Elkhorn

1915 USGS Map showing Elkhorn.

To most people living around the Monterey Bay, Elkhorn is a slough and nothing more. It's primary settlement is the town of Moss Landing and its power plant is its primary industry. But inland just beyond the boundaries of Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, the small town of Elkhorn still survives with an estimated population of 1,500.

Elkhorn was originally named after elk that were found in the area by the early Spanish settlers. The Southern Pacific Railroad passed through the area in 1872 when it built its mainline between Gilroy and Salinas. When precisely Elkhorn was established as a stop is not known. The station catered primarily to local farms and agricultural firms, with grain being the primary crop in the area. In 1931, oil drilling also was attempted in the area, with dozens of wells being installed along the slough near Elkhorn.

Unfortunately, not much more is known at this time regarding Elkhorn's station or relationship with the railroad. The stop existed into the 1950s. Beginning in 1971, the Nature Conservancy began purchasing land around the slough for use as a nature reserve. Since then, various groups and the state and national governments have organized 1.48 square miles of land as a protected estuary managed by the California Department of Fish & Game. The Moss Landing Wildlife Area extends that protection the region around Elkhorn's station site.

Official Railroad Information:
Elkhorn was located 105.8 miles from San Francisco via Gilroy and San José and 5.4 miles from Watsonville Junction. It included a 64-car-length spur (approximately 2,560 feet long), a passing siding, and the station offered both passenger and freight services. In the late 1940s, the spur was extended to 106 car-lengths (approx. 4,204 feet).

The Elkhorn station point with farm house in the background, possibly a dairy. (Monterey Free Libraries)

The 1899 station book notes that Elkhorn had a class-D station, meaning that it was a freight stop with no platform or spur. Therefore, the spur was only added after that year. Unfortunately, further station book information on Elkhorn is not available at this time.

Elkhorn likely appeared as a stop in the 1870s and remained on timetables until the late 1950s.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36˚ N 49' 28", 121˚W 44' 26"

The site of Elkhorn station is on the main Union Pacific branch line between Watsonville Junction and Castroville. The tracks are completely surrounded by the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve and access is restricted, though probably not enforced. An unpaved road off of Elkhorn Road on the south side of Kirby Park is the only access to the station site.

Citations & Credits:

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Vega & Eaton

USGS Map from 1915 showing Vega Station and Rancho Vega.

Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro ("Meadow along the River of the Bird") stretched from the foothills outside of the town of Pajaro and the foothills west of Aromas, with the Pajaro River to the north and more hills to the south. On April 17, 1820, Antonio María Castro was granted the rancho by the Spanish government as one of its last land grants in the area. It was confirmed in June 1833 by José Figueroa. Castro, thus, was one of the earliest settlers in the Pajaro Valley. Like many other early settlers, Castro had been a military officer who retired to the area in 1809, after which he rose in prominence in the region as a alternate elector for Alta California.

Following the American annexation of California, Juan Miguel Anzar attempted to claim the grant on behalf of his wife, María Antonia Castro, although he died before the grant was approved. His widow died in 1855 and her second husband, Frederick A. McDougal, and her four children by Anzar fought to gain the 4,310 acres, which was finally rewarded to them in January 1864.

Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro land grant map, c. 1850. (Bancroft Library)

When the Southern Pacific Railroad passed through the Coast Range and its foothills between Gilroy and the town of Pajaro in 1871, it passed directly through the center of the Vega Ranch. McDougal and his step-children were able to negotiate as part of the right-of-way agreement a freight and passenger flag-stop on their property which was listed under the name "Vega". The area around Vega and in the hills to the southwest evolved slowly into a small settlement of mostly farmers that used the freight platform at Vega station to ship out their goods. Vega School was located to the northeast of the railroad station along the county road that later became San Juan Road (G11).

The stop was never large and the platform likely disappeared in the early 1900s. A freight spur was installed at the station at around this time measuring approximately 650 feet. Whether there was ever a physical station structure at Vega is unknown, though it seems unlikely considering the flag-stop nature of the stop. A shelter may have existed there. The name Vega stuck around into the 1940s when it suddenly and inexplicably became "Eaton", though the nature of the stop did not change. The new name may have been a reference to Orrin O. Eaton, a local landowner who held a favorable reputation in Monterey County for helping to introduce lettuce to the county in 1917. He also may have owned part of Rancho Vega in the 1950s. Eaton station remained on Southern Pacific timetables as an "Additional Stop" into the 1980s and perhaps as late as 1996, when the railroad company was merged into the Union Pacific.

At the station site today, double tracks still pass in front of the station site and a small assembly area for the local farms still occupies the site of the spur and platform. Railroads no longer stop at Vega and the local community is now considered a ghost town by Monterey County. The school closed its doors in 1950, leaving the schoolhouse, designed by William Henry Weeks, abandoned.

