Southern Pacific Railroad made path through the "heart of the desert"

Floodwaters from the Colorado River filled the Salton Sink in 1906 -1907. The Southern Pacific Railroad tracks had to be moved. (Photo courtesy of Salton Sea History Museum)

Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun

The transcontinental railroad opened the doors to America, especially those lightly traveled areas where Herculean efforts were required to cross hundreds of miles of remote wilderness, steep mountains, and endless desert.

Discovery of gold in 1848 focused world attention on California and the Pacific Coast region. At the time, early settlers had few options in cross country travel: An arduous overland journey across the plains by oxen or mules, or long ocean voyages via Panama or around Cape Horn.

A growing sentiment in the west and east favored a railroad that would bind the nation closer together.

The roots of Southern Pacific Railroad's path through the Coachella Valley can be traced to the country's pre-Civil War days and the creation of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, incorporated June 28, 1861.

The brainchild of Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker, the corporation was formed to build the western portion of the Pacific Railroad — a transcontinental link from Sacramento, east over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Construction began in Sacramento in 1863 followed by authorization of Congress in 1863. The line traversed 690 miles over the mountains and across Nevada to meet the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, where the last spike was driven on May 10, 1869.

In 1865, the Southern Pacific Railroad was organized to build lines from San Francisco to San Diego and eastward to rails being proposed to reach westward from New Orleans.

The surveyors for the Southern Pacific route reached the site of Indio, known as Indian Wells at the time, on March 25, 1872. They reported that this point was halfway between Los Angeles and Yuma, Ariz. A perfect spot for a train depot.

Southern Pacific acquired a 22-mile railroad from Los Angeles to Wilmington, opened in October, 1869 and construction began during 1873 on lines north and east out of the city.

Trains were operated to Colton on July 16, 1895 and to Indio on May 29, 1876.

After the railroad's arrival in 1876, Indio really started to grow. The first permanent building was the craftsman style Southern Pacific Depot station and hotel. Southern Pacific tried to make life as comfortable as it could for their workers in order to keep them from leaving such a difficult area to live in at the time. It was the center of all social life in the desert with a fancy dining room. Dances were hosted on Friday nights.

While Indio started as a railroad town, it developed into an agricultural area shortly thereafter. Onions, cotton, grapes, citrus and dates thrived in the arid climate due to the ingenuity of farmers finding various means of attaining water — first through artesian wells.

The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad would leave an indelible mark on the Palm Springs-based Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and shaped the future of the tribe. In the 1860s, the Federal government granted the railroad ten miles of odd-numbered sections of land on each side of the railroad right-of-way.

In 1876, when President Ulysses S. Grant established the present Agua Caliente Indian Reservation by executive order, only the even-numbered sections were still available. This created the reservation's "checkerboard" pattern.

In 1875, the Cahuilla Indians began working on the construction of the railroad. The tracks ran about six miles north of the Palm Springs Way Station, which served as a stagecoach stop from 1865 until the rail line was completed in 1887.

The Southern Pacific built a Spanish-styled railroad station in the 1930s, located in North Palm Springs on Tipton Road off Highway 111.

By this time, Palm Springs had already become a popular tourist destination and was known as a world famous winter playground for Hollywood stars. The Southern Pacific, traveling on what became known as the Sunset Route, now delivered travelers right at the doorstep of this thriving desert community.

A 1914 brochure touting the Southern Pacific Sunset Route as the "Best Route to the California 1915 Expositions" — the Panama-Pacific Exposition was being held in San Francisco and the Panama-California Exposition was taking place in San Diego — provided colorful descriptions of the stops along the route, which originated in New Orleans.

This is how the railroad's literature depicted the desert 100 years ago:

"Yuma, the Colorado River and California is reached 1,754 miles west from New Orleans … the route is through a region that is peculiar and interesting. At Imperial Junction, a branch line of the Southern Pacific runs south to the celebrated Imperial Valley, which has sprung into a wonderful existence in a night, almost, because of its splendid fertility, its varied, almost tropical products, freedom from frosts, great volume of water for irrigation, taken from the Colorado, and its rapid development and adaptability for all forms of agriculture, yet in the heart of the desert."

That year, 1914, the valley shipped more than 4,000 cars of cantaloupes alone, to all sections of the United States. From a waste only a few years ago, the Imperial Valley now has a population of 25,000 with fine towns, street cars, clubs, newspapers, excellent hotels and a high class civilization.

The journey is then through the Salton Valley and along the northern shores of the Salton Sea made by an overflow of the Colorado Rivers some years ago. Here the train runs for miles below the sea level, at Salton reaching the bottom of a great depression at a depth of 253 feet. This condition is peculiar and unequaled and is not even approximated by any other railroad in the world. The route through the California desert passes through Thermal, Coachella and Indio, all below sea level, and climbs the divide, reaching the apex at Beaumont, California."

Next week: Southern Pacific Railroad History in the Coachella Valley, Part II.

Sources: City of Palm Springs, Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Historian Pat Laflin, Coachella Valley Water District, Central Pacific Railroad website, Michael L. Grace (Palm Springs Rail Heritage blog)

Old Plank Road is nearly 100 years old

Plank Road was built in the early 20th century to help cars get across the Imperial Sand Dunes. (KRISTA DALY PHOTO)

By ALEXIS RANGEL
Imperial Valley Press

BUTTERCUP DUNES — Fifteen hundred feet is all that is left of what was once seven miles of decaying wooden planks known as the Plank Road.

In anticipation of the 100-year anniversary in 2015, tourists from all over the world travel to see the stretch of wooden planks that is part of the nation’s automotive history, said U.S. Bureau of Land Management Park Ranger Carey Goldstein.

