Southern Pacific's San Joaquin Division

Hardcover, library-bound with dust jacket, 584 pages, 8.5 x11 in., 963 photographs of which 484 are in color, with over 100 maps, numerous tables, bibliography and index.

Much has been written about the Southern Pacific Railroad. A focus of wealth, power and political control in the Golden State, Southern Pacific was on the scene, close behind the Spanish, molding and shaping the California we know today. And nowhere is this more evident than in the San Joaquin Valley.

Pioneer Central Pacific entered the valley building south out of Lathrop in the fall of 1870, reaching Tipton in the very heart of the San Joaquin Valley in late July 1872. At this point Southern Pacific continued the work. Surmounting the Tehachapi mountains, the railroad forked with one line heading to The Needles on the Colorado River, and the other to Los Angeles, which was opened for traffic in 1876. Along the way, the railroad founded and platted many of the cities that exist today. For instance, Fresno was surveyed and staked out in May 1872 in an area where there was no habitation and "the ground was like a graveled school yard." Accumulating vast land grants in the progress, SP had land to sell and built branch lines to new and promising areas promoting the potential profits to be made to eastern farmers.

At its zenith, prior to World War II, the San Joaquin Division encompassed a little over 876 miles of first main track. This volume covers the rise and fall of this great enterprise, from its initial construction to its expansion, and sadly, its decline through 1996. While including new information, and many unpublished photographs in the mountains, it also covers in depth the vast network of secondary and branch lines once a part of the division.