Southern Pacific Railroad Company's Sacramento Depot, Sacramento California
The Sacramento Southern Pacific terminal was a major transportation center in the west for freight as well as passengers. In 1926, 86 trains passed through the Sacramento station daily, 64 passenger trains and 22 freight trains, on an average of one every fifteen minutes. This level of activity was surpassed only by New York, Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, New Orleans, and San Francisco. An average of 4,500 passengers daily passed through Sacramento. In addition, Sacramento was one of the principal railroad equipment-building cities in the United States. By 1926, the Southern Pacific shops in Sacramento had turned out 142 locomotives since the first one, #173 was built in 1872. Every part for trains was manufactured in Sacramento with a workforce of 3,100.
The architectural firm of Bliss and Faville first appeared in the San Francisco business directory in 1899, with their offices in the Claus Spreckels Building. The following year they moved to the first floor of the Crocker Building, where they remained until 1903. They then moved their offices to the second floor of the Crocker Building, where they were until 1906. The Hotel St. Francis, which they designed in 1904, served as their office in early 1906. The earthquake and resulting fire of that year burned the St. Francis and forced them to move to the Balboa Building at 2nd and Market Streets, which they also designed. They maintained this office until they dissolved their firm in 1926.
Building Description
The Southern Pacific passenger station in Sacramento was built on the site of what was known as China Slough or Sutter's Lake. The slough was "a large body of water that did not smell like a_rose in the hot summer days, and was a grand breeding place for mosquitoes." Southern Pacific had been filling the slough slowly as it needed more land, with the last part filled in 1919. This passenger station was the fourth built by Southern Pacific. The first was a small wood building built in 1864 by the Central Pacific Railroad Company (later consolidated with Southern Pacific) on Front Street between J and K Streets. The second and third depots were built in 1868 and 1879 in the same location as the first. The third depot served until the present station, on I Street at 3rd - 5th Streets, was built in 1925.
While the depot was originally planned to be built in 1911, actual ground breaking did not occur until May 16th, 1925. The San Francisco architectural firm of Bliss and Faville designed the structure, and Davison and Nicholsen of San Francisco were the general contractors. The Sacramento Bee described the structure as following distinct Italian lines, with the exterior walls faced with Italian pink brick. The sloping roofs are covered with russet-colored tiling and the entire building is trimmed with architectural terra cotta. The station windows were of circular, leaded amber-colored glass, 35 feet high, and equipped with Venetian drapes and blinds. The waiting room has a high domed ceiling, a marble floor imported from Italy, and trimmed of Tamano mahogany from the Philippines.
The main building has an early Baroque quality due to the balanced side pieces that center on the main block. While it is Romanesque in proportion, in detail, it is Renaissance. The arches are Renaissance, as are the corbel tables and keystones, which here are not functional but purely decorative. The tile roof is Mediterranean and the outside brick is more correctly identified as sienese color. The interior doors of the waiting room are the palatial, 16th century Italian style but simplified for modern use. The benches in the waiting room are a functional, California style of furniture with the heaviness of an empire chair.
The entire cost of the new station was $2,317,077, including the main structure, the lesser buildings, the plaza it is built on and the interior fixtures. The passenger station is 370' by 125', is three stories tall, and had a framework of structural steel with a brick facing. The waiting room, 51' by 141', seated 500 persons and had the following conveniences:
• An information desk
• A traveler's aid bureau with a matron available during train hours
• One dozen private telephone booths
• A commercial telegraph office
• A taxi office
• A barbershop
• A candy, fruit and magazine stand
• A parcel checking counter
• Electric clocks operating off one master clock
• A circulating ice water system
The marble ticket counter stood at the south end of the waiting room where tickets could be purchased in Sacramento, through a cooperative exchange system, to any city in the world located on a railroad line. The district passenger agent's office and district freight agent's office were just behind the counter. The south end connects with a corridor which led to the men's smoking room and to the baggage rooms, which occupied most of the east wing (128' by 65') of the station.
The north wing of the waiting room held the ladies rest room and the restaurant, which accommodated 150 persons. A marble oval-shaped counter seated 50 while dining tables could accommodate another 100. Modeled after the Palace Hotel cafe in San Francisco, the restaurant had several modern features; a refrigerating plant, electric cake mixer, ovens and a dish washing machine, and an original method of ventilation. The restaurant decor was green mohair draperies against saffron-tinted walls.
The second floor housed the general offices of the Sacramento division and those lines of the company north of San Francisco and extending north to Portland. The telephone board, the largest private exchange in Sacramento, was located on the second floor. It took six to seven operators to handle the calls, an operation as large as that of a city of 15,000. Through this board, every Southern Pacific station in the Sacramento Valley had direct connections with the division office for the first time. All main line train movements on the Sacramento division were handled by telephonic control. Southern Pacific trunk lines that operated out of the Sacramento depot were:
• Roseville - 6 Truckee - 1
• Stockton - 3 Sparks - 1
• San Francisco - 3 Walnut Grove - 1
• Gerber - 2
The third floor held an assembly hall and storage and filing rooms for paperwork. There were ten passenger tracks along the terminal to the north, which could be reached by a series of gates and concrete subways about 20' wide. Umbrella sheds permitted passengers to get to any train or to the station without being rained on.
The mural on the east wall of the waiting room is entitled, "Breaking Ground at Sacramento, January 8th, 1863, For First Transcontinental Railroad". The key to the painting identifies several persons and events in the history of the railroad. The Big Four, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker, are prominent in the painting as are Theodore Judah and Reverend Joseph Benton. The steamer "Chrysopolis", the first wagon load of earth, the first building of the Central Pacific Railroad, and a prairie schooner, called the forerunner of the railroad, are depicted.
John A. MacQuarrie, the muralist, was one of San Francisco's most distinguished artists. He was best known for his sculptures, the most famous, perhaps, being the huge Donner Party Memorial. It was commissioned by the Native Sons of the Golden West at a cost of $40,000 - $50,000. Cast in bronze, the sculpture weighs ten tons and is located at Donner Lake. A plaster cast of the monument was exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. MacQuarrie's other works include the building decoration and window design for the Holy Cross Mausoleum, the murals in several Southern Pacific terminals, the mural the "Golden Spike Ceremony" in the Union Pacific Railroad station in Salt Lake City, Utah, the statue of Father William D. McKinnon in Golden Gate Park, the statue, "Spirit of Western Womanhood", which was placed in the fountain standard at the Western Woman's Club, San Francisco, and the figures for the urn and fountain at Cherryland, a San Francisco suburb.
The American Railway Express and the railway terminal post office lay to the east of the station. This annex cost $130,000 and was built by the Sacramento contractor, W. C. Keating.
Harmonizing in exterior finish with the main terminal building, the annex is L-shaped, the base being 190' by 128' and the stem, 180' by 60'. This section was equipped to handle the traffic of the average city of 250,000. To the north of the station lay eleven miles of track, which cost, together with the unloading facilities, nearly $1,000,000. Here also, lay another faced brick structure, the automobile dock and "conditioning house".
The work and purchasing of material in construction of the depot involved 96 concerns, 48 of which were Sacramento establishments.
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