www.montereycountynow.com july 18-24, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 If things had gone Juan Bautista Castro’s way, the area of Castroville he founded in 1863 might have become a center of commerce and government for Monterey County, similar to what the Salinas City Index later foretold for Salinas. But for all Castro’s maneuverings and planning, it was not to be. Castro offered the Southern Pacific Railroad a reduced price on land for a depot. Eugene Sherwood in Salinas City offered the land for free. The die was cast for Salinas’ future. “Anybody who was given a depot by Southern Pacific was guaranteed that their city would flourish,” says Craig Kaufman, founder and director of the Salinas Valley Tourism & Visitors Bureau. He runs the California Welcome Center - Salinas, located inside what was the original train station, a board and batten redwood structure completed on Jan. 4, 1873. The Welcome Center, located near downtown within what is now called the Salinas Intermodal Transit Center, is home to a detailed display called “Postcards, Passengers and Produce; The Story of How Southern Pacific Company Created the Salad Bowl of the World.” With a railroad contract secured, Salinas was able to finagle the county seat away from Monterey in 1872— Kaufman says some “horse trading” took place—the same year Southern Pacific tracks arrived. In 1874, Salinas officially incorporated as a city, the first area in the county to incorporate, 15 years before Pacific Grove (1889) and 16 years before Monterey (1890). At the time, the Salinas Valley was engaged in dry farming, mostly wheat. The valley was known as the “Breadbasket of California,” Kaufman says. The train was the most efficient way to transport sacks of the grain out of the county. Once the train and irrigation were established, the valley transitioned to row crops and dairy. By 1925, Monterey County was a leading exporter of dairy, with 400 dairies and over 25,000 cows being milked. The milk was mainly evaporated and shipped out by train. “It was really the relationship between the types of agricultural products we were growing and the fact we had this infrastructure called Southern Pacific that allowed our products to reach other parts of the nation,” Kaufman says. “And by 1921, with the introduction of putting ice on the boxcars, that was the game-changer for Salinas.” With refrigeration inside what were called reefer cars, row crops became more profitable and the valley pivoted away from dairies and crops that needed no refrigeration, like the sugar beets that Claus Spreckels grew. (Spreckels built his own narrow gauge railroad from his farm in Spreckels to his sugar plant in Watsonville.) The original train station in Salinas was replaced with a new station next door in 1905. The old station was turned into a freight building. “At the height of its usage about 50 percent of everything grown in the Salinas Valley was coming through this building,” Kaufman says. At one point, 49,000 boxcars of perishable produce were being shipped annually from Salinas, making the valley one of Southern Pacific’s largest clients. By 1963, 1 million boxcars of iceberg lettuce had left from the Salinas depot. “It just goes to show you that symbiotic relationship we had with the railroad company,” Kaufman says. According to Salinas: A History of Race and Resilience in an Agricultural City by local author Carol Lynn McKibben, lettuce exports allowed Salinas to prosper, even through the Great Depression. Salinas’ lettuce income rose from $9.6 million in 1919 to $11 million in 1930. Today lettuce continues to be the top crop in Monterey County: The 2023 crop report showed that head lettuce and leaf lettuce combined equaled $1.3 billion, out of a total of $4.4 billion in gross value for all crops. “It absolutely shaped the city,” Kaufman says of the railroad, which is now owned by Union Pacific. The Monterey County Rail extension is now planned for Caltrain commuter passenger service between Gilroy and Salinas, connecting passengers all the way to San Francisco. The project could be completed in 2026. The extension will usher in a new era for Salinas and the region, with the potential to remove vehicles off of a congested Highway 101 during commute times. Travel by rail is considered one of the greenest forms of transportation—trains emit the least amount of greenhouse gasses compared to other forms of travel. The number of passengers using the Salinas station have been steadily declining, according to data from the Rail Passengers Association. It dipped precipitously during the pandemic, with only 7,433 passengers in 2021, down from approximately 20,000 annually in the preceding years. In 2022 it was at just over 16,600. Kaufman foresees a change, with passenger numbers climbing once again, more than 150 years since the first train pulled up alongside the Salinas depot. “It’s definitely going to make a comeback,” he says. On Track The railroad made Salinas what it is today. Its future will be shaped by it as well. By Pam Marino “The march of Salinas City is still onward, and it will be until the town grows into a large city. There is not an inland town in the State of California with prospects better than this. The railroad will soon be in its borders and is destined to be the county seat of one of the largest and soon richest counties on the coast. Salinas in five years, will be unlike the city of today. It will be to this valley what San Jose is to Santa Clara Valley.” Salinas City Index, July 12, 1872 Craig Kaufman of the California Welcome Center - Salinas points out some of the marketing used by Southern Pacific Railroad to draw people from across the country to Salinas after the company opened a depot there in 1873. The depot was key in creating a successful foundation to the growing city. Top right: The first map of Salinas was a charcoal drawing created in 1875 when the population was approximately 800 people. It shows the original train depot in the lower right corner, currently home to the Welcome Center. Below: Salinas’ first train depot in 1910. The first connected phone call in the city took place inside the depot in 1878. The call was between the depot and the Abbott House, today the site of the Taylor Farms Building on Main Street. Daniel Dreifuss Courtesy of the Salinas Valley Tourism and Visitors Bureau Courtesy of the Salinas Valley Tourism and Visitors Bureau
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