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| South Pacific Coast Railroad map from Beauties of California, 1883 |
"The forenoon passenger,
leaving San Francisco by ferry, and taking the cars at Alameda Point, after
half an hour’s run across the bay, before ‘a fresh’ning breeze,’ reaches the
city by the sea early in the afternoon. The trip is, altogether, a delightful
one. Whizzing among the pretty garden grounds of Alameda and Santa Clara, and
the elegant suburbs of San Jose; across the broad and highly-cultivated valley
of Santa Clara, with ever-varying effects of distant mountain make-up,
bewildering, while they charm with their endless variety, the interested but unfamiliar
traveler at length perceives, by the undulating contour of the surrounding
country, that he is rapidly approaching the foothills of the Coast Range. He is
soon among them."
"From Los Gatos, the train ascends rapidly, and is soon moving with graceful curves. A sparkling rivulet ripples far down in the gulch, out of which great redwood trees, many of them giants of their race, lift up their heads above the altitude of the track. Now the traveler or tourist is in the midst of all that is sublime, romantic or picturesque in mountain scenery. Away across the ‘ponderous jaws’ of yawning canons, he catches glimpses of distant hills, bristling with spiky pines, and here and there visions of ‘silent vales,’ as verdant as the consuming Summer sun and the necessities of the mountaineer’s pasturage will permit."
"Then a tunnel; out again; and through the cool and shady forests; stopping at stations in the clouds, where the girls are pretty, and know it; another tunnel; sunlight on the foliage; camps and cabins; weird figures shaped in the forests; cultivated spots and unexpected places; a tunnel; big trees; little trees; sunbeams; wild flowers; cactus; crows, and the summit is passed. These scenes, on the rapid ascent of the mountain from the valley of Santa Clara, are but preparatory for ones greater variety and more interest."
"From Los Gatos, the train ascends rapidly, and is soon moving with graceful curves. A sparkling rivulet ripples far down in the gulch, out of which great redwood trees, many of them giants of their race, lift up their heads above the altitude of the track. Now the traveler or tourist is in the midst of all that is sublime, romantic or picturesque in mountain scenery. Away across the ‘ponderous jaws’ of yawning canons, he catches glimpses of distant hills, bristling with spiky pines, and here and there visions of ‘silent vales,’ as verdant as the consuming Summer sun and the necessities of the mountaineer’s pasturage will permit."
"Then a tunnel; out again; and through the cool and shady forests; stopping at stations in the clouds, where the girls are pretty, and know it; another tunnel; sunlight on the foliage; camps and cabins; weird figures shaped in the forests; cultivated spots and unexpected places; a tunnel; big trees; little trees; sunbeams; wild flowers; cactus; crows, and the summit is passed. These scenes, on the rapid ascent of the mountain from the valley of Santa Clara, are but preparatory for ones greater variety and more interest."
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| Author's Personal Collection |
"The Felton station with its
picnic grounds, drives, and enlarged trees, is quickly succeeded by the Big
Tree Grove, a locality of monstrous vegetation, the smallest specimens of which
would have been spurned as tooth-picks by the giants of old, but possibly used
for shoe pegs."
"Moving with ‘sinuous course’ around curves, over an occasional bridge of powerful construction, but mostly along a solid road-bed cut out of the side of the mountain, the expectant traveler is all of a sudden delighted with a view of the Great Wild Canon of the San Lorenzo River."
Source: "Santa Cruz and Her Environs," Daily Alta California, July 5, 1880.
"Moving with ‘sinuous course’ around curves, over an occasional bridge of powerful construction, but mostly along a solid road-bed cut out of the side of the mountain, the expectant traveler is all of a sudden delighted with a view of the Great Wild Canon of the San Lorenzo River."
Source: "Santa Cruz and Her Environs," Daily Alta California, July 5, 1880.
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