As cities in the Imperial Valley began to develop, motorists needed an efficient way to get their Model T’s through the sandy desert, he said.

“As motorists had a lot of difficulty getting between Holtville and Yuma,” Goldstein said during a presentation in front of the Plank Road.

Before the construction of the Plank Road, Goldstein said motorists had to travel south into Mexico or take the northern route through Brawley.

However, Edwin Boyd, county supervisor for the Holtville area at the time, proposed the construction of a road made of wooden planks across the sand dunes.

Ed Fletcher, a pioneer road builder from San Diego, funded the construction of the road so long as Boyd provided the labor, Goldstein said.

“A lot of the workers were from Calexico and El Centro,” he said.

The first Plank Road was built in 1915 as a way for early automobiles to traverse the seamless ocean of sand.

“It was difficult to construct,” Goldstein said. “One of the things they had to do was spray oil on the sand to prevent it from drifting. It kept it nice and compact.”

The single-lane road was built with nothing more than wooden boards, which ran parallel and were a car-width apart.

It was built this way for easy mobility. Drivers could move the planks and dust off the little sand dunes that would cover the road, Goldstein said.

When the road first opened, horse- or mule-drawn wagons along with automobiles could be seen making their way along the wooden road.

The first road didn’t last very long.

With increased traffic, the sun, wind and rain taking its toll on the road, it quickly began to deteriorate.

Second Plank Road

A year later in 1916, it was Fletcher who suggested the newer and better constructed Plank Road, according to the BLM’s website.

Construction of the second road was completed in 1917.

This time 12-foot planks were laid side by side, somewhat the same as the first road. However, it differed in the sense that turnouts were built every mile to make passing easier for the one-lane road, according to a James B. Bates article in “The Journal of San Diego History.”

Binding cross-ties with strips of iron were used on the new plank road.

The road was used for about 10 years, said Goldstein.

The road depicted by the press

“The road got some positive and negative press,” Goldstein said.

The El Centro Progress told motorists to avoid Plank Road.

“Cars are injured in the drive, engines are racked and shattered and in many cases the machines have to be pulled many miles by teams,” according to the El Centro Progress.

“But it was kind of a false claim,” said Goldstein, “nobody was dying.”

Goldstein went on to say that one day later after the article ran, a maintenance supervisor claimed he saw 36 cars come through the road along with two teams of animals.

A segment of the road today

Lynn Housouer, chief executive officer of Pioneers’ Museum, said a historical marker was placed in October 1971 by the state Department of Parks and Recreation in conjunction with the Imperial Valley Pioneers Association.

Housouer said a part of the road is at Pioneers’ Museum.

By 1930 pretty much all of Plank Road was gone, said Goldstein.

A few museums took a piece of the road and the remaining 1,500 feet are barricades in hope of preserving part of our automobile history, he said.

“People used pieces of the road for firewood,” he said. “The rest of it is still buried.”

Goldstein mentioned that although most of the road is covered in sand, people have reported seeing pieces of the old road pop up from time to time.

“It is a part of our history that is yet to be uncovered,” Goldstein said.

The people behind Pioneer’s Museum preserving the Imperial Valley’s history

Tractor at Desert Museum: A rare tractor sits in storage at the museum. It is one of a few left in the world and is in working condition. (Erick Miller, Staff Photographer)

By ALEXIS RANGEL, Staff Writer
Imperial Valley Press

IMPERIAL — Lynn Housouer had heard stories as a young girl about her great-great-grandfathers both fighting against each other in the American Civil War but she never really paid attention until she was old enough to do her own research.

As the Chief Executive Officer and Archivist at Imperial County’s Pioneer Museum, she said oftentimes when we are young we don’t always pay attention to the stories our elders share with us.

“So you just hear it,” Housouer said, “until you are old enough to do your own research because now that my grandmother is gone I can’t call and ask her (questions) like I should have asked her when she was telling me the stories.”

Which is unfortunate, but makes Housouer’s work in preserving the Imperial Valley’s history for future generations all the more important.

She speaks from personal experience, as she says that after her grandparents passed she began cleaning out her grandmother’s sewing room.

To her surprise she discovered a box high above a shelf.

Climbing to reach the box she found an old picture of her great grandfather during the Spanish-American War with his uniform below the photo.

Having worked on the archives for the past 20 years Housouer has handled hundreds if not thousands of artifacts with the help of the museum’s curator Leanne Rutherford.

Both Housouer and Rutherford agree that they have always had an interest in history and working at the museum feels like a treasure hunt.

With more than 6,000 artifacts at the museum everything you see on display is tied in to the history of the Imperial Valley.

Housouer’s role at the museum as the archivist is preservation, she says.

Preserving artifacts, cataloging them into the computer, and making sure they are in an acid-free file folder or bag is an instrumental part of an being an archivist.

“We do what we can to preserve them for our future generations,” she said.

The museum runs on the help of volunteers, willing to give their time in preserving the county’s history.

One of those volunteers, Rutherford helps Housouer research the thousands of artifacts that go into their database.

Rutherford sees her position as the curator a bit different than one might at other museums.
“I help raise funds to keep the museum doors open,” Rutherford said.

Along with fundraising, Rutherford said her strength is in helping Housouer research the artifacts they receive.

Rutherford said she can spend weeks researching an item.

“Because you get to a point and you can’t find the answer you were looking for,” she said, “and you need to know what is going on.”

As curator and archivist at the museum it can be tedious work but Rutherford and Housouer say it is a passion of theirs.