Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Roaring Camp Railroads
    Roaring Camp Railroads
    Roaring Camp Railroads
    Ebook177 pages49 minutes

    Roaring Camp Railroads

    By Beniam Kifle and Nathan Goodman

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In 1963, Norman Clark officially opened Roaring Camp to the public. Since then, it has become a popular and well-known destination for tourists and rail buffs from around the world who wish to visit and ride on its 100-year-old steam trains. Isaac Graham, who constructed the first powered sawmill and the first whiskey distillery in the American West, settled the area in the 1840s. Graham was notorious for his boisterous antics, and his settlement became known as a wild and roaring camp. Clark arrived in the area in the mid-1950s with $25 in his pocket and the dream of preserving a piece of early California. Clark s dream included a plan to construct an 1880s railroad town, complete with an authentic narrow-gauge logging railway. Over the last 50 years, Clark s dream has been continued and expanded, now incorporating two railroads, one of which dates to 1875.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 10, 2013
    ISBN9781439643495
    Roaring Camp Railroads
    Author

    Beniam Kifle

    Beniam Kifle and Nathan Goodman have been involved with Roaring Camp for over 10 years and have collected a wide variety of historical photographs for this book, including many never-before-seen images from the Clark Estate.

    Related to Roaring Camp Railroads

    Related ebooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      South Of The Border

      Oct 7, 2022

      South Of The Border
      10 min read

    • Article

      Canal Fever

      May 16, 2023

      Canal Fever
      1 min read

    • Article

      Ying Shangcai, Kenneth Cantlie And The Kfi 4-8-4

      Oct 7, 2022

      The KF1 (sometimes simply KF) 4-8-4 locomotives used by China’s railways are well-known, one example surviving in York Railway Museum and another in Beijing Railway Museum. The English language Wikipedia article for this class of locomotives names Ke

      8 min read

    • Article

      Countdown To Disaster

      Jun 10, 2021

      Countdown To Disaster
      8 min read

    • Article

      Pacific Gems

      Apr 1, 2022

      Pacific Gems
      3 min read

    • Article

      Japan’s Train Ferries

      Mar 25, 2022

      Japan’s Train Ferries
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sojourns on The Southern

      Jan 19, 2023

      Sojourns on The Southern
      25 min read

    • Article

      Spanish Conquest

      Mar 1, 2023

      Spanish Conquest
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wreck Of Bertrand

      May 3, 2022

      The Wreck Of Bertrand
      4 min read

    • Article

      Unique Animals

      Apr 1, 2022

      Unique Animals
      1 min read

    • Article

      New Zealand Bush Tractors

      Jun 7, 2022

      New Zealand Bush Tractors
      11 min read

    • Article

      Did You Know?

      Dec 21, 2023

      Florence Nightingale was so attached to her pet owl that she carried it around in her apron pocket. The bird, rescued in Athens, grew fiercely loyal, and was named ‘Athena’. They were separated when she left for the Crimean War. On 11 December 1937,

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Beaver Trade Begins

      Sep 1, 2022

      As early as 1517, ships from France, Spain, and Portugal crossed the Atlantic Ocean to fish off the coast of present-day Newfoundland, Canada. They were met by the Indigenous people who lived there. Those people were willing to trade the beaver pelts

      3 min read

    • Article

      Gold Hill, Nevada

      May 23, 2023

      Gold Hill, Nevada
      3 min read

    • Article

      Traveling to Totality

      Mar 1, 2024

      Traveling to Totality
      3 min read

    • Article

      Grace Line’s Four Sisters

      Dec 23, 2020

      Grace Line’s Four Sisters
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nature’s Master Builders

      Sep 1, 2022

      Nature’s Master Builders
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wreck Of The Meridian

      Dec 15, 2021

      On 4 June 1853, the Meridian left Gravesend, England, bound for Melbourne, with a 23-man crew and 84 passengers, almost half of whom were children. The first few weeks at sea were uneventful and mainly enjoyable for the passengers, although Alfred Lu

      4 min read

    • Article

      An Island Mystery

      Mar 17, 2022

      An Island Mystery
      7 min read

    • Article

      The British Victories

      Jun 26, 2020

      The British Victories
      7 min read

    • Article

      Camel Corps

      Jan 22, 2019

      Camel Corps
      11 min read

    • Article

      Slavery Takes Root

      Sep 1, 2019

      Slavery Takes Root
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Roaring Camp Railroads

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Roaring Camp Railroads - Beniam Kifle

      Estate.

