Part Five

On Aug. 24, 1864, A.A. Cohen stepped off the steamboat Sophie McLane onto the Davis Street Wharf in San Francisco. When he did, he little realized the role that his newly completed San Francisco & Alameda Railroad (SF&A) would play in the completion of the dream that had percolated in the American conscience for years — the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

The aftermath of the Oct. 21, 1868, earthquake is evident at the Morse and Helpsing Flour Mill at Hayward. The SF&A locomotive F.D. Atherton—named for Faxon Dean Atherton, inset — who owned much of today's Castro Valley at the time of the temblor—complements the photograph. The quake leveled SF&A's station at Hayward and played havoc with the existing rail system.

Though many consider the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869, the crowning achievement of this dream, Leland Stanford knew better. Years earlier, steamboat and stagecoach interests in San Francisco listened to Theodore Judah's idea of an iron river flowing across the nation. He wanted this river to empty into the Pacific Ocean in their city, and the listeners considered that a threat. What would happen to the stagecoach and steamboat industry if passengers could ride the rails? They sent Judah packing, right into the welcoming arms of more interested parties in Sacramento.

Now instead of talking about a celebratory ride west to the Pacific, Stanford had to contend with connecting his railroad at Sacramento to San Francisco. After the ceremonies in desolate Utah, Stanford looked forward completing the final tributary of America's iron river.

He called James Harvey Strobridge to his private car to discuss this final leg. The pair joked about Strobridge's unscripted role in the Golden Spike ceremony. Stanford and the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant both missed driving home the last spike. (I once worked on the railroad as a "Gandy dancer," driving spikes for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and know first-hand that successfully striking these slender pieces of metal requires some skill.) The more-experienced Strobridge took over for Stanford and took turns with Union Pacific supervisor Samuel R. Reed, who had stepped in for Durant, to drive the spike into the tie.

Strobridge had supervised construction on the Central Pacific line through the Sierra Nevada and on into Utah. Now Stanford counted on him to finish the job. He knew that the CPRR had to quickly lay tracks from Sacramento to Stockton, through Pleasanton, and Alameda Creek Canyon to join Cohen's SF&A line at Hayward. Strobridge built a freight terminal at the west end of the canyon and a town quickly sprang up around it. The railroad christened the town "Niles" for Judge Addison C. Niles; the canyon soon took the same name.

A California Street cable car pulls out of its Kearney Street car barn. Central Pacific Railroad bankrolled the cable car. Leland Stanford, inset, hired railroad engineer and surveyor Henry Root to build the system. Root played a key role in surveying the final leg of the CPRR's tracks from Niles Canyon to Oakland.

Latching onto an idea that Alameda co-founder W. W. Chipman had already proposed, the CPRR hoped to extend its railroad across the water to Goat Island (today's Yerba Buena Island). The railroad planned to use the island as a base for ferry service. Some day, tracks might extend across a second bridge and into San Francisco. (Opponents dubbed the plan the "Goat Island Grab." The federal government reminded the CPRR that it, not the railroad, owned the island, ending the idea.)

At first the CPRR showed more interest in Cohen's line which by 1869 stretched from Vallejo Mills (today's Niles) through Hayward and San Leandro, ending in Alameda at the Pacific Avenue wharf. Just after the Golden Spike ceremony, Strobridge spoke to Henry Root. Root had visited Oakland to survey and complete the SF&O from Larue's wharf to Hayward.

Root let Strobridge know that getting passengers from Oakland or Alameda to San Francisco was not the challenge. Getting passengers to and from the Alameda County seat in San Leandro, however, was quite an ordeal.

He told Strobridge that travelers to the county seat on the SF&O line had to ride the train from 7th Street and Broadway, along Lake Merritt to Larue's Wharf (near today's East 12th Street and 14th Avenue.) But that was just the first leg. Root then explained that passengers had to walk (a little over 2 miles) along (today's) 12th Street to Park Street in Alameda and along Park Street to the SF&A station. There they could catch the train to San Leandro.

Central Pacific's Samuel S. Montague, left, shakes hands with Union Pacific's Grenville Dodge in the middle of Andrew J. Russell's famous photograph "East and West Shaking Hands." James Strobridge, who built the final leg of the transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to Hayward, joined Union Pacific Samuel R. Reed in driving the Golden Spike at the May 10, 1869, meeting of the rails at Promontory Point, Utah.

Or they had to ride the train in the other direction to Gibbons Point. From there they took two ferry rides: first to San Francisco and second to Alameda. At Alameda they boarded an SF&A train for the final leg to San Leandro. The SF&A route through Alameda seemed the most convenient to the county seat.

As Root and Strobridge debated over what line best served the CPRR, Stanford had already struck a deal with Cohen — making the Alameda attorney a very wealthy man. Stay tuned.

Contact Dennis Evanosky at