Background
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]
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