      INTRODUCTION

      Long before California was a state, a party of trappers from Tennessee and Kentucky made their way west over the Santa Fe Trail, arriving in Mexican territory in 1834. One of the members of this party was named Isaac Graham. Not being a Mexican citizen, he was prohibited from owning land. However, another member of his party, Joseph Majors, became a naturalized Mexican citizen and was then able to procure the land then known as Rancho Zayante. By 1841, Majors, Graham, and others had set up the first powered sawmill in California, along the banks of Zayante Creek. The sawmill was soon joined by a gristmill and a whiskey distillery.

      This camp of British and American men in decidedly Mexican territory became an attractive spot for many travelers coming west in the 1830s and 1840s. As the population of Graham’s colony swelled, the sawmill and machinery roared and the liquor flowed. It soon became known as Drunkards Camp or A Wild and Roaring Camp, depending on who was talking about it. As the output of Graham’s sawmill increased beyond the capacity of his camp to use the lumber, he constructed a highway from his mill through the mountains into Santa Cruz. The highway was to be used for shipping his lumber, and still exists, as today’s Graham Hill Road. Until the railroad arrived in the middle of 1875, Graham’s road was the only reliable route into Santa Cruz.

      In 1850, California was admitted into the Union. Isaac Graham died on November 3, 1863. By 1867, arrangements were being made for his lands to be turned over to local logging interests. Wealthy San Francisco attorney Joseph Welch thwarted that plan by purchasing the land himself. Welch ended up with approximately 300 acres of old-growth redwood trees and meadows, including a grove of truly massive trees along the San Lorenzo River. What became known as the Big Trees Ranch was one of the first properties ever purchased with the aim of preservation. While the rest of the Santa Cruz Mountains were being clear-cut, Welch was hard at work setting up a tourist resort in his grove of big trees. By 1880, a narrow gauge railroad deposited travelers, eager for picnicking and escaping the heat of California’s Central Valley, on the doorstep of his resort.

      Today, this tradition continues thanks to the vision of Norman Clark and his family, who arrived in the area in the mid-1950s with the dream of preserving this slice of California’s history. Upon seeing the Big Trees Ranch, Clark found it to be a perfect location, and he was able to secure the 180 acres still owned by Joseph Welch’s descendents in a 99-year lease. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Clark’s dream becoming a reality, this book is a look back over those first 50 years and what it took to build America’s Most Backward Railroad.

      One

      THE RAILROAD ARRIVES

      In 1875, the Santa Cruz & Felton Railway (SC&F) was hastily constructed over the course of nine months, originally conceived as an extension of a lumber flume that terminated in what is now downtown Felton. Cut lumber from mills in the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River was floated down the 40-inch-wide triangular flume, and upon its arrival in Felton, it was sorted and loaded onto the 36-inch-gauge flatcars of the SC&F. After eight miles of sharp curves through the San Lorenzo River Canyon, the SC&F arrived at the wharf in Santa Cruz. Here, the lumber was loaded on oceangoing ships and sent to market.

      After only five years of existence, the SC&F was purchased by another 36-inch-gauge railroad looking to gain access to Santa Cruz. The South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPCRR), which had started construction only a year after the SC&F, was being built south from Dumbarton Point and Newark through San Jose and Los Gatos. In 1879, the SPCRR had reached Felton after boring two separate, mile-long tunnels and two shorter tunnels, and building countless bridges to get through the Santa Cruz Mountains. Rather than constructing a new line down the east wall of the San Lorenzo River Canyon, the SPCRR absorbed the SC&F. By May 1880, the line over the hill was open for business. Heavy freights full of lumber, lime, produce, and gunpowder battled the grades out of the mountains, and long passenger trains full of travelers and tourists rolled in.

      The SPCRR was short-lived as well, and in 1886, it was sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad. The sale did not much affect the day-to-day operations until around 1900. In December 1902, the first section of standard gauge track was laid, and on May 29, 1909, the first standard gauge Southern Pacific train ran between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. For the next 30 years, the Southern Pacific did big business in the Santa Cruz Mountains. By the end of 1940, however, the line over the hill between Los Gatos and Olympia had been torn up, and all trains were routed through Watsonville. The portion

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1