Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Judah property in Roseville, CA

From: "Gary Day" garyday@starstream.net

Two or three years ago I heard that Theodore Judah bought large plots of property in Roseville before deciding to locate the extra-engine roundhouse there. After his death in early 1863 CP management decided to locate the roundhouse in Rocklin instead thereby depreciating the value of the property held by Judah’s heirs. When Judah’s wife died in the mid 1890s, I forget the year; railroad managers bought the Roseville property from her estate and after a few years decided to move the roundhouse from Rocklin to Roseville. Since some of these managers owned property in Rocklin the railroad first announced an expansion in Rocklin in order to allow their managers’ to dump their property. The following year the railroad announced the intention to move the Roundhouse to Roseville, thereby allowing their managers to profit from their Roseville property purchases.

Sorry that this is such a sketchy synopsis and I don’t remember where I heard this story, but I’m wondering if any of this rings a bell with your group.

—Gary Day