An Abundance of Proposed Railroads for Early 20th Century Marin
by Robert L. Harrison
The Marin Journal on November 30, 1905 described the railroad picture this way: “Everything is railroad now. There are schemes ‘too numerous to mention.’ There are railroads in operation; railroads incorporated, railroads asking for street franchises, railroads suing for eminent domain, railroads making surveys and buying rights of way, and railroads of almost every kind, description and condition; all seeking beautiful Marin county, and her matchless water fronts.”
The Marin railroads operating in 1905 were the California Northwestern Railway (CNW) and the North Shore Railroad (NS). The CNW was the standard gauge line originally built by Peter Donahue in 1884 from Tiburon directly to San Rafael and north to Sonoma County. The NS, first known as the North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC), was built in 1874 as a narrow gauge route from Sausalito through the Ross Valley to west Marin with a branch to San Rafael. By 1905 the NS operated electric passenger trains on standard gauge tracks from Sausalito via San Anselmo to San Rafael.
In 1907 the NS and the CNW, along with several other short lines, were merged to form the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP). The NWP operated passenger service between Marin and Eureka until 1958. On August 17, 1985 a NWP locomotive collected the last freight car from San Rafael, thereby ending all rail cargo shipping in Marin County south of Ignacio.
The San Rafael Board of Trustees in 1905–06 heard three applications for the franchise to run trains on city streets. In December 1905 the Marin Terminal Railroad (MTR) applied to San Rafael for an electric trolley street railway franchise along the full length of Fourth Street. The MTR planned to extend beyond San Rafael by electric standard gauge trains to Petaluma with a ferry terminal at Point San Pedro. On January 28, 1904 the Marin Journal described the building of a railroad at the Point as a long-term hobby of property owner John A. McNear. The November 22nd San Francisco Call reported the MTR had surveyors actively at work between McNear’s property and Novato.
In a January 4, 1906 editorial titled “Grant the Franchise” the Marin Journal supported the MTR proposal for an electric railway, asserting it “would be a splendid thing for our city.” Nevertheless, at its January 8, 1906 meeting the Trustees heard the MTR withdraw its franchise application only to be replaced by a second railroad, the Clear Lake and Southern (CLS), asking for a similar permit to operate a street railway in San Rafael. The CLS, with backing from Rudolph Spreckels, son of sugar titan Claus Spreckels, planned to run from San Rafael to a ferry terminal at El Campo on the north side of the Tiburon Peninsula.
Civil Engineer E. L. Van der Naillen submitted a third application for a franchise to operate a street railway on a single track on Third, Fourth, Mary, B, and C Streets. It would extend to the north and south city limits on Petaluma Avenue (today’s Lincoln Blvd.) and Wolfe Road, respectively. Service would be gasoline or electric powered for passengers and U. S. Mail only — no freight. Van der Naillen’s proposal was described by the March 10, 1906 Marin County Tocsin: “The application was in the shape of a franchise for a purely street railroad system for this city. There was no attempt to coax or beg the people to yield up their valuable streets’ franchise for nothing. It was a refreshing document…”
Competition among the three contending street railway proposals reached a fever pitch at the March 12, 1906 meeting of the Board of Trustees. The San Francisco Call headlined: “Railway War On In Earnest.” The Marin County Tocsin described the little City Hall as “…packed. When Trustee Pedrotti arrived he was hoisted over the heads of the people on the stairway and over the railing to his seat.” The Marin Journal reported: “Monday night was a lively one at city hall…the stairway was so crowded that city Trustee Boyen, City Attorney Hawkins … and others had to resort to a ladder and climbed in a window.”
At the March 12th meeting the MTR reinstated its request for the trolley franchise on Fourth Street and presented a petition from 513 local citizens along with more than 100 residents of Santa Rosa in support of the franchise. But opposition from business owners on the street grew as reported in the Call, “The business owners expressed their concern, “…a railroad on Fourth Street…will eventually run a train of cars over the street, compelling the business men to move somewhere else.”
Discussion among competing franchise applications came to an end, at least a temporarily, when City Attorney Hawkins advised the Board that the proposed ordinances for a street railway franchise did not comply with requirements of the law. He concluded that all franchises must be advertised for sale to the highest bidder. The franchise question was put over until the next Board meeting.
Some four weeks later at its April 9, 1906 meeting the Trustees voted against the MTR proposal but took no other action. Further consideration of the street railway issue was postponed until its next meeting scheduled for April 23rd. However, at 5:12 on the morning of April 18th the Great San Francisco Earthquake struck. City street railway franchises suddenly seemed a minor matter in San Rafael.
Yet, railroad schemes were not ended by the earthquake. On November 29, 1906 the Marin Journal reported: “The Marin Terminal Electric Railway will resume the construction of its road between Santa Rosa, Napa and San Francisco in a few days.”
By May 1907 the Journal could report: “Bay Counties Electric Road — Its Building Is Assured.” The Bay Counties Railroad Company (BCR) purchased 1,000 acres for shops and a terminal at Belvedere. The BCR planned a route from Marin to Napa and Lake Counties passing just east of central San Rafael over the Point San Pedro Peninsula. The BCR was backed by Richard M. Hotaling, millionaire beneficiary of the A. P. Hotaling whiskey fortune. The route became known as the “Hotaling Road.”
But in the end neither the MTR nor the Hotaling Road were completed. A street railway in San Rafael was never constructed. Railroad fever in Marin never again reached the levels of turbulent debate experienced in the early days of 1906.
