Background
Alexander J. Barclay was born on March 13, 1871 in Rome, New York. He was first employed by SP in May 1891 as a chainman
and camp boss. After a series of other jobs with Southern Pacific, including inspector, draftsman, instrument man, and leveler,
Barclay became an assistant engineer in 1897. He served under Chief Engineer William Hood in January 1905 during the construction
of Fallon Railway and from 1909 to 1917 worked as the Assistant Engineer in charge of construction on the Central Pacific
2nd mainline track project. Between 1918 and 1923, when he was laid off by the SP railroad due to lack of construction projects,
Mr. Barclay worked on various public and private projects such as building a pier at Manhattan Beach and a filtration tank
for the City of Sacramento water system. In 1923, he was recalled to work for SP as a construction engineer. His last SP
project was building the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal between 1933 and 1940.
In addition to his career with Southern Pacific, Mr. Barclay was the Mayor of Auburn between 1913-1917, a member of several
masonic bodies, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Mr. Barclay died on May 25, 1950 in Alameda, California.
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