Sausalito’s First Railroad

By Jack Tracy
The following acount is excerpted from Jack Tracy’s book, Moments in Time.

On April 12, 1873, an event occurred that seemed to secure Sausalito's future. Amid much enthusiastic cheering, a groundbreaking ceremony took place in Sausalito, marking the start of construction of the long-promised railroad that would link Sausalito to the lumber empire to the north.
Railroads were the key to growth for towns all over the country, and California was no exception. New towns struggling for existence suddenly prospered when even the thinnest of rail links was established. San Rafael was one of the first to have its own line, the San Rafael and San Quentin Railroad. This single broad-gauge track between the ferry landing at Point San Quentin and the center of San Rafael gave an invigorating boost to local commerce.
The North Pacific Coast Railroad, incorporated in 1871 with the aid of a public bond issue in Marin County, had a grand plan to run a line through Marin connecting the emerging towns, and continuing up the coast to the vast redwood stands along the Russian River in Sonoma and the Gualala River in Mendocino County. The Sausalito Land & Ferry Company directors, sensing that this could be the breakthrough for their town, gave the financially feeble railroad company thirty acres along Sausalito's waterfront as an inducement to make Sausalito the southern terminus of the new line.
Because the bond issue called for  a southern terminus at Point San Quentin rather than at Sausalito, a legal battle ensued. After considerable legal fireworks, Sausalito won out, and in 1873 construction began. One work gang commenced at Tomales, moving south. Another gang worked at Fairfax, and a third started at Strawberry Point where a trestle was constructed across Richardson’s Bay to Sausalito. The trestle connected with Alameda Point (later Pine Station), approximately where Nevada Street meets Bridgeway today.
North Pacific Coast Locomotive Number One "Saucelito" was shipped by sea to Tomales in 1874 as work progressed on the rails. Ambition being tempered by lack of cold cash, it was decided that Tomales would the northern terminus for the time being. On January 1875, another ceremony marked the passing of the first train over the completed line. James Wilkins, a former mayor of San Rafael and founder of the Sausalito News, recalled in 1927: "The railroad, as completed in 1875, was a ramshackle narrow gauge affair, built along lines of least resistance, with a lofty disdain of the laws of gravity and a preference for curvature instead of tangents.”
The Sausalito Land & Ferry Company retired the nineteen-year-old ferryboat Princess and happily turned over all ferry operations to the railroad. A new ferry landing and railroad wharf was built slightly north of the old one at Princess Street. There it would remain for the next sixty-six years. Trains began hauling logs and lumber from the redwood forests to feed San Francisco's endless building boom. And passengers came too, commuters from fledgling towns along the line and vacationers from San Francisco. Sausalito's small business community was delighted and encouraged by the influx of new people as shops and stores opened for business along Caledonia Street near William Richardson's old casa.
In the summer of 1875, the North Pacific Coast Railroad absorbed the San Rafael and San Quentin Railroad and converted it to narrow gauge from broad gauge to unify the two lines. The main passenger terminal was shifted from Sausalito to Point San Quentin, where it would remain until 1884. Even though the wharf remained  in Sausalito, and several trains a day  brought passengers and dairy products from nearby towns, the main traffic  was routed through San Quentin. The track from San Rafael to San Quentin avoided the several steep grades and curves on the line to Sausalito.
In spite of that setback, Sausalito continued to grow. With the railroad came more people, laborers at first, the merchants from many national backgrounds. Added to the Americans and British were families from Italy, Franca Germany, Austria, and Portugal, from China, Ireland, and Greece— all contributing to the character of Sausalito.

Moments in Time and other local historical books are available at the Ice House (780 Bridgeway) and at the Historical Society’s headquarters on the top floor of City Hall.


Engine Number One, the Saucelito, in service with the white Lumber Company c. 1880.
Photo courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society.