Official Railroad Information:
Vega was registered as a industrial and passenger flag-stop and spur, 97.1 miles from San Francisco via Gilroy and San José. The station sat on the double-track between Watsonville Junction and Logan. Sometime around World War II, the station was renamed Eaton. The spur was still listed in 1951 as capable of holding 13 cars, giving it an estimated length of 650 feet. As with Vega, Eaton was not listed in timetables but rather sat as an additional stop in a separate table.

Agency books list Vega as a class-A freight stop with a platform located on the right side of the tracks, as oriented from San Francisco. No other services were listed and no depot structure was noted.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36˚N 53' 51.506", 121˚W 41' 26.905"

Vega's station was located on the west side of San Miguel Canyon Road. The actual Vega community was slightly to the south along Vega Road in a short hilly section of land.

Citations & Credits:

• "Diseño del Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro: Calif". Berkeley, CA: Bancroft Library Digital Collection.
• Hoover, Mildred Brooke, et al. Historic Spots in California, 3rd ed. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.

Aromas

USGS Map showing Aromas and Sand Cut (at left), 1914.

Near the meeting point of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Benito, and Monterey Counties, the small unincorporated community of Aromas sits, literally bisected by Monterey and San Benito Counties along Carpenteria Road. The community began its life in October 1835 as the Mexican Rancho Aromitas y Agua Caliente (translated from Spanish as Little Odors & Warm Water Ranch). The name may have been a reference to the nearby Soda Lake and its sulphur spring, which later became the focus of a short-lived resort. With the American annexation of California in 1846, the rancho became Rancho Las Aromas, a name which stuck thereafter. Despite numerous reports stating that the town descended from an earlier town of Vega, Vega was, in fact, located further to the west, about midway between Aromas and Pajaro.

Rancho Aromitas y Agua Caliente. [Bancroft Library]

The community really came to life in 1871 when the Southern Pacific Railroad built its railroad through Pajaro Gap and Chittenden Pass, following the south bank of the Pajaro River. To get through to Pajaro to the west, a short tunnel was constructed just to the west of Aromas. It seems that the tunnel was either never fully completed or collapsed soon after construction, as it was noted as "Sand Cut" from as early as the 1880s. The site of the cut today is precisely that: a deep cut, overgrown with trees and shrubs on the cut's walls. To the east, meanwhile, vast reserves of aggregate material discovered during excavation of the railroad right-of-way immediately became a quarry for use by the railroad. It would be this quarry that gave new life to the Aromas community, converting it within twenty years into the town as it is known today. A post office under the name Aromas opened in 1894, and the railroad set up a stop on the fringe of the community center probably around the same time. Most of the residents of the town worked at or were related to people who worked at the Logan quarry for Granite Rock. The remainder were educators, shop keepers, and the independent farmers working the surrounding fields.

Crews loading apricot pits onto boxcars at Aromas, c 1920. [Monterey County Libraries]

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake devastated Aromas, which sat near the fault line, and the original station structure was levelled in the temblor. Boxcars full of fruits and vegetables fell of buckled tracks. The station was quickly rebuilt according to the standard model of the time and life moved on.

The newly rebuilt Aromas Station in 1907.
[Monterey County Library, Aromas Branch]

The railroad's presence at Aromas was restricted to the north end of town, with its two-story station located on the northeast corner of Carpenteria Road at its junction with Quarry Road. A pair of tracks ran beside the station, following a double-track that linked Logan to Watsonville Junction. A much larger railroad station replaced the 1907 prefabricated structure at some point in the 1910s. It included a tall freight storage room with loading ramp and a two-story agency office with the private residence of the agent above a standard freight and passenger office. The office included telegraph services. At least one spur and one passing siding sat across from the station beside the double-tracks, with a siding running alongside the freight platform. The siding length was approximately 1,400 feet long, or the length of 35 trains cars.

Aromas Station, October 20, 1946, as photographed by Wilbur C. Whittaker.

By 1940, Aromas had already become merely a flag-stop, with no permanent agency staff on site. Indeed, only one train was scheduled to stop at the site during that year, although all of them were allowed to stop if flagged. The structure, shown above, was probably converted into a private residence by the time this photograph was taken. The spur and siding appear to have been removed no later than 1951 as neither are noted in timetables after that date. When precisely the station went out of use completely is not presently known by this historian. The town still exists with a population of roughly 2,500 residents. The town supports three schools, a library, and numerous businesses.

Official Railroad Information:
Aromas was located 90.7 miles from San Francisco via Gilroy and San José, and 25.9 miles from Santa Cruz.

