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HISTORY of SAN LUIS OBISPO
By: Joseph A. Carotenuti
City Historian/Archivist
Whenever you pull a thread of history, what presents itself is often a surprise. While it’s best to plan any
attempt to remember the past, it’s also best to remain flexible in the pursuit.
So it is whenever the history of this community travels back to 1894 and that most celebrated day when the
first locomotive rounded the bend into the town preceded by a whistle that for most who heard it offered a
hymn to PROGRESS. Yet, the event had long been planned and prayed for with the conscientious effort of
community leaders. To pave the way, another community – indeed, a planned community – was developed
to the north.
So, the civic ancestor of the local rails was developed, heavily publicized, and settled as both a sign that
there was growth in the area and that the railroad was needed to accommodate a new commerce. While
initially named Crocker to honor the railroad tycoon, the settlement’s name was soon changed to honor the
railroad mogul’s grandson Templeton.
The coming of the rails to Templeton as well as an entertaining series of personal essays about life to the
north is captured in Carla Willhoit’s The End of the Line. Suffice to note here, it was a few enterprising local
folks who made sure the rails ended closer to SLO than north in Salinas.
To that end, the West Coast Land Company (WCLC) purchased thousands of acres, divided then into farm
sites and carved a small community conveniently located along the eventual rail line. To this day, the
locomotives lumber across the landscape and few in Templeton are immune to the daily notice(s) of the train
passing along the iron ribbons.
The decision to develop the area as a lure for the railroad was neither whimsical nor capricious. Business
people know to be successful; profit is a necessary part of the equation. Nor was the company ignorant of
politics in its development. The WCLC’s chief officers included former governor George C. Perkins (1880 -
83), who would go on to serve in the Washington, D. C. as senator from 1893 to 1915; John L. Howard, a
principal of the Pacific Coast Railway Company, long familiar locally as bringing ships into Avila as well as
operating the narrow-gauge railway from the wharf to the city; Isaac Goldtree, a wealthy local businessm an,
and Robert E. Jack (his home is a community landmark). An essential officer was Chauncey Hatch Phillips,
who as secretary of the group provided some intriguing documents to promote the virtues of the area, to sell
land, and then move on to become a premier developer of other properties in the state.
Nevertheless, to have finally succeeded in bringing the
railroad within 25 miles of SLO in 1886, the herculean
undertaking was to convince the Southern Pacific to
continue south…a formidable task as the Cuesta Pass
presented an extraordinary…and expensive…challenge.
To do so required endless hours and days of planning
and bargaining and grit that has evaporated into time
much like the smoke from the early engines.
Contact: jacarotenuti@gmail.com