One man, two cities? [naming Lathrop and Tracy, California]

"One man, two cities?" by Sam Matthews, © Tracy Press, July 15, 2006. (News Article)

" ... Lathrop was named sometime between 1869 and 1871 ... and all evidence points to Lathrop’s name stemming from the family of Leland Stanford’s wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford. ... Leland Stanford ... established Lathrop, originally known as Wilson’s Junction, as a railroad center ... at the junction of the Altamont Pass and San Joaquin Valley lines of the railroad ... after the Central Pacific had a dispute with Stockton officials about the location of a CP rail yard in San Joaquin County’s major city. ... Jane’s brother, Charles Lathrop, ... was then a construction engineer working for the Central Pacific. ... the new railroad line from Martinez to the Altamont Pass line was constructed in 1978 under the supervision of a Central Pacific civil engineer and superintendent by the name of J.H. Stewart ... [who] had worked on the Sandusky, Mansfield & Newark Railroad in Ohio. ... " [More]

[Courtesy Google Alerts.]