Saturday, January 17, 2015

Looking for a railroad map between Red Bluff and Redding, California, c. 1871

From: "Dennis Young" denmaryoung@att.net

I live in Red Bluff, CA and I am doing some history search of the Railroad between Red Bluff, CA and Redding, CA. I would like to know if you have a detailed map of the railroad when it was surveyed or just after the tracks were laid in about 1871ish. This would be very helpful to me as I would like to write an article showing the "California Oregon Road" between the two cities. There are so many pages of places to look [for maps] on your site that after 2 hours of looking, I have given up. ...

—Dennis Young

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, the historic maps on the CPRR Museum website are mostly of the first transcontinental railroad route eastward from Sacramento, so don't include the locations of interest to you.

Don't know if a reproduction 1894 topographic map might have sufficient detail for your purposes.

1/17/2015 10:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

From: "Larry Mullaly" lmullaly@jeffnet.org

It is hard to find such maps from this early period, but you may be in luck. There are several maps in ink and velum that are very early of the line line between Red Bluff and Redding. I have seen these scrolled engineering rolls in the Shasta Division Archives in Dunsmuir.

Another source you might want to look at is the US Railroad Commissioners Reports for the C & O line. These date to within a few years of the completion of the line, and while they do not contain maps, have excellent engineering data regarding structure, track and rolling stock. These can be accessed at the California State Railroad Museum and should cover the terrain in which you are interested.

A final map source is bound the Southern Pacific/Central Pacific station plat collections dating to about 1883 and found at CSRM. I believe they cover all portions of the associates’ lines at this time including the upper Sacramento Valley.

I hope this is helpful.

—Larry Mullaly

1/19/2015 12:49 PM  

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