Railroad Artifacts Track Western Expansion

By Nancy George

Historians have long portrayed the Southern Pacific Railroad as a monopolistic octopus engulfing everything in its path. A new exhibit from DeGolyer Library’s vast railroad collections presents another view of the legendary railroad.

“Southern Pacific Railroad: ‘The Road of a Thousand Wonders’” borrows its title from the railroad’s travel slogan emphasizing the stunning sites along its routes. Through one-of-a-kind photographs, maps, manuscripts, timetables, rare train models, travel posters, cookbooks, and brochures, the exhibit March 31 through June 10 portrays the railroad’s role in the development of the American West.

The Southern Pacific Railroad was the only major American railroad to be organized and operated by westerners and built from west to east, with routes running from California north to Oregon down to Mexico and southwest to Texas, and Louisiana linking with steamship lines to New York and beyond.

“The Southern Pacific was an extremely aggressive company,” says Richard Orsi, emeritus professor of history at California State University, Hayward, and author of a forthcoming book, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, about the railroad. “But that’s not the whole story.”

Cookbooks, farming guides, and boll weevil brochures in the exhibit demonstrate the railroad’s commitment to promoting settlement and land development. Early issues of the railroad’s Sunset magazine and art deco posters in the exhibit promote travel to Mexico, San Antonio, and Arizona with illustrations by well-known commercial and fine artists.

“Railroads made travel possible for ordinary people,” Orsi says. “Before railroads, travel was difficult and expensive. The Southern Pacific was instrumental in promoting travel to places in the West such as Yosemite and Crater Lake National Parks as well as the Alamo and missions in San Antonio.”

Orsi spent weeks conducting research for his book at the DeGolyer last year as a Clements fellow. “The Southern Pacific collection at DeGolyer is one of the best in the world,” Orsi says. “It has a magnificent photograph collection of images that can’t be found anywhere else.”

The exhibit includes historic photographs of station agents and women telegraph operators, depots and snow sheds, train wrecks, locomotives such as the Daylight and Collis P. Huntington, refrigerator and fruit cars, and scenes photographed from trains.

“The exhibit showcases the depth of our railroad collections,” says exhibit curator Anne E. Peterson, DeGolyer Library curator of photographs. It appeals to historians as well as model railroad builders, railroad collectors, and those who are nostalgic for the grand days of train travel, she says.

To register for the Orsi lecture on March 31, 2005, click here.

To return to Clements Center homepage, click here.

Last updated March 9, 2005.