A Time to Stop and Think About What Is Really IMPORTANT – I revisit a grade school lesson
US Marine Corporal Lloyd Oliver in the Pacific (7/7/1943); photo courtesy of the National Archives
In grade school we learned the Pilgrims and the local Native Americans came together to give thanks for the harvest. It makes a lovely picture book moment, but sadly our country has had much to learn; the color of one’s skin is, as the old saying goes, “only skin deep.”
Politics don’t enter into it, we should all Give Thanks this year, and every year for all those who risked/lost their lives for our freedom. And, for all those who have stood up for our freedom in other ways.
Today the trip from northern Conejo Valley (Thousand Oaks) to Oxnard and Port Hueneme on the Pacific, or Moorpark to the north, can be made via modern roads, but prior to the building of the Norwegian Grade, the journey was long and treacherous, especially when hauling dry farming crops.
The Norwegian Colony in the Conejo was founded by 5 families seeking a better future in the US. In 1890, they purchased 651 acres in the northern part of the valley from George Edwards, which they divided into 5 lots, which were then allocated by lottery:
Lot #1 – 199 acres to Ole Andersen;
Lot #2 – 111 acres to Lars Pedersen;
Lot #3 – 139 acres to Nils Olsen;
Lot #4 – 97 acres to Ole Nilsen;
Lot #5 – 105 acres to George Hansen.
With no source of irrigation water available, they were dry land farmers, working other jobs in the off season. Transporting their crops to market required traveling west to leave the valley over the Potrero and Conejo grades, or north on a precarious stagecoach road over a saddle in the mountains and down into the Santa Rosa Valley.*
After an accident with the wagons, leaving George Hansen bedridden for a year, the families combined the upper right of way, donated by Nils Olsen, with a 40-foot right of way bought for $50 from Adolf and Roumaine Wyseur.
As stated on the historical monument:
“Historic Norwegian Grade was built by hand between 1900 and 1911, using picks, shovels, crow bars, farm equipment and $60 worth of dynamite given by the County of Ventura.
“The grade was constructed by members of the Norwegian Colony and their hired help to provide a safe way to move bales of hay and sacks of wheat and barley to the farmers on the Oxnard Plain and to the Hueneme Wharf.
“The route for the grade was selected because it provided a gradual descent with no hairpin turns and would be safer than existing routes to the Oxnard Plain and Moorpark.**
“In the early 1900’s, there were no bulldozers, earth moving equipment, etc. Work was done by hand using a star drill and a sledge hammer to pound holes into the very hard volcanic rock; dynamite was inserted into the holes, fuses lit, everyone ran for cover, and it blew. The resulting rocks and debris were moved by hand and a horse-drawn fresno (scraper), to build the narrow one lane roadway.
“Construction was done in the winter and early spring months because baling and harvesting took precedence during the summer and fall. The road was later widened to two lanes.”
Originally someone had to run up, or down the grade to make sure no one way using it in the opposite direction.
The new route cut a full day off the trip. Today the farms are long gone from the Conejo; the Santa Rosa Valley has farms and scattered housing developments. In 2010, the City of Thousand Oaks renovated the deteriorating road, and unveiled the memorial plaque at its reopening.
The Bottom of the Grade
*I am still trying to pin down the location of the wagon trail north to the Santa Rosa Valley. Accounts I have read say it was partially obliterated by grading in the 1950’s.
The stairs going up from the parking lot in Santa Susana Park.
Open Saturday & Sunday (except holidays) 1-4 pm.
The depot still sits next to the tracks where Amtrak and Union Pacific freight trains still travel.
Built in 1903, Southern Pacific Santa Susana Depot sat on Los Angeles Ave. East of Tapo Street; it served the Rancho Simi area until the early 1970s when the SP closed it. Falling prey to age and vandalism, the deteriorating building was sold by the railroad for $1.06, and moved 2 miles east to its present site in May 1975 (6503 Katherine Road). After extensive restoration, the depot was reopened in 2000, as a museum and home of the local model railroaders club.
A passenger station, freight station, and telegraph office, it was based on Southern Pacific’s standard No. 22, combination depot plans; the depot has a recently restored stationmaster’s apartment on the second story.
Ticket sales and waiting room.The other side of the ticket window. The hub of the depot, ticket sales, dispatch, telegraph office.Note the mail bag hanging on the door; the train slowed but didn’t need to stop to pick up mail.
