Pescadero Memories

Story by John Vonderlin

Email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

[ Angelo Misthos & John Vonderlin want to find original surveys showing the route of the Ocean Shore Railroad.]

Angelo to John

Hello, John and thanks for your email.  I found the attachments interesting, especially the ones showing the tunnel at Pescadero beach,,  Seems in the location I’d found it years ago.  I never could see light at the other end so figured the bore never went completely through. Never found OS literature on it.  We went to see son and family in So. Cal. last weekend, and I’d intended to detour via the Pescadero and San Gregorio beaches, but it was late and never made it. As for grading route maps that might resolve the matter, I believe the (former) California Railroad Commission required route surveys for every railroad that planned a route in California. Whether the OS’s still exists or whether it would be specific enough to settle these issues, I don’t know.  I am going to write the Public Utilities Commission (successor to the R.R. Commission) to ask about this and if the record still exists, whether publicly accessible. Wiill advise what I learn.  Incidentally, is the Coastsider a print newspaper  or online newspaper or both?   Angelo

——-

John to Angelo

Hi June,

This short article

from the August 10th, 1904, issue of “The San Francisco Call,” doesn’t help much with solving the mystery of where the Ocean Shore Railroad’s proposed route through the southern Coastside was going to be, but it does provide a small piece of the puzzle and a name that might be useful. Surveys were made, routes were planned, papers were drawn up, but where are they? and what do they say? Enjoy. John

August 10, 1904 The San Francisco Call

Southern Pacific Makes Survey

Another railroad survey is being made from the upper Lorenzo to the Pescadero Creek section at the northern end of the county. The work is in charge of Engineer McLeod of the Southern Pacific Company.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hi Angelo,

Here’s an article from August 25th 1908 about the OSR’s progress. In reading about the new steam shovel they had, I wonder if that was the purpose of the sluicing at San Gregorio? I know virtually nothing about 1900 grading and roadbuilding methods. I’ve got a few other articles that relate to this time I’ll send soon. Enjoy the rain. John

Angelo Misthos to John Vonderlin:

Hi, John. Thanks for your interesting article and the introduction to a new source (UCR/CBSR). Haven’t yet looked up the clip about the 16,000 #s of explosives set off north of San Gregorio, but wonder if this could be “the some nine tons of black powder” set off to create Saddle Cut, just south of Devil’s Slide described in THE LAST WHISTLE, bottom of page 39 (12/74 printing), Chapter 4, “Reaches the Beaches.”

Re: the possible less- than- direct route for the Pescadero area, I must admit I’m skeptical as (I may have indicated this previously). On one of my 1939 trips, I found what looked like a pilot bore at the coastal cliff north of the dune area, lining up with its portal, and leading south into the dunes. It was definitely a grade before it was lost in the dunes.

Granted, the Ocean Shore did not always take the most direct route  (lack of finances, I’m sure) as can be seen by the route chosen around  Rockaway Point , just for one example.  Angelo Misthos

—————–

Hi Angelo,

…Meg and I are going to try to find out whether there is the remnant of graded roadbed that  should be there if it was anything more then a “paper route.”   I was pretty skeptical at first, but now I’m thinking it might have been so, based on the planned trestle’s length, the problems that might have been caused by the flooded lagoon that results from the sand bar, etc. I’ll have a posting soon incorporating that, along with an 1873 story of sea lion hunting at the mouth of Pescadero Creek and the huge park planned in the 1960’s for that part of the marsh. Enjoy. John

