After yesterday’s long and eventful day, we woke to another clear and crisp morning. Our campground was partway up a ridge which gave us a nice view of the towns and roads below us. The evening before, they had only appeared as distant, scattered lights.
The Hunt for Hackstaff
We drifted into our day gradually, feeling a bit subdued by yesterday’s amazing memories. Still, I felt that we had some unfinished business, as I wanted to see if we could find any traces of Hackstaff, the town that rescued Pop Pop and his friends after their desert ordeal:
June 10, 1922 (cont.):
…We hit the water tank at four in the afternoon which was at a place called Hackstaff, Cal. Here we were in sunny Cal. at last. I’ll admit this part of Cal. was sunny. Have often heard of how men saw lakes and things in the desert and I’m not quite sure whether I didn’t see some my selfe.
There were only a couple of Mexican shacks there but it looked like heaven to me. They gave us water and we felt better. We were all fagged out from our forced march. Here Ray found an old mangy cap which he put on. We laid down in the shade of the water tank and waited.
Hackstaff no longer exists on any map, having been abandoned in the years after Pop Pop’s visit, and was later overcome by the Herlong Army Depot. However, we did locate “Hackstaff Road,” which we assumed had that name because it led to Hackstaff. We followed the road for less than a mile before it turned into a dirt track that was so uneven we could barely keep our speed above 10 miles an hour. It was so narrow, we were afraid we would have to back our RV out, unless we found an opening or cul-de-sac up ahead. However, we could see the army base only a mile or two in front of us, so we knew we could only go so far. After yesterday’s exploits, we felt the courage to go for it.
Sure enough, as we came to the end of the road, it opened up at a railroad crossing, wide enough for us to make a 3-point turn. Beyond the tracks we saw a locked chain link gate to the army base, with buildings nearby on the other side. As we got out to explore the tracks we saw a concrete foundation slab, which we guessed had once been the train station. It seemed to be all that was left of Hackstaff, although we later learned that the actual train station was further up the tracks.
We quickly realized that we would not be making the same kind of discoveries as we had yesterday, so we headed back towards the RV. Looking down, I saw a stray iron railroad spike, about 6 inches long. Realizing that this may be the last set of tracks we’d be exploring, I decided it would make a good souvenir, even if it meant having to mail it home to avoid carrying it through airport security.
We didn’t have much of a plan for the next part of our trip, other than following Pop Pop’s trail as it wound down from the California highlands to lower ground:
June 10th 1922 (cont.)
A train came along at 5.00 P.M. so we took it. With this train we rode sixty miles out of the desert into fertile land and trees and grass. It was a wonderful sight to our weary eyes. At Omira, Cal. We were again thrown off but this time we didn’t mind it so much as we were out of the desert. Here we caught a train at seven Oclock which we rode to Orrville {Oroville}, Cal. We could hardly hold on any more. Both as weak as fish. No sleep no food and thirty miles of desert sure took the pep out of us.
Putting the Pieces Together
In our AAA guide book, Aaron read about a Western Pacific Railroad Museum along the way, in a town called Portola. Since Pop Pop had been following the Western Pacific since Salt Lake City, which passed through Portola, we thought this would be worth checking out. We were not disappointed.
The Portola Railroad Museum occupies a former service facility for diesel engines, and now contains a wide variety of engines, cabooses, and passenger cars, along with other relics of the railroad industry. During our visit, we were able to piece together some of the details of Pop Pop’s experiences, and round out our own understanding of life on the railroads.
We saw engines and passenger cars from the 1920s, which helped us visualize better what Pop Pop meant when he talked about things like “riding in the blinds,” (between cars, outside the accordion-like canvas connections between cars) or “the sand house” (where they heated the sand which they used to give the train wheels traction when starting out).
When we asked the main technician to direct us to the cars that Pop Pop would have ridden, and described Pop Pop’s journey, he took a personal interest and spent a good 30-40 minutes showing us specific cars, features and facts, and explained some of the hobo lore from the 1920s and 30s. We felt very fortunate to get what seemed like first-hand information, custom-tailored to the purposes of our trip. However, our journey back in time got a surreal touch every time our tour guide’s cell phone rang with his Three Stooges theme song ringtone!
Back to Civilization
The drive down from Portola to Oroville was picturesque, following the narrow and twisting valley of the North Fork of the Feather River, which offered views of the river, the railroad, and several impressively engineered bridges and tunnels. Although scenic, it was somewhat stressful in our RV, which had trouble negotiating some of the tight turns and abbreviated off-ramps. It was nearly impossible to stay at the posted speed limit, so we ended up being the frustrating slow-moving vehicle with a line of cars behind. Finally I was able to pull over to let them pass, but chuckled to myself when, about a mile later, the road opened up into a new 4-lane divided highway.
