The California Southern was organized on July 10, 1880, as a means to connect San Diego to a connection with the
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at an as-yet undetermined point. Among the organizers were
Frank A. Kimball, a prominent landowner and rancher from San Diego who also represented the Chamber of Commerce and the Board of City Trustees of San Diego,
Kidder, Peabody & Co., one of the main financial investment companies involved in the
Santa Fe,
B.P. Cheney,
L.G. Pratt,
George B. Wilbur and
Thomas Nickerson who was president of the Santa Fe. The organizers set a deadline of January 1, 1884, to complete the connection, a deadline that was later adjusted due to problems in the construction of the Atlantic and Pacific that forced it to stop at
Needles, California. The California Southern built its track northward from a point in National City, south of San Diego. The route, portions of which are still in use, connected the present day cities of National City, San Diego,
Fallbrook,
Temecula,
Lake Elsinore,
Perris,
Riverside,
San Bernardino,
Colton,
Cajon (not to be confused with
El Cajon),
Victorville and
Barstow. In Barstow, then known as Waterman, the California Southern would connect to another Santa Fe subsidiary, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The Atlantic and Pacific was chartered in 1866 to build a railroad connection westward from
Springfield, Missouri, connecting
Albuquerque, New Mexico, then along the 35th
parallel to the
Colorado River. From there, the railroad was to continue to the Pacific Ocean following whatever proved to be the best route. The route was scheduled to be completed by July 4, 1878. However, the Southern Pacific was able to get a clause favorable to their own interests inserted into the charter: :... the Southern Pacific Railroad ... is hereby authorized to connect with the said Atlantic and Pacific railroad formed under this act, at such point, near the boundary line of the State of California, as they shall deem most suitable for a railroad line to San Francisco. Southern Pacific had already established a connection to
Mojave, so their crews built eastward from there through Barstow (then called Waterman) to
Needles, California, completing the connection across the Colorado River on August 3, 1883. The California segment was leased to the Santa Fe in August 1884, and fully acquired by the Santa Fe under foreclosure in 1897.
San Diego in San Diego. This station was demolished and replaced in 1915 by what has come to be known as the
Santa Fe Depot. The California Southern began construction in National City on land originally acquired by Frank Kimball. The railroad's main
yards and
locomotive maintenance shops were located here, and until the connection was made with Barstow, all tools and equipment ordered by the railroad arrived here by ship around
Cape Horn from points in the eastern United States, while the wooden
ties arrived by ship from
Oregon. Surveys and construction between National City and San Diego were well underway by March 1881. The railroad reached Fallbrook and opened between there and San Diego in January 1882. In 1881 and 1882, the California Southern received ten locomotive shipments by sea at National City. The last three of these, delivered in November 1882 aboard the ship
Anna Camp, have been identified as the last three locomotives ever delivered to the United States Pacific coast after traveling around Cape Horn.
Temecula Canyon To connect to the Atlantic and Pacific line in the quickest way possible, surveyors and engineers for the California Southern pushed the route through
Fallbrook and
Temecula—bypassing what was, at the time, the
pueblo of Los Angeles. The railroad, however, didn't understand the nature of Southern California's dry washes. Local inhabitants warned the railroad of the dangers of building through such an area, that it could become a raging torrent of water, but the railroad built through the canyon anyway. Despite the warnings, track work through the canyon proceeded at a quick pace. They completed the line to Fallbrook on January 2, 1882, then to Temecula on March 27, 1882. Many parts of the canyon had suffered storms. In February 1884, a storm hit. The train was delayed and the canyon walls brought boulders crashing down on the rails. On February 3, the train was unable to get through. A few days later, the wires were down. The train from Colton to
San Diego could not get through. Disaster was averted because a local resident, Charlie Howell, hurried up the tracks from his family homestead near Willow Glen and managed to stop the train. A series of devastating
washouts on the section through Temecula Canyon occurred amid heavy rain storms that flooded the area starting on February 16, 1884, just six months after the first trains operated the entire route between San Diego and San Bernardino. The storms brought more than of rain in a four-week period. Two thirds of the mainline through the canyon were washed out with ties seen floating as far as away in the ocean. Temporary track repairs were made after the first storms, but later in the month, additional rains and flooding washed out the entire route through the canyon. Repairs were estimated at nearly $320,000 (), a figure that could not be recouped effectively. By 1900 it had been abandoned by AT&SF. Finally, the 1928 construction of Railroad Canyon Dam submerged the section of track between
Elsinore and
Perris beneath
Railroad Canyon Lake (now known as
Canyon Lake).
