Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Oregon and California Railroad Company records
- Dates:
- 1876 - 1926
- Abstract:
- This collection contains record of equipment and financial records, dated 1876-1926, for the Oregon and California Railroad Company.
- Extent:
- 70 Linear Feet (70 volumes + 1 linear feet)
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Oregon and California Railroad Company Records, MS 134, California State Railroad Museum Library & Archives, Sacramento, California.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The record of equipment is comprised of one volume, dated July 1, 1887, with entries that provide numbers (old and new) of boats, locomotives and rolling stock on the Oregon and California, including those pieces of equipment transferred to the line from other railroads, class of equipment, dimensions, weight, date in service and remarks, including disposition of the equipment.
The financial records include accounting records of the Oregon & California Railroad. These records are comprised of journal entries for land transactions, land accounts, land sales and leases, correspondence, letterpress books, cash books, balance sheets and cash payments.
The land records include assessments, balance sheets, contracts for land, indemnity lists of land, records of land transactions and records of contracts, land sales, leases and mortgaged lands as well as expense vouchers.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The Oregon & California Railroad was incorporated March 17, 1870 and eventually totaled approximately seven hundred miles of standard gauge, steam operated railroad, a little over half of which was constructed under its own name, the balance being obtained by acquisition of the following organizations:
1. Oregon Central Rail Road (east side)
2. Oregon Central Railroad (west side)
3. Western Oregon Railroad
4. Portland & Yamhill Railroad
5. Albany & Lebanon Railroad
6. Oregonian Railroad
The Oregon & California itself, as originally constructed, was a railroad without branches, extending approximately 365 miles from Portland, Oregon southerly via Salem, Albany, Eugene, Roseburg and Ashland to the Oregon-California state boundary. Several small branches described later were constructed under the corporate name of the O&C after the road was taken over by the Southern Pacific Company.
O&C rails reached New Era, on the east side of the Willamette River, 20.08 miles south of Portland, on December 24, 1869, under the name of the Oregon Central Rail Road.
Southward progress was as follows:
To Salem September 27, 1870
Albany December 25, 1870
Eugene October 15, 1871
Roseburg December 3, 1872, where construction was halted for almost nine years.
The section to Myrtle Creek was completed August 14, 1882, to Grants Pass December 2, 1883, and to Ashland May 4, 1884.
The line of the Central Pacific building north from Red Bluff, California, reached the Oregon border on June 1, 1887, and the O&C, under lease to the SP Company since July 1, completed construction north from the border to Ashland on December 17, 1887, thus completing the Siskiyou route and forming a continuous rail line from Portland, Oregon to New Orleans, Louisiana, about thirty-two hundred miles, all under one management.
[Guy Dunscomb, A CENTURY OF SOUTHERN PACIFIC STEAM LOCOMOTIVES, 1862-1962 (Modesto, California: 1967), p. 395]
- Acquisition information:
- The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Southern Pacific Railroad, New York Collection
- Processing information:
-
Formerly part of MS 10
- Arrangement:
-
This collection is arranged in three series:
1. Record of Equipment
2. Financial Records
3. Land Records
- Physical location:
- Statewide Museum Collection Center
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Vouchers
- Places:
- Oregon and California Railroad Company
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-10-10 20:55:19 +0000 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research by appointment. Contact Library Staff.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright has been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. Permission for publication must be submitted in writing to the CSRM Library & Archives.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Oregon and California Railroad Company Records, MS 134, California State Railroad Museum Library & Archives, Sacramento, California.
- Location of this collection:
-
111 I StreetSacramento, CA 95814, US
- Contact:
- (916) 323-8073