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Southern Pacific Shasta Division Engineering Department Maps From Shasta Division Archives....................................
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Hackamore
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Hackamore's place in the 1931 timetable: By this time, SP was attempting to curb passenger losses with a brief, failed attempt at motor car service. See Bowden and Dill's The Modoc for further details. (click on the image for the full timetable)
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Background: SP originally designated Hackamore and Likely as helper stations on its new Modoc line, but changed its mind in favor of a single helper terminal at Alturas after the majority of these facilities were constructed. Neither ever served their intended purpose. As we see with these maps, SP dismantled the locomotive facilities in fits,beginning in the latter 1930's.
Pickering Lumber Company also intended to use Hackamore as a base for harvesting timber, but did not progress very far. Jeff Moore describes things thus:
Pickering purchased a lot of timber in that northeastern corner of California but had to wait for SP to finish the Modoc line before they could start development. Hackamore was never going to be more than a logging camp for Pickering as they planned to build their mill in Alturas, which seemed like an odd choice as it was fairly remote from all of the company's timberlands, although the site may have been selected to take advantage of abundant water in that area. As things stood between 1929 and 1930 Pickering started building the Alturas mill, the Hackamore camp, and the logging railroads running north and south from Hackamore, Bowden and Dill's book, The Modoc, indicated the presence of two Pickering locomotives at Hackamore, see top of Page 81, though elsewhere in the book (page 10) they also say that the big Pickering 3-truck Heisler #1 may have been the only locomotive they used at Hackamore. Otherwise, the few resources out there do seem to agree on about 10 miles of track being laid, maybe all of it on the planned line to Badger Springs going north from Hackamore, before Pickering abandoned the entire project.
While the Depression definitely played a role, the death of W.A. Pickering seemed to be the single event that killed the entire project. All indications are, or seem to be, that Pickering never used the railroads, and definitely never completed the Alturas mill.
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In 1945 the White Pine Lumber Company finally purchased the Alturas mill and completed it, albeit on a substantially smaller scale than the mill Pickering had planned. Pickering sold all of its timberlands in the area to other companies, some of that part of the story is covered in Bowden's Railroad Logging in the Klamath Country book.
One other note, and a fact that gets pretty easily lost, is that the timber industry in general, and the pine lumber sector in particular, had been operating in Depression like conditions since 1924. It was a classic capitalism gone off the rails story, seemingly insatiable demand caused lumber prices (especially pine) to spiral upwards through the last half of the 1910s and first years of the 1920s. This sparked a massive sawmill building and expansion boom. To both industry managers, and those financing them invested in facilities, the mills looked like sure high return bets, but lumber demand soften in early 1924 and then crashed shortly thereafter, unfortunately right as a lot of the new production capacity came on line. Despite the economic pain and many howls of protest companies continued opening newer and larger mills up until the Depression hit. |
Conjecturally, Pickering's Camp #3 at Hackamore was located in the vicinity of the tail track of their wye located in the "Campsite" quater section in the first map below, but it was never used. (click on image) - Jeff Moore Collection
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Unless otherwise noted, these maps were scanned from linen originals of varying length and size. The originals of entries denoted as (LL) are roughly letter or legal paper size.
- Hackamore Construction Map 1929-07-30
There is a lot to take in here. Note that this map shows SP's contemplated arrangement, while the 1938 map below shows what actually was built. Save hosting a maintenance of way section gang, Hackamore seems to have served small purpose until SP began to progressively remove its infrastructure in the late 1930's. The yard was to be protected by block signals. but curiously, the east end only was to have a signal governing westward movements, while the west end was to have signals for both west and eastward movements.
At the time, Pickering Lumber Co. was constructing a loggimg line to the woods which would feed a mill, probably located beyond the end of their tail track in the qurter section labeled "Campsite". According to Dill and Bowden's The Modoc, Pickering never erected the mill and only constructed about ten miles of line which may have never been used.
- Hackamore, retire yard tracks 1938-09-00
Most of the yard tracks were to be removed, including the wye and the two SP leads to Pickering. At map right is a rather extensive collection of m/w section buildings, including several all-important wood sheds.
- Hackamore, retire oil column 1939-08-00 (LL)
The big question here: Was the oil tank ever filled?
- Hackamore, retire facilities 1942-05-00 (LL)
Most of the engine faciliies were to be removed, but not the oli tank and engine house, for reasons unknown.
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Aerial Photo:
This image of Hackamore's former site was recorded from a drone by Steve Bush, who has a "thing" for photographing wyes. We opine that his works transcend foamer photography in favor of the world of art. |
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