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Stock# 70834
Description

The Thomas W. Streeter - Warren Heckrotte Copy -- Rare Early California Railroad Map and Pamphlet By One of America's Most Important Railroad Engineers

Rare early report on a California railroad, produced by Theodore Judah, the engineer who was the driving force behind the quest for an intercontinental railroad.

The present work is the second map produced by Theodore Judah, following his Map of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, published in September 1854.  Recruited from the East Coast, Judah served as the Chief Engineer in construction of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, California's first operating railroad line, which commenced operations in February 22, 1856.  The present map, dated February 1,1856, would be Judah's last work prior to the publication of his  Practical Plan for Building The Pacific Railroad, published in January 1857, which would catapult him into prominence in the quest to build America's First Transcontinental Railroad.

The present copy of the Report is the Thomas W. Streeter copy, with Streeter's pencil notes on the front free endpaper stating that he "Got this from R.E. Cowan in 1924 or 1930."  In describing this work, Streeter wrote:

. . . This report gives much data on existing methods, extent and costs of transportation and travel in California.  Judah had previously been the Chief Engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad but had left that position shortly before its line reached Folsom, about January 1, 1856.

No progress was made in building the railroad lines from Benicia to Sacramento until 1865 when the California Pacific Railroad Company was organized. In 1867 this new company began construction and the road between Vallejo and Sacramento was finished in 1869.  It is now part of the main line of the Central Pacific between Oakland and Sacramento. As usual the map is interesting.

The map, on a scale of 4 miles to the inch, was lithographed in San Francisco by Britton & Rey. The map shows all San Francisco Bay, San Jose, Marysville, Folsom, and Stockton. The railroad is to run from Benicia to Sacramento. The Sacramento Valley Rail Road from Sacramento to Folsom and the proposed route of the Pacific Atlantic R.R. from San Francisco to San Jose are shown. 

In this rare pamphlet, Judah, the highly respect engineer, described in detail the advantages and costs of building a straight-line railroad of 58 miles from Benicia to Sacramento (actually to the town of Washington on the west side of the Sacramento River). In this way, passengers and the agricultural products of northern California could be efficiently linked to San Francisco, “the great commercial emporium of the Pacific.” At Benicia, ships would deliver freight and passengers to the flourishing port city.

Judah notes that the proposed railroad would be more economical and faster than the existing upriver steamship lines. Judah estimated the total cost of the project at $3,000,000.   

While the project had merit, Judah's attention was shortly thereafter turned to the creation of a transcontinental railroad, an endeavor which he would continue for the rest of his life and would result in most important early groundwork for both the route of the Central Pacific Railroad and Congressional approvals which would lead to the commencement of work on the transcontinental railroad (see biographical information below).

As noted by Rogers & Spink in describing Judah's work surveying a route across the Sierra Nevada Mountains as part of his work on the Transcontinental Railroad:

In purely engineering retrospect, Judah’s achievements would seem nothing short of providential, especially in comparison to modern route surveying efforts. With a minimal survey crew utilizing crude instruments and only draft animals for transportation, Judah was able to lay out a remarkably accurate alignment across the most difficult natural obstacles undertaken up until that time (1861)." 

Rarity and Provenance

The map and report are very rare on the market.  In the past 50 years, we note only one other example at auction since the 1968 Streeter sale, the McClatchy copy, sold at Witherell's in 2020 for $9,983.00. Other than the McClatchy copy, we note only an example offered by Warren Howell in 1979.

Provenance: Thomas W. Streeter, purchased from Cowan circa 1924-30. Purchased at PBA Galleries Warren Heckrotte Sale, part II, 2015 (Warren Heckotte copy, purchased from Bill Reese, May 1999).

Condition Description
Folding map, 32 pages of text, 8 page appendix. A little rubbing to spine and corners, bound without the original wrappers, a few fox spots within; map refolded with some light foxing and offset, a few short splits at folds; very good. Bound in modern red cloth.
Reference
Streeter, 2811. Greenwood 732. Cowan p.517. W-GR 293. J. David Rogers and Charles R. Spinks, "Theodore Judah and the blazing of the first transcontinental railroad over the Sierra Nevada", ASCE Golden Spike 150th Anniversary History Symposium, Sacramento, CA, May 6, 2019
Theodore Dehone Judah Biography

Judah went to work on a number of railroads in the Northeast, including engineering for the Niagara Gorge Railroad. He was elected member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on May 1853.

