The West Side and Mendocino Railroad is a defunct

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

that operated in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The WS&M had a 16.84 mile route that ran west from

Willows, California Willows is a city and the county seat of Glenn County, California, located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California. The city is a home to regional government offices, including the California Highway Patrol, California Department ...

Fruto, California Fruto (Spanish for "Fruit") is an unincorporated community in Glenn County, California. It is located west-northwest of Willows, at an elevation of 610 feet (186 m). It is located along State Route 162. The Southern Pacific Railroad once ha ...

. It began officially operating on July 1, 1888, however special excursion trains were being chartered by San Francisco real estate developer Eastin Eldridge & Company in order to bring prospective buyers to Fruto and develop the area. Fruto existed as a postal location from 1888 - 1953. Fruto today is a Willows postal location. There was a depot at Fruto. The stationmaster lived at the depot. The depot was destroyed by fire in the 1950s. The end of the line at Fruto also had a water tower, freight storage area, livestock loading area, and a roundhouse. In the branches early days there were two trains that ran the line; one freight and one passenger. The passenger train originated at Fruto and ran to Willows in the morning. It returned to Fruto in the afternoon. The freight train originated at Willows in the morning and returned to Willows in the afternoon. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and II the line hauled

chromite Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of FeCr2O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The element magnesium can s ...

ore to

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

smelters Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a ch ...

Connection with the Southern Pacific Railroad

The West Side & Mendocino connected with the mainline of the Northern Railway, a non-operating

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

, at Willows. The Northern Railway had been operating the mainline 8 – 10 years prior to the construction of the WS&M and ran from Tehama, California to Woodland, California.

Timeline

*October 3, 1878 - Northern Railway (a Southern Pacific subsidiary) completes construction from Williams - Willows. (Other sources say railroad reached Willows on September 26, 1878). *July 31, 1882 - Northern Railway completes construction from Willows - Orland. *1884 - Plans are made to build a railroad from Willows to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

coast of

Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza) is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United Sta ...

. The proposed route is to be along the Elk Creek and through Grindstone Canyon. It was anticipated that the railroad would haul local fruit as well as haul

redwood Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affini ...

and

sugar pine ''Pinus lambertiana'' (commonly known as the sugar pine or sugar cone pine) is the tallest and most massive pine tree, and has the longest cones of any conifer. The species name ''lambertiana'' was given by the Scottish botanist David Douglas, ...

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

from Mendocino County to a proposed

lumber mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

in Willows. However, the railroad never made it more than 17 miles east of Willows. *October 26, 1886 - Contract to build line awarded to Turon & Knox of Sacramento. *April 1887 - Grading complete. *March 1888 - Began laying track using Chinese labor. *May 15, 1888 - West Side & Mendocino consolidated into Northern Railway/Southern Pacific. *July 1, 1888 - Northern Railway/Southern Pacific opens line from Willows - Fruto (16.84 miles) and line is known as the "Mendocino Branch" of Southern Pacific's Benicia Division, Clear Lake Subdivision. *July 14, 1898 Northern Railway sold and consolidated into Southern Pacific. *World War I - Line hauls chrome ore. *1917 Line hauls copper ore from the Frank Tendor Copper Mine. *1927 Line hauls materials for the

Stony Gorge Dam Stony Gorge Dam (National ID # CA10194) is a dam in Glenn County, California. The concrete buttress dam was constructed between 1926 and 1928 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, with a height of 153 feet and 868 feet long at its crest. ...

project and livestock. *1951 Southern Pacific abandons most of the branch line except for a one-mile section west of Willows that was left in place to handle wood products produced at the Setzer Box Company mill in Elk Creek. *1993 Southern Pacific leases their "West Valley Line" (Davis - Tehama), including the small portion of the Mendocino Branch serving the Johns-Manville Fiberglass Plant east of Willows, to the

California Northern Railroad The California Northern Railroad is one of several Class III short-line railroad companies owned by Genesee & Wyoming, Inc. It operates over Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) tracks (now Union Pacific Railroad) under a long-term lease. The CFNR ...

Route

Willows Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...

- Milepost 0 *Kurand - Milepost 5.9 *Halconera - Milepost 8.5 *Millsholm - Milepost 9.7 (named after Edgar Mills, a Fruto property owner; and "holm" - German for hills; this location was in the

foothills Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topograp ...

) *Athena - Milepost 13.7 * Fruto - Milepost 17.1

References

* Robertson, Donald B. Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History - Volume IV - California, The Caxton Printers, Ltd. 1998. * Bonner, Brian
Fruto
Retrieved November 19, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:West Side Mendocino Railroad Defunct California railroads Predecessors of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company Companies based in Glenn County, California Willows, California Railway companies established in 1886 Railway companies disestablished in 1888 1886 establishments in California 1880s disestablishments in California