tween the two lines being connected by a daily line operated by this company.
The railroad period was ushered in by the arrival on the North Pacific Coast of Governor I. I. Stevens in 1853. He came in the three-fold capacity of Territorial Governor, Indian Commissioner and heading a Government survey for a Pacific railroad between the Mississippi River and the mouth of the Columbia.
Enthusiastic over his arrival and the consequent railroad talk, the Oregon Legislature granted charters for four different projects. One known as the Cincinnati Company which proposed building a line from the town of that name to some coal fields adjacent. Another, the Clackamas Company, covered a portage railroad around the falls of the Willamette River near Oregon City. A third was the Willamette Valley Railroad, local lines in the valley of that name, and the fourth the Oregon & California Railroad, which was to he built from Eugene City, Oregon, on the south to a point on the Willamette River on the north. None of these projects materialized, there not being either population or funds in the territory to carry on the undertaking.
The first actual railroad construction on the Pacific Coast was the Sacramento Valley Railroad, between Sacramento and Folsom, Cal., beginning operation in 1858.
An extension of this road from Folsom to Marysville (forty-four miles) was commenced the same year by the California Central Railroad Company, the idea prevalent at that time being that eventually the Overland Trunk line would he built from San Francisco east by way of Niles, Stockton, Folsom and Placerville, and in the prospectus of the California Central Railroad Company, published in 1860, a map is shown on which appears this line, joined by another at Folsom, which runs north to Marysville, thence to Oroville up the Feather River and across the Sierra Nevadas, which it skirts on the east side until it reaches the Columbia River.
Largely through the energy of Mr. H. R Judah, a civil engineer who had been induced by the prospect of railroad construction to come from Florida to California, the California Central was duly built from Folsom to Lincoln, crossing the line of the Central Pacific at what is now Roseville.
Owing to the inauguration of this latter line. Mr. Judah surrendered his connection with the California Central, and with him went the energy mid vim that had built the line.
Failure to realize anticipated earnings and a consequent financial stringency put an end to construction for the time being. Several efforts were made to extend the line, the first by the Yuba Railroad Company, chartered in November, 1862, and which did get the line built to within seven miles of the Yuba River, across from Marysville. In November, 1867. a new company, the Marysville Railroad, was chartered, which finally completed the line into the City of Marysville. In the meantime the California Central had met with many vicissitudes. Its earning power had been greatly overestimated and the expense of construction and operating just as much underestimated, with the result that in May, 1862, it was sold at Sheriff's sale, to be bought in by the same interests as were building the Central Pacific Railroad. The purchasers were at swords points with the Sacramento Valley Company, and for this reason, and also for lack of traffic, took up the rails between Roseville and Folsom, leaving the line from Roseville north to become the first section of the Shasta route constructed.
In connection with the California Central two extensions were projected, the one along the line of the originally planned route. Marysville to Oroville. To construct this the California Northern Railroad Company was incorporated in June, 1860, and completed the line to Oroville, twenty-six and five-tenths miles, in 1864. The other was incorporated at Marysville, October 13. 1863, to build a railroad from there to some point on the Columbia River. This was known as the California and Columbia River Railroad Company. A surveying party under the charge of S. G. Elliot started out to locate the line and did so as far north as Jacksonville, Ore., when the funds of the organization were exhausted and the engineering party disbanded.
Mr. Elliot, who seems to have been a man of great energy and resources, endeavored, unsuccessfully, to interest the residents along the proposed road with a view of their furnishing the necessary funds to complete the survey through to the Columbia River.
Among others whom he approached on