Judah was hired in 1854 at age 28 as the Chief Engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad in California. He and his wife Anne sailed to Nicaragua, crossed over to the Pacific, and caught a steamer to San Francisco. Under his charge, it became the first common carrier railroad built west of the Mississippi River.

On January 1857 in Washington DC, Judah published "A Practical Plan for Building The Pacific Railroad", in which he outlined the general plan and argued for the need to do a detailed survey of a specific selected route for the railroad, not a general reconnaissance of several possible routes that had been done earlier.

Nominated in the 1859 California Pacific Railroad Convention in San Francisco, Judah was sent to Washington DC to lobby in general for the Pacific Railroad. Congress was distracted by the trouble of pre-Civil War America and showed little interest. He returned noting that he had to find a specific practical route and some private financial backing to do a detailed engineering survey.

In 1860, he set out to make general reconnaissance studies, using a barometer to measure elevation, of several possible routes through the Sierra. That Fall, with the help of Daniel W. Strong, a storekeeper in Dutch Flat, California, Judah found a practical trans-Sierra railroad route. In November 1860, Judah published "Central Pacific Railroad to California", in which he declared "the discovery of a practicable route from the city of Sacramento upon the divide between Bear River and the North Fork of the American, via Illinoistown (near Colfax), Dutch Flat, and Summit Valley (Donner Pass) to the Truckee River". He advocated the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route as the most practical one with maximum grades of one hundred feet per mile and 150 miles shorter than the route recommended in the government's reports. Much of the Sierra Nevada where the practical routes were located was double-ridged, meaning two summits separated by a valley, Donner Pass was not and thus was more suitable for a railroad. From Dutch Flat, the Pacific road would climb steadily up the ridge between the North Fork American and Bear Rivers to the Pass before winding down steadily following the Truckee River out of the mountains into the Great Basin of Nevada.

Judah's youthful interest in the general subject of a Pacific Railroad developed during this period into almost an obsession, his wife observing that...

Everything he did from the time he went to California to the day of his death was for the great continental Pacific railway. Time, money, brains, strength, body, and soul were absorbed. It was the burden of his thought day and night, largely of his conversation, till it used to be said 'Judah's Pacific Railroad crazy,' and I would say, 'Theodore, those people don't care,' or 'you give your thunder away.' He'd laugh and say, 'But we must keep the ball rolling.  Wheat, A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah (1925)

Failing to raise funds for the Central Pacific project in San Francisco, Judah succeeded in signing up five Sacramento merchants, : James Bailey, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. On June 28, 1861, the Central Pacific Rail Way of California (CPRR) was incorporated with Judah as the chief engineer. Judah had the CPRR backing to survey the route over the Sierra Nevada along which the railroad was to be built during the 1860s, as well as barometric reconnaissance of two other routes, which turned out to be inferior. In a report dated October 1, 1861, Judah discussed the results of the survey, the merits of the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route, and the estimated costs from Sacramento to points as far as Salt Lake City.

On October 9, 1861, the CPRR directors authorized Judah to go back to Washington DC, this time as the agent of CPRR, to procure "appropriations of land and U.S. Bonds from the Government to aid in the construction of this road". The next day, Judah published a strip map (a.k.a. the Theodore Judah map), 30 inches tall by 66 feet long, of the proposed alignment of the Central Pacific Railroad.   On October 11, 1861, Judah boarded a steamer in San Francisco headed for Panama.

At Washington DC, Judah began an active campaign for a Pacific Railroad bill. He was made the clerk of the House subcommittee on the bill and also obtained an appointment as secretary of the Senate subcommittee. On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law, which authorized the issuance of land grants and U.S. bonds to CPRR and the newly chartered Union Pacific Railroad for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Judah then went to New York to order supplies and sailed back to California on July 21, 1862, having accomplished his mission in less than a year. 

Judah died of yellow fever on November 2, 1863. He contracted the disease in Panama on a voyage with his wife to New York City, apparently becoming infected during their land passage across the Isthmus of Panama. He was traveling to New York to seek alternative financing to buy out the major investors. He died before his dream of a transcontinental railroad could be completed.