From this point on, our drive was uneventful, and we were clearly back in civilization. We had no trouble locating the Oroville train station, even though it has been converted into a restaurant and an insurance agency. The town had grown quite a bit since Pop Pop’s day, and there were no signs of the round house or sand house he described in his diary:
June 10th 1922 (cont.)
At Orrville we got off and staggered up the tracks to the engineer of the train who was going to take his engine to the round house. We asked him where it was. I guess he thought we needed help. Any how he told us to jump on and he’d take us there. It happened to be about two miles up the track. He showed us the sand house so we went in and flopped. About a half hour later he came back with his lunch and the fireman’s which he gave us. Maybe he wasn’t a life saver. We ate almost all of it and saved the rest for our breakfast. Of course we could have eaten three times the amount. After our much needed meal we fell back and corked off. I want to tell you it didn’t take me long to get to dream land.
We did not intend to spend much time in Oroville, since we needed to get to Stockton to visit my brother-in-law, Dean, and we had pretty much reached the saturation point in exploring old train stations. As we arrived, we had a short-lived sense of anticipation, when we learned that the first passenger train in decades was about to arrive, and the town had organized a big celebration, with people in period dress, a band practicing, local media, etc. Based on this, we got the mistaken notion that the train would be an antique one, so we were disappointed, when a sleek and modern Amtrak engine pulled in. As the train began to unload its scores of passengers, we decided to make a quick getaway, not wanting to navigate the swarms of tourists in our bulky RV.
Heading south, we paid a quick visit to Marysville, where Pop Pop made his next stop:
June 11th, 1922
Woke up feeling much better. Ate the rest of our breakfast. Washed the collars of our shirts as they were black. After we were all cleaned up we look(ed) around us and there before our eyes we beheld a concrete road. Maybe our hearts didn’t beat with joy. We heard of the wonderful roads in Cal. And they sure didn’t lie about them. Once more we were broke. Walked about a mile when a fellow in a grocery wagon picked us up. I suppose we still looked hard hit from the way he looked us over. He gave us a dollar to get a square meal. Well that dollar took us all the way to Oakland, Cal. After a few small lifts we reached Marysville. Here Ray cut my hair and I cut his. We slept there at the jail.
Hoping to find the jail where Pop Pop slept, we used our GPS and Blackberry to find the City Hall, and Police Station, where we learned that the old City Hall, which housed the jail, was destroyed in the 1960s. At least they had a photo of it for us to view.
Stockton Sanctuary
By now it was getting dark, and we were running late for our rendezvous in Stockton. Taking the freeways around Sacramento, it took us about an hour and a half to cover the same ground that took Pop Pop a day and a half:
June 12th, 1922
Up and at it early. Our luck was coming back to us. We made good time and by 6 that night we hit Sacramento, the capital of Cal. Very wonderful city. Oranges growing right in the streets even in the business section of the town. As we had our mail forwarded to Stockton we had to go there. This was a round about way to Frisco but it wasn’t so much out of our way. We walked to New Elk Grove where we slept in the S.P.R.R {Seattle Pacific Rail Road} station.
June 13th, 1922
Bought our breakfast in a small hotel there and then started out for Stockton. After a few good lifts we hit there at noon. No mail so our journey to Stockton was for nothing.
Well, our journey to Stockton was more purposeful. Even though we arrived late, brother Dean, or “Father Dean” as his Catholic parishioners call him, had also been delayed, and returned just as we arrived in Stockton. We called to let him know we were about to arrive, and as we pulled off the freeway, he said, “do you see the gas station at the end of the ramp, with the white car in front of it? Follow it.” This startled me until he explained that it was his car, and he had pulled over to wait for us.
Leading us to St. Mary’s Church in a depressed area of downtown Stockton, we pulled in and joined him in a lively Spanish prayer and worship service already in progress. Despite the language barrier, we enjoyed the spirit of the service, and afterwards, managed to squeeze the RV through the narrow gate into the church courtyard. I was reluctant to park on the street, since I doubted the parking police or street people would be as uninterested in our overnight RV as WalMart had been.
We spent about an hour visiting with Father Dean and some of his parishioners, mostly in and around the RV, which seemed to provide unlimited entertainment for the children, with its gadgets, ladders, moving beds, etc. With an early departure in mind, we said goodbye to Dean and headed off to bed.
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