Page 9 - spike-harrington1976

THE BE'GINNING

Lang lies in a hollow of the once-desolate Soledad
Canyon in a spot Don Benito Wilson described as "fit
only for the production of horned toads and scorpions."
It was here that a momentous incident occurred on
September 5, 1876 which would echo around the world
and forever end the land isolation of Los Angeles. It
would be the first big step in making this "Queen of the
Cow Counties" the metropolis she was to become. For
it was here on this windswept dusty spot at the south
end of the Mojave Desert that Charles Crocker, president
of the Southern Pacific Railroad of California, with a
silver hammer, drove the gold spike that finally joined
the rails linking Los Angeles and San Francisco. This
would end years of stagecoach travel either along the
coast when tides permitted or across the rot dusty
desert with the ever-present threat of banditos, heat
and thirst.

As far back as 1853 Lt. R. S. Williamson, of the United
States Geological Survey had come down San Francis-
quito Canyon and over the steep, brush-covered mountain
leading into the San Fernando Valley. His orders from
Washington were "to command an expedition and survey-
ing party to ascertain the most practical and economical
route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."

That more than twenty years would elapse before a
railroad linking the north and south became a reality
may be due to such factors as the Civil War, bank failure
both in the east and here and the end of a boom era.
Hope was reborn when the Southern Pacific finally began
laying its rails south. They eventually reacehd Lathrop
and then Bakersfield (or Baker's field to give it an early
name) which became the terminus from the north.

From time beyond time the only means of egress to
the north or south inland was by the way of treacherous
Cuesta Vieja, or Old Grade, the forerunner of the later
Fremont's Pass; later still the Pass would be known as
Beale's Cut, the Santa Clara Divide and the Big Cut.

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