History of the Southern Pacific Railroad

The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffee's Station.

The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway (BBB&C), was chartered in Texas on February 11, 1850, by a group that included General Sidney Sherman.

The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of businessmen known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Jr. and C. P. Huntington.

1971 Moody's shows route-mileage operated as of 31 December 1970: 11615 SP, 1565 SSW, 324 NWP, 136 SD&AE, 44 T&T, 34 VE, 30 P&SR and 10 HI-U.

[39] The Morgan Line, by 1900, had been operating from New Orleans to Cuba for over thirty years and as a result of the war with Spain benefited with the increased trade.

[42][citation not found] By 1899 the company was noting that the railway system, stretching from the Columbia River to the Gulf of Mexico, in conjunction with its steamship lines stretched from New Orleans to New York, Havana and Central American ports and with its Pacific service from San Francisco to Honolulu, Yokohama, Hong Kong and Manila.

[44][citation not found] The other railroads serving the Pacific Coast largely ran from the Midwest with only one other, the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company competing directly with ships serving Hawaii and the Pacific Coast transshipping cargo and passengers across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by the Tehuantepec National Railway to meet its ships running to New York.

For this purpose, a massive pier, the Oakland Long Wharf, was built out into San Francisco Bay in the 1870s which served both local and mainline passengers.

Early on, the Central Pacific gained control of the existing ferry lines for the purpose of linking the northern rail lines with those from the south and east; during the late 1860s the company purchased nearly every bayside plot in Oakland, creating what author and historian Oscar Lewis described as a "wall around the waterfront" that put the town's fate squarely in the hands of the corporation.

Competitors for ferry passengers or dock space were ruthlessly run out of business, and not even stage coach lines could escape the group's notice, or wrath.

Southern Pacific routes on the Pacific Coast, 1885
A Southern Pacific train at Los Angeles' Arcade Depot , 1891
The Southern Pacific depot located in Burlingame, California , c. 1900 ; completed in 1894 and still in use, it was the first permanent Southern Pacific structure to be constructed in the Mission Revival Style .
SP tunnel into San Francisco, c. 1900
Southern Pacific Company Pacific System in the West, 1901
Belmont, California station, c. 1907
A rust-covered bridge crosses over calm water, with hills and mountains in the background.
The Dumbarton Rail Bridge
The Southern Pacific Railroad Locomotive No. 1673 is a standard gauge 2-6-0, Mogul type M-4 class, steam locomotive built in 1900 by Schenectady Locomotive Works . It had a brief starring role in the 1954 film Oklahoma , for which it was fitted with a diamond stack and other turn-of-the-century equipment and colors. It was also the star of Southern Pacific's 75th anniversary in Tucson, Arizona. The locomotive is on display in the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, 414 N. Toole Ave.. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 1992, ref.: #91001918.
Southern Pacific equipment used to rebuild Galveston after 1915 Hurricane
Exterior view of the Southern Pacific's Central Station in Los Angeles c. 1918
The San Joaquin Daylight , March 1971
SP 8033, a GE Dash 8-39B , leads a westbound train through Eola, Illinois (just east of Aurora ), October 6, 1992.
Southern Pacific system as of 1918
Captions read: 1) Southern Pacific docks at Galveston, Texas, 2) Grain carriers and ships at Galveston, 3) Unloading sugar at New Orleans, 4) Southern Pacific docks at New York City, 5) The Southern Pacific steamer Creole , 6) The S.S. Momus entering New York Bay, 7) West end of the docks at Galveston
Passenger steamer Antilles .
The Southern Pacific Company's Bay City ferry plies the waters of San Francisco Bay in the late 19th century
Former Southern Pacific railway caboose on exhibit in Flatonia , west of Houston , Texas