Rocklin, A Town Built on Granite, by Gary Day, Rocklin and Roseville Today, Rocklin, CA

"Rocklin, A Town Built on Granite," by Gary Day, © Rocklin and Roseville Today, Rocklin, CA. (News Article)

" ... The Central Pacific Railroad started laying rails eastward from Sacramento in early 1863. By early 1864 they had crossed the valley floor and were preparing to ascend the western Sierras. On March 21 that year, the Sacramento Union reported that more than half of the members of the State Legislature and many of their friends 'traveled by train 22 miles to the new granite quarry at the end of the tracks.' They detrained there and children gathered wild flowers while 'grave legislators and solid men' gathered at the quarry rim 'conversing learnedly and geologically' while 'matrons and maidens wandered off among trees and rocky knolls according to their own sweet will.' The name 'Rocklin' didn’t first appear in print until about 3 months later when it was listed as a passenger stop in a railroad timetable. ... According to the Sacramento Union of March 28, 1864 the Central Pacific's first paid freight was three carloads of granite bound for a building project in San Francisco. ... In his book Rocklin, Leonard Davis says that Rocklin's quarries of the 1860’s supplied granite blocks for railroad tunnels and culverts. A biographical sketch from the 1860's tells of Michael Kelly and his 9-year-old son Maurice who delivered Rocklin granite blocks by oxcart for culverts all along the line as far as Auburn. Rocklin quarries also supplied riprap, chunks of waste granite, for hillside rail beds that allowed water to pass easily under the tracks. ... " [More]

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