Page:The Pacific Monthly volume 17.djvu/755

 the Central Pacific people purchased a con- trolling interest, advanced the necessary funds and the road was taken out of the re- ceiver's hands and leased to the Southern Pacific Company.

The new owners resumed construction and the line was soon completed to the Oregon- California line, the rate of progress being forty-three miles to Riddle, Ore., in 1883 ; ninety-nine miles to Fort Lane in 1884, to Ashland in 1885, and completed in 1887.

Having thus followed the history of the line in Oregon, we will return to the Cali- fornia portion of it. We have already seen how the line from Roseville to Lincoln and Marysville was built and absorbed by the Central Pacific, under the corporate title of the California and Oregon Railroad Com- pany, but operated as the Oregon division of the Central Pacific. The line from Marys- ville north to Redding was built by the "Con- tract and Finance Company," that had done the construction work on the main line of the Central Pacific, reaching there in 1878. North of there the work was done by the Central Pacific Company itself. The rate of progress was slow. Delta was reached in 1885, McCloud in 1SS6 and the Oregon line and a connection with the line from Portland December, 18S7.

As previously stated, the Oroville line was completed by the California Northern Rail- road Company in 1861. Failing to meet the interest on its bonded indebtedness, it was sold at mortgage foreclosure sale January, 1881, being bought in by N. E. Hideout. The price paid was $10,000, although the original cost of road and equipment was nearly $1,- 000,000. Rideout and his associates contin- ued to operate it until 1SS5, when it was sold to the Northern California Railroad Com- pany, who in turn leased it to the Southern Pacific Company in 1S89.

The eighteen miles from Roseville to Sac- ramento was a part of the Central Pacific and, in fact, the very first part of that line that was constructed, it having been com- pleted in 1S61. It has the distinction of be- ing the only section of the line between Port- land and San Francisco that has remained in the hands of its original owners, considering the Southern Pacific Company and Central Pacific Railroad as one and the same.

Originally the line from San Francisco to Sacramento was a part of the Central Pa- cific Railway of California, the original charter calling for the construction of a line from a point near San Francisco to the Cali- fornia-Nevada state line — that is. the state charter — National legislation covering a line from a point on the Pacific Ocean, near San Francisco, to a connection with the Union Pacific Railroad. Early in 1861 the rights of the Central Pacific Company, so far as the line west of Sacramento was concerned, were sold to the Western Pacific Railroad Company, who constructed the line via Niles and Stockton, and which later on was ab- sorbed by the Central Pacific. The direct line, by way of Benicia, was of later date and of complicated origin.

A traveler over the ninety miles in ques- tion goes over portions of what was orig- inally eight different roads. The line from Suisun to Sacramento is a part of the Cali- fornia Pacific. This company, formed in 1869 by the consolidation of the California Pacific, the San Francisco and Marysville. incorporated in 1S57. and the Sacramento and San Francisco, incorporated in 1S64, was originally operated as a San Francisco- Sacramento line in competition with the Western Pacific Railroad, the route via Niles. and Stockton. Originally the line was made up of steamer from San Francisco to Tal- lejo, thence the rails of the California Pa- cific Railroad to Sacramento, commencing operations in 1870.

The cut-off from Davisville to Knight's Landing was built by the same parties, un- der the corporate title of the California Pa- cific Extension Railroad Company, the line being leased by the Central Pacific in 1876. This same company also built the line from Woodland to Tehama, one hundred miles, in 1883. In 1870 the Central Pacific of Cali- fornia, the Western Pacific, the San Fran- cisco, Oakland and Alameda, the San Fran- cisco and San Joaquin Valley and the Cali- fornia and Oregon were all consolidated into the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and this in turn leased, April, 1S85, to the com- pany that has ever since operated it — the Southern Pacific Company.

Two years later, or in December. 1SS7. the through line between Portland and San Francisco was inaugurated, the first trains, leaving their terminals December 17.