The crossing at Colton Construction of the California Southern was repeatedly interrupted by Santa Fe's rival,
Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). In one instance, the California Southern was set to build a
level junction across the SP tracks in
Colton, a move that would end Southern Pacific's monopoly in Southern California. The
Colton Crossing was the site of one of the more notable
frog wars in American railroad history. In the summer of 1882, tensions reached their boiling point when construction of tracks for the California Southern reached Colton, California. In an attempt to forcibly prevent the California Southern Railroad crews from completing construction, the Southern Pacific (SP) parked and then slowly moved a
locomotive and
gondola along the SP track at the location of the planned crossing. In addition, the SP hired armed men, including the famous
Virgil Earp, to guard the tracks. Before the violence could get out of hand, Governor
Robert Waterman ordered San Bernardino County Sheriff J.B. Burkhart to enforce the state court order. Waterman personally ordered Earp and the crowd to comply with the court order. Earp backed down and told the SP engineer to move the locomotive. The crossing was built, ending the Southern Pacific's monopoly in Southern California.
Cajon Pass The first structure that the California Southern used as a depot in San Bernardino was a converted
boxcar. Building north from San Bernardino, the California Southern was able to piggyback on the survey work done by the
Los Angeles and Independence Railroad up to a point near Cajon. The route over Cajon Pass was completed with a "last spike" on November 9, 1885, and the first train to use the pass carried a load of rails southward from Barstow on November 12 to be installed near Riverside. The first through train from Chicago via Santa Fe lines arrived in San Diego on November 17, 1885. Construction of the original route through
Cajon Pass was overseen by Jacob Nash Victor, who by this time had become General Manager of the California Southern. He operated the first train through the pass in 1885, proclaiming "No other railroad will ever have the nerve to build through these mountains. All who follow will prefer to rent trackage from us." Victor's assertion remained true for a while as the
San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad (which later became part of
Union Pacific Railroad) signed an agreement to operate over the California Southern track via
trackage rights on April 26, 1905, but Victor was proven wrong eighty years later when SP built the
Palmdale Cutoff in 1967 at a slightly higher elevation through the pass. In honor of his work through the pass, the city of
Victorville was named after Victor.
Consolidation from 1889 showing passenger train schedules between
Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego, using California Southern tracks from Barstow to Los Angeles and San Diego. To reach Los Angeles, the Santa Fe leased
trackage rights over the Southern Pacific from San Bernardino on November 29, 1885, at $1,200 per mile per year (). One of the first official lists of stations on the California Southern and California Central railroads published on July 13, 1887, shows the California Southern divided operationally into two divisions: the San Diego division covered the territory between National City and Colton; from there, the San Bernardino Division covered the route through Cajon Pass to Barstow. '' pauses at the summit of Cajon Pass in 1908. The Santa Fe underwent a massive financial overhaul in 1889. The major investors in
Boston, Massachusetts, were mostly replaced by investors from
New York and London at the annual meeting on May 9. The investors replaced the company's board of directors with a new board that included
George C. Magoun (who would later be linked with the company's 1893 receivership). The new investors disliked the number of subsidiary companies and sought to further consolidate them. The California Southern, California Central and
Redondo Beach Railway companies were consolidated into the
Southern California Railway on November 7, 1889. The California Central had consolidated with the
Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad in 1887, giving it ROW through the
San Gabriel Valley. The Santa Fe finally purchased outright the holdings of the Southern California railroad on January 17, 1906, ending the railway's subsidiary status and making it fully a part of the Santa Fe railroad. == Company officers ==