Email John Vonderlin (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

——————-

Hello, again John.  If you should contact  Ms. P—-  again, ask if she recalls whether her Dad had said the Hwy. crew found the Pescadero tunnel, then used it for storage, and what year  he was there.  I can’t recall whether I’d found it using the old highway (further inland–see inset map next to Pescadero pictures), 1939 was a long time ago.  The bore  was open then, but I only had nerve enough to walk in a short way.  On a much later trip I found the entrance boarded up. Re CCPR image 6216 titled Trestle Gap, this is the site of the Palmer Gulch trestle I walked across.  If you enlarge the picture you can see trestle timbers clinging to the gulch and down below.  The enlarged 7928080 image (1979) shows more trestle wreckage.  Re the San Gregorio beach area,  see 6224.  If you look west of the north edge of the parking lot you’ll see what is an elongated bowl shaped hollow, foreshortened by the angle of the picture,  which was done by the OS using hydraulic sluicing as they used to use in the gold-mining days. 1979 image  7928086 may show it better (the dark area); it’s still clearly visible (I believe) driving headed North. It  would have hooked up with grading to be done at the bluffs immediately north. You can see some remnants of grading south of Tunitas and somehat beyond Palmer Gulch, but apparently grading had not yet reached the sluiced out section. I don’t recall where I read about the sluiced out hollow; don’t find it in the Wagner book.  May have been in the Bondholders Report of Ocean Shore Railway to Bondholders (1911, when the OS was reorganized). The S.F. Main Library still has a  copy in the reference section; I looked at it more than once when my interest in the OS was at its greatest and I was looking forward to its revival.  Angelo

Hello June.

Some of your readers interested in the Ocean Shore R.R. may not know that efforts to resurrect it began almost as soon as it was abandoned. Jack Wagner’s THE LAST WHISTLE is the best reference.

I recall several San Francisco newspaper articles during the 1930s; and as a teenager I got up the nerve to go to the company’s office in downtown S.F. to inquire of its progress, and met the President, George Middleton. The office was shared with a mining company–either Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining or Bunker Hill. I can’t remember and don’t know of any relationship with the new OSRR. Mr. Middleton said the line would re-enter San Francisco by the old, seldom-used Southern Pacific’s Ocean View line. That track was now in the heavily built-up Mission District where people in homes could practically shake hands with the engine crew if a train ever went by. I remember being skeptical that the City would permit it.

Apropos of that time, I have a copy of the December, 1935, issue of “Railroad Stories” magazine and the article “The Ocean Shore Comes Back” by G. H. Kneiss, which told of the expected rebuilding mainly to exploit the timber resources of the Butano Forest

close to the original route, but never reached. There are a number of court cases involving the OSRR from that time on the Internet, mainly dealing with the railroad’s suits for incursions on its former right-of-way, some becoming precedents for other cases.

One of the more interesting is a 1941 appeal re an earlier decision about the injury from falling rocks in June, 1936, to a power shovel operator engaged by the railroad to clear the blocked north portal of the Pedro Point tunnel. A few months earlier the shovel had been “almost completely buried” by a slide at the south portal. I find it almost incredible how the shovel made it to the south portal. This was before Hwy. 1 had been re-routed closer to the coast, and so the shovel had to have taken the long route past Green Canyon and over Devil’s Slide on a roadbed neglected for over fifteen years. What problems the operator encountered can only be imagined. Mr. Wagner’s book chronicled how all these efforts came to naught.

Regards to John Vonderlin. Angelo

Mystery Tunnel

Story & Photos by John Vonderlin

Email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

Hi June,

Angelo’s email confirmation that there used to be a tunnel, possibly associated with the Ocean Shore Railroad, just north of the most northerly Pescadero Beach parking lot was reason enough for me to try again to find the tunnel, or at least locate where it had been.

Various people have described the tunnel as an initial “bore tunnel” for the O.S.R.R. as well as an explosives storage site for construction of Highway 1, which, I believe, was built on the O.S.R.R. right-of-way in this area.

During the past few weeks, I’ve stomped all over the area, and found no sign of it, but I was LOOKING FOR A TUNNEL. This time I was basically looking for SIGNS OF WHERE A TUNNEL HAD BEEN. Lowered expectations can often lead to success. And, I believe I’ve found where it was.

I suspect, just as with the Prankster’s tunnel, and the nearby W.W. II observation tunnel, that the authorities have eliminated what they considered to be a public nuisance. Having explored many mine tunnels, shafts, etc. in the Mojave Desert, I can understand why they’ve done so, but it’s sad that history was also obliterated along with the danger.

Here’s a picture of the hillside just north of the parking lot.

I’ve marked where I believe the tunnel was. I believe this is so because it’s the only anomaly on a generally smooth hill and there seems to be the remnant of a road that runs up the hill and passes just below it disappearing slightly further on.

