the Huntington group naturally followed the same general policy that had proved profitable to them in the case The first construction company which did work for the Southern Pacific, under the plan outlined in the preceding paragraph, was the Contract and Finance Company. This was the same organization that had completed the Central Pacific. It appears that the Contract and Finance Company simply shifted men, teams and equipment from the Central Pacific to the Southern Pacific line between San JosÉ and Tres Pinos. Later it built the road from Goshen to Sumner, and that from San Fernando via Los Angeles to Spadra. In all, it built for the Southern Pacific 143.65 miles, including the stretch from Gilroy to Tres Pinos. In 1874 the Contract and Finance Company was dissolved and the Western Development Company took its place. The Western Development Company was incorporated December 15, 1874, for the announced purpose, among other things, of carrying on construction, manufacturing, mining, mercantile, mechanical, banking, and commercial business in all their branches, and also for the purpose of constructing, leasing, and operating all kinds of public and private improvements. That is to say, its powers were made as extensive as could well be imagined. Stanford, Hopkins, Huntington, and Crocker each held one-fourth of the stock. Under date of February 2, 1875, the Western Development In addition to its contract with the Southern Pacific, the Western Development Company undertook certain miscellaneous construction, including work on the Northern Railway, and the San Pablo and Tulare Railroad, the building of steamers for the Central Pacific, bridges and buildings for the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific, general repairs for the various companies controlled by the associates, and even finally private residences for Hopkins, Stanford, and Crocker. In short, during its existence the Western Development Company, besides completing the major part of the Southern Pacific, did incidental building of any sort which the associates desired to have done. Pacific Improvement Company The death of Mr. Hopkins in 1878, and the temporary unwillingness of Mrs. Hopkins to participate in the financing of new construction, together with the death of Mr. Colton in the same year, led Stanford, Huntington, and Crocker to close up the affairs of the Western Development Company, and to continue their more or less speculative building enterprises under a new organization. This new company, incorporated November 4, 1878, was known as the “Pacific Improvement Company.” Its relations to the Southern Pacific and to the associates were the same as those of the Western Development The main accomplishment of the Pacific Improvement Company was the construction of the Southern Pacific between Mojave and The Needles. Besides this, however, it extended the Southern Pacific from Soledad to San Miguel, built the Southern Pacific in Arizona and the Southern Pacific in New Mexico, completed the California and Oregon, and Oregon and California railroads, and continued the Northern Railroad from Willows to Tehama. The contracts made were similar to those executed by the Western Development Company, although the consideration varied. The Pacific Improvement Company is still in existence. After the construction work for which it was incorporated was completed, Mr. Huntington sold his stock to the Hopkins estate. This gave to the Hopkins interest, then represented by Mr. Searles, possession of 50 per cent of the stock of the Pacific Improvement Company. The other 50 per cent remained in the hands of the Stanford and Crocker interests. At a later date the Searles stock passed to the University of California. The Pacific Improvement Company is now in process of liquidation. It owns some thirty town sites, a considerable amount of real estate, including much unimproved property in the Potrero district of San Francisco, land in the Monterey peninsula, and other property in Buffalo, New York. It has, besides, the stock and bonds of certain railroad companies, stock of the Carbondale Coal Company of Washington, and of the Oakland Water Front Company of Oakland, California, and what is still more important, it holds a large number of bills receivable covering property of all sorts which it The last of the construction companies, the Southern Development Company, became responsible for construction east of the Arizona state line when the Pacific Improvement Company left the field. It was of minor importance and may be dismissed with a word. In respect to ownership and operation it resembled the Contract and Finance Company, the Western Development Company, and the Pacific Improvement Company. Identical Control of Companies There is a great deal of history about the operation of the various construction companies mentioned, that has not been, and perhaps never will be, written. The men out on the road seem to have known little about any of them. The contact of these men was with Stanford, Huntingdon, Hopkins, and Crocker. They neither knew nor cared whether they received orders from the associates in their capacities as directors of the Central Pacific or of the Southern Pacific, or as stockholders in one of the construction companies. Nor was it easy for them to keep informed. The same construction force moved from place to place. The same man in the same pay-car paid off employees of the Central Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and the construction companies indiscriminately. As a matter of fact, the various corporations interested in the building of the Southern Pacific were, after 1870, only different manifestations of the activities of one group of men. It does not appear that any attempt was ever made to interest outside investors. On the contrary, Hopkins, Huntington, Colton, and perhaps the other partners as well, agreed that if anything happened to one of them, their stock in the Western Development Company should not go to outside parties until the existing stockholders had had a chance to take it. This was a distinct contrast to the attitude of the same men when the Contract and Finance Company was formed, and indicates that they anticipated no such difficulty in raising funds as they had experienced when they built the Central Pacific. Had this not been true, it is probable that they would have let the Southern Pacific alone, competition or no competition. Construction Financing Under the terms of their contracts with the Southern Pacific, the construction companies received substantially all of the stock and bonds which that company put out. The same parties were, therefore, directly or indirectly in control both of the railroad and of the companies which did work for the railroad. These securities had, however, no market for many years, at any price. County donations, of which there were a few, also yielded but little, and the federal land grant was not easily or early sold. The real source of financial supplies for the Contract and Finance Company and its successors, the Western Development and the Pacific Improvement companies, in their work upon the Southern Pacific, were the Central Pacific, as a corporation, and the associates as individuals. As in the case of the Contract and Finance Company, the associates paid no money on their stock subscriptions, but deposited In addition to the advances made by the Huntington group, the construction companies benefited substantially by the assistance rendered them by the Central Pacific. This was a sort of help which the Central Pacific itself and the persons who built it had never known. It took a variety of forms. A very obvious service which the Central Pacific could and did offer was the operation of sections of the Southern Pacific as fast as completed in connection with the Central Pacific main line. Besides this, the Central Pacific acted as banker when the construction companies had spare funds. More important still, the Central Pacific on occasion lent considerable sums to the Western Development Company. This was later denied by representatives of the Central Pacific, but the evidence seems conclusive that the loans were made. Similar advances were probably made by the Central Pacific to the Pacific Improvement Company, Profits of Associates There is no way of estimating the profits which Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker drew out of the Western Development, Pacific Improvement, and Southern Development companies. We know they were great, because the associates died very rich men. Mark Hopkins engaged in no important enterprise outside of his hardware business, except in railroad construction and operation, and yet in 1878 he left an estate appraised at over $19,000,000. Eleven years later, Charles Crocker’s estate was appraised at $24,142,475.84. |