Aromas Station from a different angle, October 20, 1946. [Wilbur C. Whittaker]

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36˚N 53' 31.181", 121˚W 38' 36.214"

The site of Aromas Station is publicly accessible and quite easily viewed along Aromas/Quarry Road, but there is absolutely nothing there to see except tracks passing over Carpenteria Road. All trace of the station structure has been erased and bulldozed over.

Citations & Credits:

• Margaret Clovis, Images of America: Monterey County's North Coast and Coastal Valleys. Arcadia Publishing, 2006. 
• Erwin Gustav Gudde, California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names

Logan

Logan on a 1915 USGS Survey Map.

The history of Logan is a history of the Granite Rock Company. When the Southern Pacific Railroad first set up its track between Gilroy and Pajaro in the early 1870s, it discovered a large granite outcropping on the southern bank of the Pajaro River just on the Monterey Bay side of Chittenden Pass. For the first twenty years after its discovery, local firms operated out of the quarry, hauling out their crushed granite at Logan Station, a nearby freight railroad station. In 1899, a group of local investors purchased the 27-acre quarry for $10,000 and incorporated on February 14, 1900, as the Granite Rock Company.

A freight car parked at Logan near the crushing plant.
(Granite Rock Company)

From the very beginning, the Southern Pacific and the quarry at Logan had a relationship. As construction of the Salinas Subdivision line continued into the Salinas Valley, crushed granite from Logan was used as ballast for the railroad cross-ties. Sledge hammers and ox carts were used to get the ballast down to the station for shipment. An insular mining tram system was soon developed throughout the quarry to ease the transport of rock. Beside the mainline track, a long siding was installed for use by Granite Rock. A rock crushing plant was installed beside the siding while rocks were dropped in the top. Processed granite was loaded onto waiting freight cars below.

The 1906 earthquake heavily damaged the facility, leveling the crushing plant and forcing an almost complete rebuild, but the simplicity of the operation meant it was back in operation the next year, providing granite for the rebuilding of San Francisco as well as the erection of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk's Casino. Following the earthquake, quarrying moved deeper into the property and a small locomotive called the "Dinkey #1" was purchased to shuttle mine cars between the quarry and the crushing plant.

The ruined crushing plant after the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906.
(Granite Rock Company)

In the 1920s, the company helped build the adjacent Highway 129. In the 1930s, the first asphaltic concrete plant in California was erected at Logan beside the crushing plant. The quarrying operations at Logan continued to increase in the following decades. By 1970, 7,500 tons of granite rock were being shipped out per day from Logan, which were shipped on 25 100-ton hopper freight cars purchased by Granite Rock Company. Graniterock strongly believed in the value of shipping via rail, an aspect of freight transport that was losing popularity by the 1970s. In 1989, Graniterock completely remodeled its facilities at Logan, renaming the site the A.R. Wilson Quarry. The quarry still operates today off of State Route 129 northeast of Watsonville. The "Dinkey" engine was heavily restored and donated to the California State Railroad Museum.

The Logan plant is now more solidly associated with the nearby town of Aromas, where most of the quarry's staff have lived over the past 110+ years. The name "Logan" itself has largely disappeared and its origin is not known to this historian.

The Logan station point, July 31, 1949, crushing plant at right. (Wilbur C. Whittaker)

Official Railroad Information:

The crushing plant at Logan from the air, with the sidings in front, 1951.
(Granite Rock Company)

Railroad records are fairly complete regarding Logan, but unfortunately they are not complete for this historian. The earliest record possessed by this historian shows Logan on a Officers, Agencies & Stations Book entry in 1899 listed as between Chittenden's and Aromas, at mile marker 93. It had a class-A freight status, meaning it had a platform, which was located on the right (southeastern) side of the tracks. No other services were listed that year.

The Logan station point was 93.2 miles south of San Francisco via San José and the San Francisco Subdivision. It was 7.2 miles north of Watsonville Jct. (Pajaro). Logan was the northern start of a double-track that continues today to Watsonville Jct. In 1940, Logan had no recorded spur, just the double-track. It offered regularly-scheduled passenger and freight service to and from the stop, as well.

Passenger service is no longer provided at Logan and, indeed, the stop's current name on Union Pacific timetables is not known to this historian. It was still under the name "Logan" in 1987. However, the station is certainly still active. Google Maps show that the tracks beside Logan are still in use and that there are at least four sidings beside the mainline as well as at least five in-use spurs. More may be buried beneath loose gravel or are not visible on the maps.

Geo-coordinates and Access Rights:
36˚N 54' 2.857" x 121˚W 38' 2.591"

Logan is still owned and operated by the Granite Rock Company and access is by permission only.

The Logan facility in 2013, still in use though parts of it are falling into disrepair, no longer used by Graniterock.
(Wikipedia)

Citations & Credits:

• Wolpert, Rose Ann. "Graniterock Museum".