Here’s a close-up shot of where I believe the opening was.

On the California Coastal Records Project (CCRP). website, if you look at 7218061, you’ll see what the area where the tunnel was looked like in 1972. Unfortunately, the angle and clarity of the image doesn’t allow me to see exactly what was there besides a couple of paths.

Lastly, I’ve attached a photo shot from slightly above and slightly to the west of the tunnel.

I assume the footprint of Highway 1 is pretty much the O.S.S.R. right-of-way. In author Jack Wagner’s excellent book, “The Last Whistle,” he inserted a chart showing the size of the completed and proposed trestles for the railroad. The Pescadero trestle, never built, was to be only 36 feet high, but 375 feet long. That would neatly carry it from the bedrock near where the present bridge is anchored on the south end, over the Pescadero Creek riparian corridor, to the slightly higher and more solid ground of the low ridge that separates the Pescadero Marsh from the dunes.

Looking at the 1972 CCRP pictures,(#7218063 to 7218065) you can see this ridge has changed very little over the last 35 years, while a considerable amount of sand on the beach has disappeared. Given these facts, I suspect it’s likely that the tunnel stored explosives for construction of the railroad and/or the highway. Perhaps, somebody out there has a picture or knows for sure. Enjoy. John Vonderlin.
.
M

Mr. Vonderlin, I’ve enjoyed reading Half Moon Bay Memories and El Granada Observer as well as your Pescadero Memories, particularly references to the OSRR, which I became acquainted with in the late 1920s.

My uncle took my brother and me on a hike along the right-of-way from Thornton to Mussel Rock. Though the rails had been torn up, still it was obvious a railroad had been there.

In 1939 I made several bike trips down the coast from San Francisco, once climbing to the top of the collapsed tunnel at Pedro Point to view the grade south to Devil’s Slide. And I also drove to Santa Cruz in a friend’s Model A Ford, borrowed from his brother, always looking for OSRR remnants.

At Pescadero beach it looked like grading of the dunes had been done south of the “mysterious tunnel” bluff you described. On a much later visit I found the tunnel portal, and since the grading I’d seen earlier would have led to the tunnel site, I surmised that the OSRR had built the tunnel either as a pilot bore, or to use it to blow down the hillside for easier grading.

Your north portal pictures puzzle me as they don’t appear to coincide with this surmise. I’ve never seen anything about this in the OSRR literature.

Re the Palmer Gulch Trestle: I have a photo of it given to me in 1939 that shows the trestle had already started to sag in the middle. About 1960 a friend and I hiked down to it; by then it was sagging noticeably. On the north side was a large, weathered (tool?) box, about 12′x4′x4′ roughly. It had an old padlock on it which we left as is.

We walked across the trestle, and my friend took pictures, of which I have a couple. Unfortunately, they are now badly faded (Polaroid camera?). but the rotted ties are still evident. I don’t believe it burned down because I saw an internet picture of it taken a few years after our crossing, and it was in nearly collapsed condition, and the text said it totally collapsed shortly after. Regrettably I didn’t add it to my OSRR “favorites,” and have never found it on the Web again.
Thanks again for your interesting memories of the San Mateo coastside.

Angelo Misthos, Sebastopol CA.

————————————–

John Vonderlin says

(email John: benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

Hi June,
I received this interesting email today. It reminded me the tunnel (s) story is not a mystery solved. I’ll get back to it. The gentleman from the cemetery has said he’ll show us it, so maybe it exists. I sent Angelo a picture of a burnt timber, though that might have happened after collapse. I loved that he lives in Sebastopol. I used to have a wonderful ranch/family orchard in the hills west of town during the Seventies. George Lichty, the cartoonist of “Grin and Bear It,” fame lived across the street. The Thomases who owned the American Opinion Bookstore (John Birch Society–remember them?) were at one corner, two gay interior designers from S.F. on another and a schoolteacher couple who were Sufis on another. A great time in my life to recall. Where has my youth gone?
Larry Fitterer and I are going to be lowering ourselves down the cliffs into “The Notch” and Acid Beach on April 9th or 10th. Yee-Haw. Hopefully, I won’t break my typing fingers or anything else. Enjoy. John