Exhibits between today’s Union Pacific tracks and the depot:
HO Model Railroad in depot:
The Santa Susana Depot in HO scale: the model railroad in the depot recreates the Southern Pacific through the region in the 1950s. Businesses near the Depot in the 1950s.
Freight Deck:
As recently as June 2018, the freight deck (street side today) was rebuilt to original specifications.
Also on the grounds:
A telephone booth, made of cast concrete by Southern Pacific in Oakland: they were used by the SP, Pacific Electric, and San Diego Arizona and Eastern Railways. This one dates from the early 1920sSafe Journeys!
The museum when it was headquarters of Union OilStill a marvelous building
On the second floor of this building, above the Santa Paula Hardware Company and the US Post Office, Union Oil Co. was founded October 17, 1890; when corporate headquarters were moved to Los Angeles in 1900, production offices remained in Santa Paula. In 1950, the building became Union Oil Museum. In 1988, Unocal announced a $2million restoration of the site, creating the California Oil Museum of today.
Much of the stone in the Queen Anne building came from the Santa Paul creek, and the purple Sespe sandstone trim came from a Fillmore quarry. The first floor has permanent interactive exhibits centered on the oil industry in California and rooms for changing exhibits; upstairs the building has been restored to its 19th century corporate Board Room and office space. The rig room, a modern structure adjacent to the original building, has a working, restored 1890s oil rig!
See https://www.caoilmuseum.org/about for more photos and information about current exhibits. I have a personal preference for museums that are interesting for both kids and adults!
I found the first three photographs (circa 1877) in the Library of Congress collection, published by the Continent Stereoscopic Company in the series “Descriptive views of the American Continent.”
254 — Arrival of the first locomotive in Arizona*
According to LoC: “Written in pen on back of mount: Fort Yuma, Cal. on bluff in background.”
I believe the shot was taken looking north from Yuma, Arizona Territory; Fort Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River can be seen on the bluff, just as the note on back reads. If you look along the tracks, you can see a glimpse of the swing bridge built by the railroad across the river.
237 — “Old 31″ The Pioneer Engine of Arizona*
According to LoC: “Written in pen on back of mount: Yuma, Ariz., Fort Yuma, Cal. on bluff in background.”
Looking carefully, when enlarged, the tender is has the initials “S” and “P.”
The bridge was built to swing a section aside so large boats could ply the River. Starting in 1852, steamboats were used to transport goods and people on the lower Colorado.
The Southern Pacific completed tracks from Los Angeles to Indio, California in 1876, and on to Yuma, Arizona in 1877. That year, photographer Enoch Conklin traveled in Arizona, taking his own pictures as well as acquiring photos from others. “Picturesque Arizona: Being the Result of Travels and Observations in Arizona During the Fall and Winter of 1877” was published by the Mining Record Printing Establishment, in which his pictures were credited to the Continent Stereoscopic Company. An incomplete set of the images were deposited in the LoC by an unknown source in 1907.
Searchlight delivering a barge load of provisions to the work camp for closing the break in the Colorado bank that created the Salton Sea (circa 1905-1907). US Bureau of Reclamation photograph
With the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1877, steamboat travel declined. The completion of Laguna Dam in 1909, was the end of viable steamboating on the lower Colorado (see my blog entry on the Swastika Bridge for more on Laguna Dam).
Sold to the US Reclamtion Service, the Seachlight was lost on the River in October 1916; as the last steamboat on the lower Colorado, its loss ended an era.
The copies of these two available digitally do not have the title captions, but the numbers and titles are given on the LoC information documents
Just a quick note on the power of water: I found this dramatic March 18, 1928 USGS photo of the railroad tracks between Castaic Junction and Piru (Calif.), having been moved onto the highway by the flood caused by the Saint Francis Dam failure.
Below is a photo of the dam before it failed on March 12, 1928. From the USGS archives, courtesy of Los Angeles Bureau of Power & Light. Harold Thornton Stearns, photographer
Yesterday is already history, but for some of us, it will be the day the BIG BOY came to Indio.
Needless to say, the crowds ranged from toddlers to the elderly, all here to see one of the largest steam locomotives ever built.
Originally delivered to the Union Pacific in December 1941, Engine No. 4014 has been fully restored and touring the country as part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Meeting of the Rails at Promontory Point in 1869. More information on the Big Boy can be found at https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/
