Nora Sawyer Sausalito Historical Society
North Pacific Coast Railroad's Engine Number One, was a Baldwin eight-wheeler. She is shown here in service with the White Lumber Company. Photo Sausalito Historical Society
On May 10, 1869, bells rang out across the country. Firecrackers and cannons boomed, and Chicago held the largest parade the city would see in that century, thronged with crowds numbering in the tens of thousands. The transcontinental railroad, connecting coast to coast, was complete. At Promontory Summit in Utah, Leland Stanford and Thomas Clark Durant ceremoniously hammered in a Golden Spike to mark the connection of the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad lines.
For the first time, news broke simultaneously across the country. Telegraph wires transmitted the ceremonial blows to listeners across the country and even on the other side of the Atlantic. One reporter noted that the message rang out “the fartherest of any by mortal men.”
The ceremony marked a faster, more connected age. In the next twenty years, the mileage covered by rail in the United States more than quadrupled, reaching nearly 164,000 miles and increasing at an average of 15 miles of track a day. Voyages that would have once taken more than six months now could be completed in two weeks. Mail became faster and more reliable.
Of course, not every mile of track was as grand as the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads that thundered across the continent. Smaller, more modest ventures sprang up to serve local and regional needs.
A much smaller ceremony on April 10, 1873 marked the start of one such enterprise. “Amid much enthusiastic cheering,” Jack Tracy writes in Moments in Time, “a groundbreaking ceremony took place in Sausalito, marking the start of the construction of the long-promised railroad that would link Sausalito to the lumber empire to the north. “
Born out of a collaboration between the Sausalito Land and Ferry Company and the Northern Pacific Coast Railroad, the narrow gauge railroad offered a safer alternative to the trip by sea up the fog-bound, stormy coast. Less expensive than larger trains, the railway was also more nimble, able to handle tight curves and mountainous terrain. Its tracks were lighter, with smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges and tunnels making it more adaptable to the varied landscape.
Railroad historian Lucius Beebe called the narrow gauge “the most personal of all rail roads… its diminutive tracks, locomotives and rolling stock… possessed of the endearing qualities of all small sympathetic things.” James Wilkins, a former mayor of San Rafael and the founder of the Sausalito News, took a less romantic view, describing the train that passed along the completed line in 1875 as “a ramshackle narrow gauge affair, built along the lines of least resistance, with lofty disdain of the laws of gravity and a preference for curvature instead of tangents.”
Still, it was an impressive journey. In San Francisco, passengers embarked from at the Davis Street Wharf. From there they crossed the foggy bay to Sausalito, where they were greeted by the railroad’s two steam engines (Sausalito and Olema) and “lemon-colored coaches.” Leaving Sausalito, the train would speed “gaily along the shore at the foot of the wooded hills, across the long trestle to Strawberry Point, over Collins summit, and through Corte Madera to The Junction.”
There, the tracks forked, with one rail leading southeast to San Rafael’s B Street Depot, and the main line continuing northwest over to the redwood forests.
Historian Gilbert Kneiss relates that passengers that on its inaugural journey, passengers “stared out the window in growing amazement as the pull up White’s Hill started; at the rugged beauty and the heavy railroading required to conquer it.”
Back in Sausalito, the railroad built a new ferry landing and railroad wharf, and purchased two elegant passenger ferries: the San Rafael and the Saucelito. Wealthy San Franciscans moved north, building homes in Sausalito and commuting by ferry to jobs in the city. Sausalito became a bustling gateway for both passengers and commercial cargo.
The cost of these improvements proved the railroad’s downfall. Massive debts and a sluggish economy forced the sale of the Northern Pacific Coast Railroad in 1880. A newly formed venture, the North Pacific Coast Extension Company laid new tracks, building track straight across the salt marshes from Sausalito to Alameda and Waldo Points, and expanding north to Cazadero.
Despite its struggles, the railroad transformed Sausalito, bringing visitors, new businesses, and entrepreneurs to the downtown’s bustling terminal. The city became more diverse, as the railroad brought first laborers and then merchants from a variety of backgrounds.
Today, not much physical evidence of Sausalito’s transit hub remains. But you can still follow the train’s route along the salt marsh toward Strawberry Point, and imagine the ribbons of track that used to twist northwest through the redwoods toward Cazadero.
The Sausalito Historical Society will host a dedication of the new Ice House Plaza on Saturday,October 26 at 10 a.m. The community is invited to celebrate the opening at a “Golden Spike” ceremony commemorating Sausalito’s railroad history.